The YouTube video for "Urban Migration of Young People" is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1suPxXTrpmw

Why did hundreds of millions of Chinese leave their rural homes for the cities?

Just like the YouTube comments under the "Lunar New Year Migration", the journalist, Michael Chance, didn't get the translation correctly on his second interview. The second guy mentioned that he got paid better which means family can have a better life if he works in Beijing. All these people who migrate to bigger cities because they are looking for better work opportunities. Can they support the family by doing farm works? Yes they can. However, younger generation tend to move to bigger cities to learn skills that they cannot learn in country side. Ahong in the video of "Urban Migration of Young People" is a perfect representative of such migration trend. He went from an assistant to a stylist in a salon in quite a few years. Who would need a hair stylist in his rural hometown? If he stayed there, he would never have the chance to master the skill nor have the opportunity to practice his skill. This is the opportunity that young people are striving for in big cities. With the money he made as a hair stylist, he was able to afford an apartment and a car. Imgaine how much the quality of life can be improved at his rural hometown. Again, he will never enjoy any of these if he stays at his hometown.

What problems were they trying to solve?

Migrating to bigger cities doesn't necessarily mean having a better life. There are differenty types of struggles that they are facing each day. Migrants who do not master certain skills continue doing "lower-class" work which are longer hours and lower pay. Due to the Hukou system, migrants are not considered as residents of the big cities which leads to social security issues. When they are sick, they cannot receive the same quality of service in the hospital. When they (especially males) want to get married, no girls would consider them because they are unable to provide a "financially stable" life in the city.

What new problems did they encounter? What of the children who are left behind?

Except those who couldn't walk or work, most people migrate to big cities to look for work. According to the founder of the "Freiends of Migrant Workers", urbanization of bigger cities broaden the gap between the poor and rich. The actual issue was never solved in rural areas. Even though migrants move to big cities, they are not entitled to health care or free edcation in big cities either due to the Hukou restriction. There was no compensation given to the workers who help with urbanization but also have families back in the rural areas.

For children who left behind, they are usually taken care of by the grandparents generation. Children's education is a dilemma to migrants parents. If children stay in the rural area, they are unable to receive high quality of education due to lack of teachers and facilities in the area. If children go to cities with their parents, they cannot be admitted to schools either due to no city residency.

A famous film directed by Zhang Yimou back in the 1990s explicitly exposed the poverty and education issue of children who are left behind. The film is called "Not One Less" (Yi Ge Dou Bu Neng Shao). I couldn't find a full movie on YouTube but there are quite a few clips you may want to watch to learn more of the left-behind children issue.

https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-how-close-to-china-is-too-close-for-israel-1.6576714

The article wonders about the consequences that this visit might have on the relations between Israel and it’s number one trading partner, the USA. China is Israel’s second largest trading partner. China will be building and operation two new ports in Israel. This has already created conflict with the USA, the U.S. Sixth Fleet might considere no longer using those ports. 

In the past the USA has forced Israel to cancel deals to sell weapons to China. The article wonders if Natanyahu is getting too friendly with the Chinese governement, and endangering Israel”s relationship with the USA.

The "why" of migration to urban centers seems obvious and eerily recognizable; these people are moving toward opportunity and the possiblities of improving their own well-being, much like the immigrants who come to the US seeking better opportunity. I am unsure if Chinese migrants engage in the same activity of US immigrants in that they send money home. What's more interesting to me is the intersection of some of your questions, Prof. Dube, regarding the reasons why migrants leave, the problems they solve and create, rthe children, and the rise of interest in faith.

Chinese migrants appear to move toward opportunity, which is what the Party wants in order to engender economic growth and tap into an almost limitless labor force in the form of rural migrant labor. These migrants, responding to demand for labor and demand for greater skills (shown in the Lu and Xia, 2013 labor statistics graphs regarding levels of education), have found the economic opportunities they seek and gain better living conditions and more disposable income. The problem is the people they leave behind; the children get profiled but the larger numbers, according to the tables from Lu and Ye (2017), belong to the women and elderly. Nonetheless, these people become even more marginalized by the separated family and disproportion in opportunity within the family; the greater prosperity of the migrant father and/or father and mother does not seem to trickle down to the rural leftovers. As a result, the broken family struggles and problems ensue; such as education issues for the children and lack of moral cohesion within the fmaily unit. Lu and Ye (2017) claim that this migration is responsible for the breakdown of family values, morals governing proper behavior and respect among each other. This is leading to a greater incidence, in particular, of teen pregnancy and abortion, and even marriage between minors for lack of other generatonal guidance. Faiths like Christianity and Falun Gong, bring with them definitive moral positions on behavior and their rising popularity may indicate a need by the people for more strict moral guidance. It is possible that the Chinese people, espeically the rural population, while wanting to stay true to their government's values overall, are lacking in spiritual and moral guidance to the extent that they are turning to faith-based options to help self-govern, in the spirit of Xiaobing, their spiritual and moral needs. 

The people of China has gone through a lot of changes in a relatively short amount of time. It has changed from having a small percentage of their people living in an urban area about 20% (early 1980’s) to currently having about 60% of its people living in urban areas. In comparison, according to some statistics that I found on http://www.census.gov, in 2015 about about 63% of people in the U.S.A. lived in urban areas. Back in the early 1900’s the USA already had a 39.6% Urban Population and 60.4% rural. 

China has experience a big shift from rural to urban. Originally the governement was very restrictive of their citizens movility within the country. Finally at the end of the 1970’s, the governement eased on the restrictions. People moved from small villages to the city in search of better economic opportunities, they have achieved economic success at the expense of social isolation and loneliness.

One way that urban citizens try to combat isolation in by the use of their highly monitored internet. Cell phones are a great choice for those who can afford them. Migrant workers with a tight budget use internet bars, where they can do video chats, play games or even watch movies.

U.S.A. Movies and video games are very popular in China, they are modified to meet Chinese government requirements for the Chinese market.

Now there are many colors and styles of clothing to choose from. Not only that, but the government now allows them to engage in social dancing. They can also choos among several USA restaurants such as KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks and even P.F. Chang’s.

Chinese citizens enjoy some religious freedoms, as long as it pre approved by the government of course. Catholic, and Protestan churches are allowed as long as they do not get in trouble with the local authorities. More local religions such as Buddhism, and  Falun Gong are presecuted by the governement. 

Currently Chinese citizens enjoy more freedoms than ever before since the Communist revolution, but these freedoms are highly restricted by their government.

Nira,

I agree with you that migrating to bigger cities does not necessarily equate to a better life.  And surely, it seems that in China, just like in the US, most migrants get stuck with the "lower class" menial jobs nobody wants to do.  Regardless, I feel that these menial jobs are essential to the functionality of a city, so despite the fact that migrants don't always have a better life in urban cities, their work is essential to the sucess of a city. In Los Angeles, there is a popular saying/wonder about what life would be "without a Mexican", and it is likely that the city would shut down because the contributions of immigrants are essential to the survival of Los Angeles.  In a similar way, I wonder what life would be like in  a city like Beijing if rural immigrants were to banish.  Certainly there would be less crowding, but to what lenght would the functionality of these great cities be affected?  Jonathan Woetzel offers a lot of compelling evidence that "migrants are the future of productive societies." At the same time, I ackonledge my positionality as a Mexican-American and of course my thoughts on immigrants are colored by my personal experiences.  You probably know a whole lot more on how rural immigrants play into the social fabric of China's big urban centers. 

Since China adopted "open-door" policy led by Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution, more and more foreign enterprises entered into the Chinese marketplaces.  Among them are Kodak, McDonal, KFC and Starbucks, to name a few.  I think international businesses and trades are beneficial to both China and America and their people.  Many businesses like Ford and McDonal often sell more in China than in the U.S.  This reflects demands of American goods in China that either improve or supplement Chinese people's lives.  Conversely, a trade war is detrimental to both countries and their poeple as well as to the world.  Fox Business identified 10 most vunlerable American companies that have the most market shares in China.  I wish the world leaders would listen to Dalai Lama's talks about creating and mainting harmony in society and peace in the world.