Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Meaning-Making of Motherhood among Rural-to-Urban Migrant Chinese Mothers of Left-Behind Children

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Child and Family Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although numerous studies in the social sciences have examined the needs of left-behind Chinese children and their relationship to parental involvement, the ways in which migrant mothers in China subjectively view their mothering experiences and construct meanings of motherhood remain underexplored. By applying the meaning-making model in the context of stress and coping, we responded to that research issue by examining the experiences of rural-to-urban migrant Chinese mothers in making meanings of motherhood. We purposively selected and invited 30 migrant mothers living in Guangdong Province to narrate their experiences in individual interviews. Each participant had at least one child living in the family’s hometown while both parents had relocated to work elsewhere for at least 6 months. A meticulous thematic analysis of their narratives highlighted recurrent themes surrounding their perceived global meanings of parenting, situational meanings of migrant motherhood, discrepancies between those global and situational meanings, and reappraised meanings. Results revealed that the migrant mothers had relentlessly sought meanings of parenthood amid daunting challenges in childrearing and that meaning-making was particularly important to them in confronting highly stressful mothering experiences induced by their migrant circumstances. The findings also indicate the ways in which global and situational parental meanings support migrant Chinese mothers in gaining a clearer sense of purpose in motherhood and in fulfilling their maternal roles. Such findings illuminate the unique features and processes of meaning-making within the population and expand the applicability of the meaning-making model in the Chinese sociocultural context.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Boccagni, P. (2012). Practicing motherhood at a distance: Retention and loss in Ecuadorian transnational families. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(2), 261–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, J. L., Quincy, C., Osserman, J., & Pedersen, O. K. (2013). Coding in-depth semistructured interviews: Problems of unitization and intercoder reliability and agreement. Sociological Methods and Research, 42(3), 294–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Center for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility (2013). They are also parents: A study on migrant workers with left-behind children in China.. Beijing: Author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, J., & Sun, Y. H. (2014). Depression and anxiety among left-behind children in China: A systematic review. Child: Care, Health and Development, 41(4), 515–523.

    Google Scholar 

  • China Labour Bulletin (2013). Migrant workers and their children. http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/migrant-workers-and-their-children. Accessed 29 Dec 2015.

  • China Women’s Federation (2013). A research report on the lives of left-behind children and migrant children. http://acwf.people.com.cn/n/2013/0510/c99013-21437965.html.

  • Devasahayam, T. W., & Rahman, N. A. (2011). Mothers on the move: Experiences of Indonesian women migrant workers. In M. Friedman & S. Schultermandl (Eds.), Growing up transnational: Identity and kinship in a global era (pp. 190–209). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Falicov, C. J. (2007). Working with transnational immigrants: Expanding meanings of family, community, and culture. Family Process, 46(2), 157–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He, B., Fan, J., Liu, N., Li, H., Wang, Y., Williams, J., & Wong, K. (2012). Depression risk of ‘left-behind children’ in rural China. Psychiatry Research, 200(2-3), 306–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, D. Y. F. (1995). Selfhood and identity in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism: Contrasts with the West. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 25(2), 115–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horton, S. (2009). A mother’s heart is weighed down with stones: A phenomenological approach to the experience of transnational motherhood. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 33, 21–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu, Y., Lonne, B., & Burton, J. (2014). Enhancing the capacity of kin caregivers and their families to meet the needs of children left behind. China Journal of Social Work, 7(2), 131–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lam, C. M. (2005). In search of the meaning of parent education in the Hong Kong-Chinese context. In M. J. Kane (Ed.), Contemporary issues in parenting (pp. 111–124). New York, NY: Nova Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping.. New York, NY: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu, L. (2001). Understanding happiness: A look into the Chinese folk psychology. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2, 407–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCubbin, H. I., Thompson, A. I., & McCubbin, M. A. (1996). Family assessment: Resiliency, coping and adaptation: Inventories for Research and Practice. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Bureau of Statistics of China (2017). China Statistical Yearbook 2017. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2017/indexeh.htm. Accessed 03 Mar 2018.

  • Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Leech, N. L. (2007). A call for qualitative power analyses. Quality and Quantity, 41, 105–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park, C. L., & Folkman, S. (1997). Meaning in the context of stress and coping. Review of General Psychology, 1(1), 115–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parra–Cardona, J. R., Bulock, L. A., Imig, D. R., Villarruel, F. A., & Gold, S. J. (2006). “Trabajando Duro Todos Los Días”: Learning from the life experiences of Mexican-origin Migrant families. Family Relations, 55, 361–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson, J. M. (2002). Integrating family resilience and family stress theory. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(May), 349–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pun, N. (2016). Migrant labor in China. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qin, J., & Albin, B. (2010). The mental health of children left behind in rural China by migrating parents: A literature review. Journal of Public Mental Health, 9(3), 4–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solheim, C., Zaid, S., & Ballard, J. (2016). Ambiguous loss experienced by transnational Mexican immigrant families. Family Process, 55, 338–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tao, S., Yu, L., Gao, W., & Xue, W. (2016). Food preferences, personality and parental rearing styles: Analysis of factors influencing health of left-behind children. Quality of Life Research, 25, 2921–2929.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • To, S. M. (2015). Development and validation of a quantitative measure for the Chinese Sources of Parental Meaning. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24, 3580–3594.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • To, S. M. (2016). Loneliness, the search for meaning, and the psychological well-being of economically disadvantaged Chinese adolescents living in Hong Kong: Implications for life skills development programs. Children and Youth Services Review, 71, 52–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • To, S. M., & Chan, W. C. H. (2016). Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the existential anxiety questionnaire in a sample of Chinese adolescents living in Hong Kong. Child and Youth Care Forum, 45, 487–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • To, S. M., & Tam, H. L. (2014). Generational differences in work values, perceived job rewards, and job satisfaction of Chinese female migrant workers: Implications for social policy and social services. Social Indicators Research, 118, 1315–1332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, F. (2003). Family resilience: A framework for clinical practice. Family Process, 42(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wong, D. F. K., Chang, Y. L., & He, X. S. (2007). Rural migrant workers in urban China: Living a marginalized life. International Journal of Social Welfare, 16, 32–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, F., & Yu, G. (2016). Parental migration and rural left-behind children’s mental health in China: A meta-analysis based on mental health test. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25, 3462–3472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author Contributions

S.M.T. designed and executed the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. Y.Y.S. assisted with the data analysis and wrote part of the results. C.M.K. assisted with the data collection and data analysis.

Funding

This study was funded by the General Research Fund 2015/16 of the Research Grant Council, The Hong Kong SAR Government (RGC Ref No. 14603015)

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong

    Siu-ming To, Yuk-yan So & Ching-man Kwok

Authors
  1. Siu-ming To
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yuk-yan So
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ching-man Kwok
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Siu-ming To.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were approved by the Survey and Behavioral Research Ethics Committee of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (ref. number: 14603015). This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by the author.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

To, Sm., So, Yy. & Kwok, Cm. Meaning-Making of Motherhood among Rural-to-Urban Migrant Chinese Mothers of Left-Behind Children. J Child Fam Stud 27, 3358–3370 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1169-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1169-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation