This article describes China's plan to offer residency status to some of the millions of migrant workers who have moved from rural areas to cities in recent decades. This change means migrants will be entitled to use public services, such as health and education, where they live, rather than in the villages they come from. This has an important impact on children's care because, prior to this change, migrants who brought their children with them could only place them in unregistered schools, often of dubious quality. An estimated 61 million Chinese children are left behind in the countryside by their parents.
