Migration, householding and the well-being of left-behind women in rural Ningxia

Abstract

In recent years, large-scale labor migration has had a significant impact on the social landscape of rural China. Large numbers of rural Chinese men work away from home for long periods until they reach late middle age, while rural women also often migrate when young, but generally return to the countryside to get married.1 After marriage and childbirth, most women remain in the village, but repeated episodes of migration are increasingly common among married women in their 20s and 30s.2 Consequently, much of the Chinese countryside is dominated by split households and a depleted, shifting population of middle-aged women, children and the elderly.