TOWARDS theend of “Jude the Obscure”, Thomas Hardy’s final novel, comes one of the mostharrowing scenes in English literature. Jude, an itinerant labourer strugglingto feed his family, returns home to find his eldest son has hanged himself andhis younger siblings from the coat hook on the back of the door. A note says“Done because we are too menny.”
托马斯.哈代所著最后一部小说“无名的席德”尾声部分所描绘的场景在英国文学中的悲惨程度无出其右。四处打零工的席德艰难地支撑着家庭，小说尾声，当席德回到家时，却在门后的衣帽钩上发现他子女的尸体。大儿子吊死了他的兄弟姐妹，随即上吊自杀。遗书写道“人太朵（多），只由（有）死”
In June thisyear China suffered a real-life variant of this terrible scene. In a rural partof Bijie township in Guizhou province, in south-west China, a brother and threesisters, the oldest 13, the youngest five, died by drinking pesticide. They hadbeen living alone after their mother had disappeared and their father hadmigrated for work. The 13-year-old boy left a note saying, “It is time for meto go—death has been my dream for years.”
今年六月，这样悲惨的情景却在中国真实再现。中国西南部贵州省毕节镇农村，一个哥哥与三个妹妹集体喝农药自杀，他们中最大的不过13岁，最小的才5岁。自从母亲失踪，父亲进城务工后，他们就无依无靠。13岁的小男孩在遗书中写道，“我早就想死了，现在是时候走了。”
Three yearsbefore that, also in Bijie, five street children died of carbon-monoxidepoisoning after they had clambered into a roadside dumpster and lit charcoal tokeep themselves warm. Chinese social media drew parallels with the little matchgirl in Hans Christian Andersen’s story of that name: afraid to return homebecause she has not sold any matches, she freezes to death in the winter night,burning match after match because the light reminds her of her grandmother. Itis a well known tale in China because it is taught in primary schools as anexample of the uncaring nature of early capitalism.
三年前毕节也发生了同样悲惨的事。五个流浪儿为了取暖，爬进了路边的一个垃圾站，在里面点起了炭火，最后全部死于一氧化碳中毒。中国的社交媒体将这个故事与安徒生童话中那个卖火柴的小女孩类比：小女孩没能卖出一根火柴，害怕回家，只有划燃火柴，因为光亮让她想起了她的祖母。一根接一根划掉了所有火柴，小女孩最终冻死在大街上。这个童话在中国家喻户晓，因为小学课本中就教导说，这个故事揭示了资本主义初级阶段社会的冷漠本质。
Over the pastgeneration, about 270m Chinese labourers have left their villages to look forwork in cities. It is the biggest voluntary migration ever. Many of thoseworkers have children; most do not take them along. The Chinese call theseyoungstersliushou ertong, or “left-behind children”. According to theAll-China Women’s Federation, an official body, and UNICEF, the UN organisationfor children, there were 61m children below the age of 17 left behind in ruralareas in 2010. In several of China’s largest provinces, including Sichuan andJiangsu, more than half of all rural children have been left behind (see map).In effect, some villages consist only of children and grandparents. This is ablight on the formative years oftens of millionsof people. Alongsidethe expulsion of millions of peasants from the land they have farmed and thedegradshuiation of the country’s soil, water and air, this leaving behind isone of the three biggest costs of China’s unprecedented and transformative industrialisation.
在过去一代人的时间内，大约有2.7亿中国劳动力背井离乡，来到城市寻求一份工作糊口。则是人类历史上规模最大的自发式迁徙活动。这些迁徙的工人中不少还有子女，但大部分人不会带着子女务工。中国人管这些留在家乡的孩子叫做“留守儿童”。根据官方组织中华全国妇女联合会以及联合国儿童组织UNICEF(联合国儿童基金会)的数据，2010年大约有6100万17岁以下的农村留守儿童。中国最大的几个省份中，包括四川和江苏，有超过半数的农村孩子被“留守”了（见图）。这样的后果是，有些村子里只剩下老人和小孩。千万孩子的性格养成阶段父母缺位。同时，数以百万计的农民被迫离开他们耕作的土地，农村土地肥力下降，水质与空气质量恶化，在史无前例的巨大工业化进程中，这三者让中国付出了最为高昂的代价。
Just over halfof the 61m counted in 2010 were living with one parent while the other spousewas away working; 29m had been left in the care of others. Mostly the carerswere grandparents, but about 6m were being looked after by more distantrelatives or by the state (that number includes orphans and children withdisabilities who have been abandoned). There were 2m children who, like thelittle match children of Bijie, had been left just to fend for themselves.
2010统计数据中，6100万留守儿童只有刚过一半的儿童与单亲一起居住，另一方则在外地打工；其中2900万儿童被交给他人抚养，大部分由孩子的爷爷奶奶照看，但仍有大约6百万儿童则交与远亲或是国家抚养（这一统计数据中包括残障儿童）。跟毕节那“卖火柴的孩子们”的情况类似，两百万儿童只得自食其力。
Not allparents whoup sticksto look forwork leave their kids behind: in the 2010 figures 36m children had gone to livewith their migrating families in cities. But this has its own problems; veryfew of these children can go to a state school or see a state doctor atsubsidised prices in their new homes. Moreover, their hard-working parentsoften cannot look after the children. Without grandparents or a state school tokeep an eye on them, such migrant children can be just as neglected as thoseleft behind in the country.
但也不是所有在外地工作的家长都抛下了他们的孩子：2010年的统计数据表明，3600万孩子随其父母一起到城市生活。但这也有其弊端；这些孩子基本上不能上公立学校，在城市的公立医院看病也无法享受医疗补助。他们忙碌的家长时常甚至抽不出空来照看他们。家长与公立学校都不管，这些打工子弟被忽视的程度可能与那些留守儿童别无二致。
A damagedgeneration
受伤害的一代
On top of thatthere were about 9m left behind in onecity when one or both parents had moved to another. Add it all up and, in 2010,106m children’s lives were being profoundly disrupted by their parents’restless search for jobs. For comparison, the total number of children in theUnited States is 73m. And the proportion of these children who were leftbehind, rather than migrating with their parents, grew a great deal in the late2000s (see chart 1).
此外，大约有9百万城市留守儿童，其单亲或是双亲前往外地工作。2010年的数据表明，父母马不停蹄地寻找工作，使得1.06亿儿童的生活受到了极大的影响。相比较而言，美国儿童的总数也只有7300万。无法与父母一起移居的留守儿童所占比例总数的比例从2000年底开始飞速增长。（见图1）
The experienceof those left with one parent while the other is away working is perhaps not sodifferent from that of the children of single parents in the West. But a studyby a non-governmental organisation, called the Road to School Project, reckonsthat 10m left-behind children do not see their parents even once a year and 3mhave not had a phone call for a year. About a third of left-behind kids seetheir parents only once or twice a year, typically on Chinese New Year.
那些双亲中有一方远去外地打工，只有单亲留在身边的孩子与西方国家的单亲家庭的孩子别无二致。由非政府组织的一项名通往学校之路工程的研究结果表明，1千万留守儿童一年到头都见不到父母。3百万留守儿童的父母一年到头都不会给孩子打一个电话。1/3的留守儿童一年见到父母父母的次数只有一次或者两次，基本上是在春节才能相见。
Though anychild may be left behind, there are some patterns. The youngest children arethe most likely to be left, and girls are slightly more likely to be left thanboys. This preference for taking boys along means that in cities thepreponderanceof boys over girls thathas been produced by sex-selective abortions is exaggerated further. Anecdotalevidence suggests that an unusual number of left-behind children have siblings.One reason for this is that China’s one-child policy has been implemented less strictlyin the countryside, and so more rural families have two children to leavebehind.
尽管任意一个孩子都可能被“留守”，但谁更有可能成为留守儿童却有迹可循。最年幼的孩子往往被“留守”，女孩比男孩留守的可能性更大些。家长带着男孩进城将造成城市中男孩数量相对过剩，这将进一步扩大性别选择人流造成的男女比例失衡。有小道消息称，留守儿童的数量比统计数字更多，他们还有兄弟姐妹。其中原因之一是，中国的独生子女政策在农村抓的不严，因此很多农村家庭有两个留守儿童。
It is not yetpossible to say whether the phenomenal level of leaving behind found in thelate 2000s persists. There is some evidence that with the slowdown in theeconomy migrant labourers are starting to drift back to their villages. Buteven if the trend has slowed, the dislocation still represents a third blow tothe traditional Chinese family. First came the one-child-policy. Then theenormously distorted sex ratio. Now a mass abandonment.
然而很难说2000年底调查发现的留守儿童现象是否还存在。有证据表明，随着经济增长放缓，外来务工人员正开始返回他们的村子。但即便进城打工趋势放缓，其造成混乱仍是砸向中国传统家庭三记重拳。首先是计划生育政策，其次是极大扭曲的性别比例，现在则是大量父母对孩子的离弃。
Being leftbehind damages children in many ways. In Cangxi county, Sichuan province, insouth-west China, the local education authority (as part of a study) gaveeight- and nine-year-old left-behind children video cameras and taught them tofilm their lives. Sun Xiaobing, who is eight years old, is in the charge of hergrandparents, but she is left alone for days on end. She shares her lunch witha stray dog to attract its companionship. Her two days of video consist almostentirely of her conversations with farm animals; she has no one else. WangKanjun’s film is about his little sister. The five-year-old girl spends most ofher time at home playing with the phone; she is waiting for her mother to call.
留守儿童在多方面被伤得很深。中国西南部省份四川苍溪县，当地教育局交给八到九岁的留守儿童录像机，让他们拍摄他们的生活。八岁的孙小冰在家照顾的她的爷爷奶奶，然而她在几天的拍摄中却是孤身一人。她将午饭分给流浪狗，想要获得流浪狗的友谊。她拍摄的两天的录像中几乎全是她与牲畜的对话，因为她没有人可以说话。王康军拍的是他的小妹妹。这个5岁的小女孩在家里的大部分时间都在玩手机；她等着妈妈打电话。
Mostleft-behind children are lonely. Many live in rural boarding schools far fromtheir villages because, in an attempt to improve educational standards in thecountryside, the government shut many village schools down in favour of biggerinstitutions. About 60% of children in the new boarding schools have been leftbehind. A non-governmental organisation, Growing Home, surveyed them this yearand found that they were more introverted than their peers and more vulnerableto being bullied; they also had “significantly higher states of anxiety anddepression” than their peers. Many say they do not remember what their parentslook like. A few say that they no longer want to see their parents.
大部分留守儿童都十分孤独。为了提升农村教育水平，政府裁撤了许多村镇学校，取而代之的是规模更大的学校，因此许多孩子在远离他们村子的寄宿学校念书。大约60%的留守儿童在新的寄宿学校跟不上班。非政府组织家庭生长今年的调查表明，这些留守儿童比他们的同学更加内向，更易被人欺负；这些孩子比他们的同学“更容易焦虑与沮丧”。许多留守儿童说他们记不清父母的样子。有一小部分说他们再也不想见到他们的父母。
In 2010
researchers at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai studied over
600 children in 12 villages in Shandong province, in the north-east, half left
behind and half not. The difference in the physical condition of the children
was minor. But the difference in their school performance was substantial and
so was the emotional and social damage to them, as measured by a standard
questionnaire (see chart 2). “The psychological effect on left behind children
is huge,” argues Tong Xiao, the director of the
China Institute of Children and Adolescents.“The kidswill have big issues with communications. Their mental state and theirdevelopment might suffer.”
2010年，上海市第二军医药大学的研究员研究了山东省12个村庄的600多名儿童，这些儿童一半是留守儿童，一半不是。这些儿童的身体状况差不多。然而根据一份标准调查表的结果，这些儿童在学校的表现却有明显的差异（见表2）“被‘留守’将极大地影响儿童心理，”中国儿童与成人研究所所长童晓（音）说，“留守儿童存在沟通障碍，他们的身心发育将受到影响。”
Being broughtup by grandparents is a common experience worldwide, and by no meansnecessarily harmful. But China’s rapid development does make it more of aproblem now than it was in the past. Unlike their parents, the left-behindchildren’s grandparents are often illiterate; their schooling can sufferaccordingly. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, a quarter of thegrandmothers who are looking after small children never attended school. Mostof the rest had only primary education. In one school in Sichuan visited bySave the Children, an international charity, an 11-year-old girl spent most ofthe lesson caring for her infant sister. As the visitors started to leave,though, she ran up and begged them to look at her homework: she seemed tornbetween beingin loco parentisand a normal 11-year-old.
There are fewstudies of the health of left-behind children. But given that they account foralmost half of all rural children, rural health indicators are a proxy. Theseare worrying: 12% of rural children under five in China are stunted (ie, areshort for their age)—four times as many as in urban areas; 13% of ruralchildren under five are anaemic, compared with 10% for urban children.
世界上所有国家中，小孩由爷爷奶奶带大都很寻常，这对孩子也不会造成什么伤害。然而中国在日新月异地变化，比起过去，确实带来了更多的问题。留守儿童的父母还读过书，可他们的爷爷奶奶却大多是大字不识。留守儿童的学前教育大受影响。根据
中华全国妇女联合会的调查，1/4的照看小孩的奶奶从没上过学，剩下的大多也只上过小学。拯救儿童这一国际慈善组织参观了四川省的一所学校，发现一个11岁大的小女孩课堂上的大部分时间花在照看她那还是婴儿的妹妹。可当这些参观者行将离去的时候，小女孩却跑过来要他们看看她做的家庭作业。她一半是疯子似的家长，另一半还是那个11岁的普通小女孩。鲜有关于留守儿童健康的研究。农村儿童中大约有一半是留守儿童，因此研究农村留守儿童的健康问题将具有代表性意义。研究数据令人触目惊心：5岁以下的中国农村儿童中12%发育不良，即长得不够高。这个数字是城市儿童的4倍；5岁以下的农村儿童13%患贫血，城市儿童只有10%贫血。
Little father time bomb小小父亲是定时炸弹
Breastfeedingrates in China are low; only two in seven Chinese children are exclusively breastfedat six months, compared with half in South-East Asia and two-thirds inBangladesh. Part of the explanation must be that so many infants are brought upby grandparents. International studies show that breastfeeding during a child’sfirst 1,000 days has lifetime benefits. Children who are not breastfed or getpoor food early on do worse at school, are more likely to suffer from seriousdiseases and have worse job prospects.
母乳喂养率在中国很低。只有2/7的中国儿童在头六个月是母乳喂养，而东南亚的母乳喂养率是1/2，孟加拉国是2/3。原因之一是很多婴儿是由爷爷奶奶养大的。国际研究表明，在孩子出生的前1000天母乳喂养将给让孩子受益终身。非母乳喂养，或者早期营养不良的孩子在学校表现更差，这些孩子更易得大病，将来也没有找到很好工作的希望。
Lastly,left-behind children are vulnerable to sexual and other abuse. Back in Bijie,two more left-behind children were found dead in August. One, a disabled15-year-old girl, had been repeatedly raped by two of her distant relatives.Fearing discovery they had murdered both her and her 12-year-old brother.
最后一点，留守儿童更易遭受性侵以及其他形式的虐待。8月份毕节又发生了一桩惨案，两个留守儿童死亡。死者之一是15岁的小女孩，两个远亲轮奸这个小女孩。这两个人完事之后害怕被人发现，于是杀害了她和她的12岁的弟弟。
Child abuse isdistressingly common anyway. An analysis of 47 studies in Chinese and Englishthis year estimated that over a quarter of Chinese children are physicallyabused at some point in their lives. The left behind are among the mostvulnerable to such abuse, especially those in boarding schools, because anyadults who might speak up for them are far away. In May a teacher in one suchschool in Gansu province in the north-west was executed for abusing 26primary-school students. In Ningxia province in June, a teacher got life inprison for raping 12 of his pupils, 11 of whom had been left behind.
儿童虐待行为都让人见怪不怪了。今年由中英两国的47项研究估计超过1/4的中国儿童在他们一生中某些时段受过身体上的虐待。留守儿童更容易遭受虐待，特别是在寄宿学校，因为能帮他们撑腰的大人都远在千里之外。今年5月，西北部甘肃省处死了一名教师，这个老师涉嫌虐待26个小学生。今年6月，宁夏省的一个教师被判终身监禁，他涉嫌强奸12个他的学生，这些学生中11个是留守儿童。
Those leftbehind can be perpetrators of crime as well as victims. Earlier this year aprostitution ring was broken up in Macao. The alleged ringleader turned out tobe a 16-year-old boy from Chongqing. Juvenile offences are rising in China, whichmay well in part be because of the increased numbers of left-behind children.Two-thirds of all Chinese juvenile offenders came from rural areas in 2010, upfrom half in 2000. When they are brought before the law, left-behind or migrantchildren are much more likely to go to jail than other children because courtsare reluctant to grant probation in the absence of a guardian. In Shanghai, thechildren of migrant labourers get probation in only 15% of cases, compared with63% of cases involving local juveniles.
这些留守儿童成为罪犯的可能性不比成为受害者的可能性小。今年年初，澳门破获了一个卖淫窝点。据称，这个窝点的老鸨是一个来自重庆的16岁男孩。中国的青少年犯罪率正在增加，这可能是因为留守儿童的数目正逐年增加。农村少年犯的所占比由2000年的1/2增长到2010年的2/3。但这些少年犯将要受到法律制裁的时候，留守儿童与打工子弟被判入狱的可能性更大，法院在监护人不在场的情况下，很难判这些儿童缓刑。上海市外来务工人员的子女犯罪只有15%缓刑率，而上海人的子女犯罪缓刑率高达63%。
Given the harmthat being left behind does to children’s health, education and emotionaldevelopment, it is not hard to imagine that the damage will be felt not just bythe left-behind themselves but by society as a whole. The phenomenon issufficiently recent that there is little compelling evidence of increasedcriminality, anti-social behaviour and so on. And adding to the burdens of theleft-behind by prejudging them to be miscreants would clearly add injustice toinjury. But in other countries—South Africa, where apartheid often brokefamilies up, is one example—being left alone has been found to be a risk factorin children turning to crime.
从留守儿童的健康，所受教育以及情感成长所受的伤害几方面考量，不难发现，不只是留守儿童本身受到了伤害，留守儿童对社会整体也造成了损害。这种现象在近期一览无遗，大部分证据表明留守儿童会造成犯罪率增加，反社会行为等等。预先判断留守儿童将成为不法之徒将增加其所受的不公正待遇，加重他们的负担。但在另一个国家南非的例子表明（种族隔离制度拆散了不少家庭），留守儿童更容易犯罪。
Leaving suchbroader consequences aside, the decision to leave behind a child is a hard one.Why do so many migrants make it? A survey by the Centre for Child Rights and CorporateSocial Responsibility, an NGO, put the question to 1,500 workers in the PearlRiver Delta in the south and Chongqing in the south-west. Two-thirds said theywould not have enough time to look after them while working in the city; halfsaid it was too expensive to bring up children there.
即使暂时不考虑留守儿童造成的显而易见的后果，将孩子遗弃在家对父母也不是一个简单的决定。然而为什么这么多人最终将孩子遗弃在家呢？根据一家非政府组织儿童权利与共同社会责任中心展开了一项调查，向1500名在南方珠三角以及西北部重庆工作的工人询问了上述问题。2/3的工人说，他们没有时间边在城市工作边照看孩子；1/2的工人说在城市喂养孩子要花的钱太多了。
The longestablished and valued role Chinese grandparents play in bringing upgrandchildren doubtless makes the decision easier for many. And if grandparentsare the solution, then leaving behind is a necessary corollary. In principlemigrants might take alongtheirgrandparents rather than leaving behindtheirchildren. But the restrictions of thehukousystem make that almostimpossible. Thehukouor household-registration document is a bit likean internal passport, giving people access to various services. When registeredin the country, grandparents get a lower pension than urban dwellers—and themoney is not enough for them to live in the city.
长久以来建立的价值观中，中国的祖父母充当喂养孩子的角色，无疑让很多人更倾向于这样做。假如认为把孩子交给祖父母喂养是某种解决方法，那么留守儿童便是这一解决方法产生的必然后果。理论上务工人员能够带着孩子的祖父母一起到城市生活，而不是将孩子抛给他们。但户籍制度的限制却让这种做法难以实现。户口类似于国内的护照，让人们有享有各式各样服务的权利。农村户口比城市户口享受的养老金要低，因此只有农村户口的退休金不够他们在城市生活的。
Thehukousystem also exacerbates things by making it very hard for children registeredin a rural area to get state schooling or health care in the city. Privateschools that exploit the opportunity this presents are often crowded,substandard and constantly threatened with closure by city governments.On top ofthis vital school-leavingexams have to be sat where a child is registered. So even if children accompanytheir parents to the city, they are almost always sent back again at the age of14 to prepare for the exam.
同时，户籍制度是得留守儿童情况日益恶化。户籍制度让那些只有农村户口的孩子上市里的公立学校，享受城市医保成了奢望。私立学校则人满为患，不合规范且不断遭到到市政府关停的威胁。此外，毕业考试的时候，这些孩子不得不回到户籍所在地考试。即便孩子能在城市陪伴他们的父母一时，但他们最终大都在14岁的时候被送回家准备毕业考试。
Wanted:several million social workers
悬赏：几百万社工
Millions ofparents defy thehukousystem; less than a third of those questioned inthe Pearl River Delta survey cited it as an issue. The objective problems ofcity life are harder to ignore. Many migrant labourers work 12 or more hours aday on construction sites or in export-oriented manufacturing companies. Theymay commute for four hours more; they may live in dormitories with no provisionfor children, or where children are not allowed. Understandably, most fear thatthey will not have enough time to look after their kids.
数百万的父母()户籍制度；珠三角的受调查者中只有不足1/3觉得这是一个问题。城市生活的客观问题更难以忽视。许多外来务工者在工地上外贸生产公司一天工作12小时以上。他们通勤的时间可能在4小时以上；他们住的宿舍或许没条件带孩子，或者不准带孩子。可以理解，许多家长担心他们没有足够的时间照顾孩子。
Grandmaholds the fort
奶奶代他人尽责
Zhao Yanjun,who is from Anhui province in eastern China but works in Fujian province mostof the year, sums up the problems: “I’m really torn about this. I could go back[to Anhui] but I won’t have the opportunities and connections I have here. If Ibring my son and my wife [to Fujian], one of us will have to quit to look afterhim, or we’ll have to hire a nanny or bring his grandparents here. Any of thesechoices would be a heavy burden for us.”
赵彦君（音）老家在中国东部安徽省，一年当中大部分时间却是在福建省工作，将问题总结到：“我真的快被这事扯成两半了，我可以回安徽工作，但是在安徽一没有福建这么多的工作机会，二没有我在这边建立的关系。假如我带老婆儿子来福建，我们两人之一就必须全职要照顾孩子，否则就要请保姆或者叫孩子的爷爷奶奶过来照看。无论是这么选，对我们都是一个沉重的负担。
Reform of thehukousystem—already under way, in a piecemeal fashion—can address some of theproblems of the left-behind and those who leave them. But given the underlyingfactors at work a full response will require China to build a child-welfaresystem almost from scratch.
户籍制度的改革正慢慢走向正轨，改革能够解决留守儿童以及留守儿童家长的问题。但完全解决构成问题的几个要素则需中国从无到有，建立一套完善的儿童福利制度。
China’sgovernment long assumed that the family would look after children’s needs, sono child-welfare system was needed. As recently as 2006, there was nonationally recognised qualification for social workers. To its credit, thegovernment has started to make up for lost time. It has set up a pilotprogramme to train “child-welfare directors”,otherwise known asbarefoot social workers, in five provinces.
长久以来，中国政府基于家庭将照顾儿童的考量，因此认为儿童社保系统可有可无。在2006年的时候，甚至都没有对社会工作者的国家资格认证。值得称赞的是，政府开始亡羊补牢，已在五个省份建立了一个先导项目来培训“儿童福利指导员”，也叫做赤脚社工。
The socialworkers are a bit like China’s barefoot doctors: villagers trained in a fewsimple skills to take the social-welfare system into remote villages. Eachlooks after between 200 and 1,000 children. So far, the results of the pilotprojects are promising. In 120 villages more than 10,000 extra children wereenrolled in the state medical scheme between the start of the programme, in2010, and 2012. The share of children who had not been registered under thehukousystem and were therefore noteligiblefor help fell from 5% to 2%. The school drop-out rate fell by roughly the sameamount. The government is expanding the pilot programme into three moreprovinces and twice as many villages.
社会工作者有点像中国的赤脚医生：受过简单培训的村民将社保系统带到了偏远的乡村。每一个社工管200到1000个孩子。迄今为止，先导项目的结果令人十分满意。自2010年项目伊始，到2012年，120个村子的1万多名孩子被纳入了国家医疗体系。无法注册户籍的孩子往往也得不到帮助，他们的比例从5%降到了2%。辍学率也差不多从5%降到了2%。政府正在扩大先导项目的覆盖面，最终将覆盖8个省份以及现有的村庄的两倍。
But this onlyscratches the surface. Even in its expanded form the programme will reachroughly 250,000 children, less than 0.5% of all rural left-behind children. Aresponse proportionate to the problem would not just see such interventionshugely increased and thehukousystem relaxed a great deal more; itwouldentailmore job-creation inareas where migrants can take all their family members.
然而这只是杯水车薪。即便这个项目扩大覆盖范围，25万孩子得到救助，这也不到还不到农村留守儿童总数的0.5%。政府的行政干预大大增加，户籍制度也放开了不少，但想要一劳永逸地解决留守儿童的问题还远远不够；这须要在外来务工者能照顾他们家庭成员的地方创造更多的工作。
At its heart, the problem of the left-behind is one ofmisplaced hopes. Like so many parents, China’s migrants are deferring pleasurenow (that of raising their children) for the hope of a better life later (to bebought with the money they earn). One result has been the stunning growth ofcities and the income they generate. Another has been a vast disruption offamilies—and the children left behind are bearing the burden of loss.
说到底，留守儿童的问题就是人们无处安放的希望。与中国许多的父母一样，中国的外来务工人员推迟了养育他们孩子过程中的快乐，期待以后能用他们赚来的钱能够过上更好地生活。城市因此以令人炫目的速度增长，他们的收入也随着增加。但外来务工人员的正常家庭也随之破裂，留守儿童也承担了沉重的损失。