These women commonly suffer from loneliness and about 8.3 percent of them have also experienced a marriage crisis or divorce. Among these women, some could no longer endure the loneliness and left their husbands, while others were jilted by their husbands for a new woman in the city. Without their husbands at home to protect them, a little over one third of the women interviewed said they worry about their personal safety.

According to the study, 92.4 percent of the women were their family's primary worker in the field. More than half of them reported that they were unable to handle all the fieldwork and have to seek help from other people. About a third of the women confessed to not having the proper agricultural production skills for their work.

Among the left-behind women, 12.8 percent were pregnant or nursing babies. A majority of them once worked as migrant workers in cities, and 64.7 percent said they would return to cities once their babies could live without breastfeeding.

The research team also interviewed 400 children, and found 72.3 percent had both parents working away from their hometown, while for nearly three quarters their parents are away from home for more than 10 months each year. A third of these parents left home before their children turned three and some parents have been away for more than seven years.

Deprived of parental care, some children suffer psychological problems. Of the children interviewed, 61.5 percent reported that they would not communicate their concerns to their parents, and 37 percent said they did not like to talk to anyone. Some children said they were addicted to playing Internet games and even gambling.

Many left-behind children are more independent than their peers. When their parents are away, some take care of themselves or even their grandparents. Pan Lu, a member of the research team, met a primary school student in grade five in Henan Province. Both of the boy's parents were working away from home, and he was living by himself. He cooked three meals for himself each day and did his own laundry at the weekend.

The third vulnerable group that the research team studied was the elderly. Interviews with 400 left-behind elderly people revealed that nearly half had no children living with them, while 80.9 percent worked to support themselves. Some seniors tilled the land of their absent children. Some did odds jobs, like collecting garbage or peddling daily ware to make some money.

Community care

The study on the left-behind population unveiled some major difficulties confronting these people. For instance, it demonstrated the inadequacies of the traditional family-based elderly care system; how rural women lack proper training to manage agricultural production; and the lack of proper guidance and emotional care for left-behind children.

Ye suggested that more training should be provided to rural women to improve their production efficiency; mutual-help groups should be established so that they can aid each other; media reports on left-behind children should be balanced and objective; and more community efforts should be invested in elderly care.

Although the research has exposed many problems, academic study itself only provides the diagnosis, said Wu. Government action is necessary to provide effective solutions.

Ye said he hoped the research would serve as reference for the government and a reminder to society at large. The left-behind people need support from their families, schools, communities, government, media and enterprises, and the rural community should play a major role in providing these supports, Ye said.

Quite a number of communities across the nation have taken measures to assist the left-behind people. On July 24, the Women's Federation and the Women and Children's Health Center of Qinyang City, Henan Province, jointly launched an initiative to take care of left-behind children. Under the initiative, 10 medical workers spent half a month in the countryside providing free physical examinations to more than 900 left-behind women and children.

In Shiquan County, Shaanxi Province, left-behind children make up 48.4 percent of all students in the compulsory education system. The county government has set up 15 growth and education centers to offer academic, psychological and other consultation to left-behind children. It has also recruited volunteers from graduates of normal universities to serve as instructors in the education and growth center.

In Mashan County, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, there are over 20,000 left-behind elderly. The local government has set up a senior's home for elderly people whose children are not home, where chess, books, musical instruments and other facilities are provided.

Liugongmiao Town, Zhangshu City, Jiangxi Province has introduced left-behind women to the embroidery industry, providing an extra income. There are nearly 3,000 left-behind women in the town who now make an annual average of nearly 10,000 yuan ($1,464) through embroidery.