The aim of this book is to explain the nature of China's rural-to-urban migration in terms of the behaviour of “multi-locational households.” The basic unit of analysis is not the individual but the household, defined as a kinship grouping with joint planning of resources, though not living together in one location. The joint planning includes such things as economic reciprocity through monetary and non-monetary exchanges, mutual caring and support, and the management of life-cycle issues such as marriage, child bearing and rearing, education and old-age. Unlike the predominant paradigm of “exclusion,” which permeates much of the research on China's migrants both within and outside China and stresses the ways in which the household registration system (hukou) works to exclude migrants from access to urban rights and benefits, the emphasis here is on the active initiatives of migrants in planning their lives and coping with the challenges. The multi-locational household analysis does not downplay the barriers and constraints facing them but explores the migration experience as part of broader family strategy.

The research methodology is based on qualitative field investigation built around 78 in-depth interviews with migrants in cities and people back in the home villages, matching as far as possible the urban migrant and their rural family. It is loosely organized around three “corridors” of migration: Henan to Beijing; Sichuan to Chongqing; and from Fengjie County in Chongqing and Zunyi County in Guizhou to the Pearl River Delta. These corridors provide examples of long-distance moves (ca 1,500 km), medium distance (650 km) and short (80–200 km). However, the authors argue that the concept is primarily a device for organizing the research and does not represent fixed patterns of movement. The evidence from their interviews shows that migrants are very mobile and are influenced by a variety of factors in making their choices.

Three researchers were involved in the study: Schmidt-Kallert has studied development and multi-locational households in a number of Asian and African countries; Franke is a sociologist with a long engagement with NGO work in China; and Lu Tu is a Chinese sociologist, also engaged in NGO activities in China. Lu has published a separate study in Chinese, and her work is acknowledged in this volume though she is not an author. The potential for linkages between academic research and NGO activitism informs the study and is reflected both by the workshop held in Hong Kong in September 2012 to review the findings and by the fact that a substantial part of the book (nearly 100 pages) consists of appendices which reflect the voices and aspirations of the migrants through verbatim records of interviews. There are also a large number of photographs. While there is no statistical analysis, the authors argue that, informed by the underlying research framework, the interviews provide valid generalized conclusions.

Overall, the general points about the utility of the multi-locational analysis are well made, and the study does refer briefly to the work of some of the Chinese scholars who have addressed the issue, such as Zhu Yu at Fujian University and Zhang Xiulan at Beijing Normal. It suffers, however, from a lack of any reference to the extensive literature on migration issues in Chinese. The important work of Cai Fang and his team and of other economists on surplus labour flows and the “Lewisian turning point” is not discussed. The many penetrating studies by Chinese sociologists such as Li Qiang at Tsinghua or Lu Xueyi and Li Peilin at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences are not referenced. Li Qiang, for example, in his work Nongmingong yu Zhongguo shehui fenceng (Urban Migrant Workers and Social Stratification in China; Beijing 2004), discussed the multi-locational concept many years ago and argued that, alongside the established model of a dual urban-rural population in China, it represented a third class of multi-locational population. Furthermore, the book does not explore in any detail the relationship between the multi-locational model and the exclusion created by the household registration system. Is the multi-locational household a long-term family strategy or is it primarily a coping or transitional strategy while the barriers to social mobility are eroded? Reference to the extensive work of Kam Wing Chan would have been useful in this respect.

The records of interview and the discussion of migrant household choices for such things as resource flows, child rearing and education, caring services and long-term visions are often insightful and add a texture of experience to the study of the issues involved. However, the summary of the conclusions drawn from the information obtained in the interviews is not always presented in a consistent way. The charts describing the reciprocity of resource flows, for example, are not standardized. One figure (p. 81) provides a useful outline of economic and caring flows between family members, while others simply reflect whether they are living together or not (pp. 87, 88, 91). This variation may well reflect the differences in the amount and depth of information obtained in different interviews. The typology of multi-locational households, which divides them into five categories depending on which grouping of family members live together (p. 99), is a helpful descriptive model, but the implications of households moving between the different categories as they pass through their life cycle and the intensity of household interactions decline could also have been explored in greater depth.

Ultimately, therefore, the overall impression remains one of “exploratory research” as the authors themselves stress. It is an encouraging start but needs more extensive analysis and reference to the literature to develop a stronger set of conclusions. In terms of the project's other goal of providing insights for social action, the stress on looking at migrant needs in terms of a combined set of rural and urban choices is, however, well made. Finally, the volume suffers from some poor sub-editing, minor errors in tables, and mistakes in romanization.