Holiday evokes migrant family separations

A migrant child looks closely at the pandas from a glass enclosure at Shanghai Zoo. (Photo: Shanghai Daily/Ti Gong)

Migrant workers in Shanghai typically stream back across China to rural hometowns for family reunions at Spring Festival, but for some, the holiday is a sad reminder of how economics separate parents and children.

One of those who won't be going home this week is Nie Shufang, 41, a household maid from southwestern China who has two sons living back home. Last year she managed to save enough money to travel to see them during the Chinese New Year. This year she can't afford it.

The plight of migrant children forced to live apart from their parents is especially painful now because Spring Festival is traditionally a joyous time of year spent with family.

"Relatives back home often say how working in large cities always means good fortune, but that's only a myth," said Nie, who hails from a rural village in the city of Chongqing.

By the end of 2013, it was estimated that there were about 7 million migrant workers in Shanghai. They earn an average 29,707 yuan (US$4,750) a year, according to the latest figures for 2013 from the National Bureau of Statistics. That is 25 percent below the city's average wage.

They come to big cities from impoverished inland areas to seek a better life and carve a brighter future for their children. But that too often means the children have to be left behind.

Most of the migrant workers in Shanghai have left for this year's Spring Festival, which begins on Thursday. Nie is not among them.

"Last year during Spring Festival, I spent four days traveling to and from my hometown, and the rest of the time visiting friends and family," she said. "I didn't have much time to spend alone with my sons."

Nie, who earns 3,000-4,000 yuan a month, said she's afraid to ask for too many days off for fear of being sacked by her employer. Besides that, there's nothing left of the money she and her husband, a construction worker, managed to save last year.

The couple remits about 15,000 yuan home every year to cover school costs and living expenses of their two sons, who board at a junior middle school.

Costly schooling

They would prefer if the children could live with them in Shanghai, but the two years when the boys were with them here proved too costly for schooling.

"My sons' teachers told me I had to find extracurricular classes for them because they were lagging other students," Nie said. "I couldn't afford that."

Zhang Mingshu, 38, a migrant worker from Anhui Province and father of two, works as an electrician in Shanghai. He said he and his wife, who works as a household maid, are the nomads of China's industrialization.

"I have been a migrant worker since I graduated from junior high school," Zhang said. "We have been forced to follow the money, though many of us still work at menial jobs and make a paltry living in cities."