Migrant Optimism in Educational Aspirations for Children in Big Cities in China: A Case Study of Native, Permanent Migrant and Temporary Migrant Parents in Shanghai

There is a socioeconomic hierarchy by people’s migration and hukou status in urban migration destinations in China. Children’s education determines to a large extent how that hierarchy evolves into the future. Using a sample of 473 children from the Shanghai Urban Neighborhood Survey, we examine how hukou and migration status stratifies parents’ educational aspirations for children in big cities in China. Results suggest that “migrant optimism” exists among permanent migrants and temporary migrants with rural hukou in Shanghai. Everything else being equal, both permanent migrants and temporary migrants with rural hukou have higher educational aspirations for children than native parents. Moreover, adjusting for hukou-based differential treatments in the labor market and unequal information access, the difference in educational aspirations for children between native residents and temporary migrants with rural hukou becomes even larger. To the extent that parents’ educational aspirations for children are closely linked with children’s eventual educational and occupational attainment, these results suggest that children of permanent migrants are likely to maintain their parents’ socioeconomic advantages. Children of temporary migrants with rural hukou have great potentials to achieve upward intergenerational mobility. However, given China’s hukou-based educational policies, temporary migrants face enormous difficulties in realizing their educational aspirations in destination cities. Policy implications of our findings are discussed in the end.