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Large -scale labor migration in the past two decades in China has reshaped family structure of migrants, generating numerous stay children (i.e., children who are left behind) and migrant children. Stay children and some migrant children live in nontraditional households without parental immediate care and guidance in daily life and schooling. This would have implications for their education. Drawing on the 2000 Census data, this paper explores the patterns, characteristics and determinants of school enrollment of stay, migrant, and other children (whose parents do not migrate) ages 11-14 with a rural hukou (registration). Analytical results suggest that, first, stay children have a higher likelihood of school enrollment than migrant children and other children, but such effect varies by whom the children stay with: those staying with the mother have the best education opportunity. Second, migrant children have a lower chance of enrollment, particularly so for those who migrate alone or with parents. Such findings provide little support for the current public and academic opinions within China on the education wellbeing of stay children. Since education plays an important for individual socio-economic mobility in the Chinese society, the disadvantages faced by migrant children are likely to have detrimental and long-term consequences for them in particularly and for the society in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three objectives. One is to measure residential mobility in urban China using Chinese census data, providing for the first time a comparable measurement of residential mobility in China and placing it in the context of international comparison of residential mobility research. Second, we are interested in identifying socio-demographic characteristics that are associated with residential mobility behavior. In particular, we are interested in examining the extent to which opportunity for residential mobility is influenced by education and occupation. The third goal of the paper is to examine amount of improvement in housing quality due to residential relocation and the extent to which returns (as measured by housing quality) to residential mobility differ by socio-economic characteristics. The paper will begin with discussion of China's recent efforts of housing reform and commodification of housing, which provides a point of departure for the current research endeavor. We will then discuss scholarly literature on residential mobility. This will be followed by description of data and methods. Preliminary findings and future directions will conclude the paper ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]