Chinanews, Beijing, Dec. 19 – Currently there are hundreds of thousands of "rural migrants" working in China's cities as janitors, laborers, street vendors and at other jobs shunned by city dwellers. The children of this "floating population" are China's "floating children." Some of them came to metropolises with their parents, and immediately became fascinated by the colorful life there.
Han Jialing, a scholar from Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said at a seminar on floating population that floating children are marginalized in the city life, which makes them feel humiliated.
Related statistics made in the Fifth National Census show that there are 14.1 million floating children aged from 0 to 14 in China, 283 thousand of them living in Beijing. Transprovincial floating children amount to 3.39 million. Most of these children live in the most backward parts of the cities, having fewer opportunities to enjoy public services and education than local children.
However, most floating children expect to stay in the cities, after they have become more or less adapted to city life. More than 94 percent of them wish to receive higher education, 28 percent hoping they can get Master degrees in the future.
They hope metropolises can also accept them one day, granting them equal social status as locals.