Promoting worker well-being

Our worker well-being programs support thousands of workers employed at toy and children products factories around the world. We welcome businesses of all sizes and nature to get involved - invest for impact.

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Left-Behind and Migrant Children in China

China’s national population census mentioned there are 375.82 million domestic migrant workers, up 69.73% from 2010. “China’s continued economic and social development has facilitated the population migration and mobility, the trends of which have become increasingly evident, and the size of [the] floating population has further grown,” the National Bureau of Statistics said.” [SCMP]

Many migrant parents find work many miles away in the big cities, their children, therefore, become Left-behind children or Migrant Children. Left behind Children are those who stay behind in the villages, separated from their parents. And Migrant Children are those who move to the city together with their parents.

In 2022, statistics on China's left-behind children revealed that there are currently 9.02 million rural children under 16 years old in this situation. Nearly 90% of these children are being raised by their grandparents or other relatives, and around 360,000 children have no proper guardian. Breaking down the numbers by region, there are approximately 870,000 left-behind children in rural areas of eastern provinces, constituting about 9.65% of the national total. In central provinces, the figure rises to 4.63 million, accounting for 51.33% of the national total. Meanwhile, in western provinces, there are 3.52 million left-behind children, making up 39.02% of the national total.

ESCP operates Family-Friendly Spaces (FFS) and Migrant Parent Training (MPT) Program to support both left-behind and migrant children. These win-win initiatives create multiple benefits, for all, i.e.: create measurable business benefits for businesses.  Read more about our work in the Guardian and the Financial Times.

Family-Friendly Spaces reunite domestic migrant workers with their children in the summer months, by creating safe, secure, and well-equipped childcare facilities at factories for children to learn and play while their parents focus on work.

Family-Friendly Spaces

Since we first launched Family-Friendly Spaces at toy factories in 2016, thousands of workers and their children have participated.

Over the years we have opened 71 Family-Friendly Spaces accommodated around 3,000 children, supporting 3,145 participating workers with childcare. Here's a business case from one of the participating business:

Challenges before joining the FFS program:

• Workers worry about their children during the summer months, affected the concentration & efficiency of these parent worker
• Some workers resign to take care of their children for school vacation, which affected the productivity

After the FFS program, workers feel the care from their management:

• The trust between Workers and Management has raised 200%
• The retention rate increased from 45% to 100%

Click here to look at the joyful activities factories and program sponsors have prepared this year

Click here to view how our Family-Friendly Spaces program supports the UN's SDGs

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