“Left behind children” as subjects of parental labor in China: theoretical and methodological foundations of sociological study

The article is devoted to the study of a unique phenomenon of Chinese socio-economic reality - the phenomenon of “left behind children”. It proposes a specific approach to the study of such children, which consists in considering them in adulthood as subjects of parental labor already implemented by them. The purpose of our study is to develop the theoretical and methodological foundations of the sociological study of “left behind children” as subjects of parental labor in China. The study is planned to identify the specifics of the organization of work of Chinese subjects of parental labor, who are “left behind children”, to conduct a comparative analysis of the motivation of parental work in various subjects of this type of labor in China, to assess the satisfaction with parental work of its subjects, who themselves were “left behind children”. The following methodological principles of their study are proposed: application of an interdisciplinary approach; the use of a differentiated study of the characteristics of various subjects of parental labor, who are “left behind children”; consideration of regional differences; a combination of various methods of collecting information and a set of statistical methods for analysis; labor approach to the study of this phenomenon and based on the results obtained in the study of parental labor. The article presents a set of empirical indicators for the sociological study of the phenomenon of parental labor, the subjects of which are the Chinese “left behind children”. We divide the system of empirical indicators into three levels: 1) research objectives are the three contents of the research plan; 2) blocks of empirical indicators include: conditions for the implementation of parental labor, the time it takes to implement parental labor; internal needs, external incentives; the expectations of the subjects of parental labor, the perceived quality of parental labor, satisfaction with the relationship between parents and children, confrontation between parents and children;multiple empirical indicators under the block of empirical indicators.