Rachel Murphy is Professor of Chinese Development and Society and fellow of St Antony's College at the University of Oxford. She is President of the British Association of Chinese Studies and the author of How Migrant Labor Is Changing Rural China (2002).

• 1. Understanding the lives of left-behind children in rural China; 2. Migration, education and family striving in four counties of Anhui and Jiangxi; 3. Sacrifice and study; 4. Boys' and girls' experiences of distribution in striving families; 5. Children in 'mother at-home, father out' families; 6. Children of lone-migrant mothers and at-home fathers; 7. Children in skipped generation families; 8. Left-behind children in striving teams; Appendix: field research on left-behind children in China.

'In contrast to most discussion of left behind children, Rachel Murphy puts children at the center of her analysis. Her conceptualization of families divided by parental migration as multi-local 'striving teams' both deepens our understanding of the children's participation and identifies specific policies that could reduce the suffering and insecurity of tens of millions of divided families.' Deborah Davis, Yale University, Connecticut