Return migration and educational investments in children in China: Hukou differences and the role of parental coresidence (by Xinyue Wu)

Background: Returned children relocate to their original hukou locations after migration, often due to systemic barriers. China’s hukou system, which assigns rural or urban status, imposes institutional hurdles to those with non-local and rural hukou, resulting in educational exclusion and eventual return. Despite their non-negligible presence, these children remain hard to identify in surveys and overlooked in research on hukou-perpetuated educational inequities. Objective: This study examines