Whenever Scott Rozelle visits a Chinese village, he offers his students a small reward if they can find a healthy male aged 18 to 40. They seldom succeed, because most working-age men and many women have migrated to cities for employment, leaving their children to be brought up by their grandparents and educated in the local school. The parents return to the village annually for the Lunar New Year festival but play a minimal role in their children’s upbringing. It’s a sad and all too common story affecting more than 100 million Chinese households.
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