Humangeographie Research Project

With rapid urbanization, the digital economy expansion, and the new forms of employment, China’s demographic landscape has undergone a profound transformation over the past two decades. There are significant shifts, not only in the scale of internal migration but also in the composition and mobility patterns of migrant populations.

This widespread mobility of labor creates a significant cohort of accompanying children. In the context of accelerated socio-economic change, migrant children now account for nearly one-quarter of all children in China, according to the 2020 Seventh National Population Census. The number of migrant children is doubled compared to the 2010 statistics. However, most of them are facing multiple educational challenges, such as inclusion into urban culture, language barriers, low socioeconomic status, limited parental involvement in education, unequal access to educational resources, and discrimination and exclusion. Therefore, addressing this is a constant, major issue in China’s efforts to promote equity in access to education, schooling experience, and academic progression.

According to the China Children’s Development Report 2024, the proposed concept “children-first principle” demands the evaluation of policy outcomes across education, health, and equitable development, particularly on vulnerable groups. While considerable efforts have been made to ease the geographical and political barriers of household registration (hukou) and associated restrictions, the educational disparities remain in educational resource allocation, school quality, and neighborhood environments, resulting in unequal opportunities in education for migrant children.

This project addresses this educational inequality for migrant children through a socio-spatial analytical framework. It aims to investigate how spatial distribution, community conditions, and social factors combine to influence migrant children to receive more fair education opportunity. The resulting analysis will identify key factors and their potential consequences at both micro and macro levels, offering practical thoughts on equitable planning of educational facilities for migrant children.