ABSTRACT
This chapter delineates the major institutional and policy contexts that have influenced and prescribed the opportunities of families, leading to development disparities and health inequity among rural and urban children and children with different family configurations. We discuss the relevance of the hukou household registration system and its impact on aggravating the salient rural-urban social cleavage and the plight facing migrant laborers and their children during the process of rapid urbanization. We then look at the family planning policy and the subsequent demographic transition from extended families to much leaner family structure. Education policies on compulsory education and early child schooling are also examined. We address the rationale of the school consolidation campaign and its positive and negative effects on child development and education. Finally, we give an overview of the health care system and the rural urban inequality in access to medical care resources.
