From China News via China Daily:
In China, with one or both parents going out to earn money, many children are left in their hometowns in the countryside. These children are called “leftover children”. Some people say that the leftover children phenomenon is largely caused by poverty. Since 1978 when China began to introduce the reform and opening-up, more and more farmers flocked to big cities and as a result, a large number of leftover children have emerged. Statistics showed that in 2004, China had a total of 22 million leftover children in the countryside. [Full Text]