The parenting skills and habits of China's migrant workers may vary depending on the region they come from, a recent survey revealed.

For instance, the survey conducted by On the Way to School found out that migrant workers from Southwest China who leave their children at home performed poorly at parenting as compared to their counterparts in Eastern China, China Daily reported.

Like Us on Facebook

"The frequency of migrant parents seeing and contacting their children in different regions varies," noted Li Yifei, a senior researcher at the Scientific Communication and Education Research Center at Beijing Normal University, who spearheaded the survey.

The survey likewise learned that migrant workers from China's eastern regions and provinces visit and contact their children more frequently than those from other places in the country.

"Parents who are migrant workers should care more about their left-behind children by contacting or visiting them more frequently," Liu pointed out.

They survey, conducted from October 2015 to April of this year, received almost 7,000 responses coming from 14 provinces across the country.

"Through the survey, we realized that the worst situation for left-behind children is when both parents are working away from home," Liu explained.

"In these cases, parents make telephone calls or come back home to visit their children the least frequently," he added.

The results of a similar survey carried out by On the Way to School last year showed that about 15 percent of children in China who were left behind by their migrant worker parents didn't have any physical contact with their fathers and mothers for a year.

Moreover, only four percent received telephone calls from parents once a year.

Zhai Meixiang, 12, mused that she only saw her parents once a year during Spring Festival.

"When I miss them, I make telephone calls to them," she shared. "But in most cases, I solve problems on my own."

Zhai, who lives in Central China's Hunan province, related that her parents are both working in East China's Zhejiang province and left her behind when she was only four.

According to the All China Women's Federation, there were about 61 million children China who were left behind by their migrant worker parents in 2013. 

Tagschina, China Migrant Workers, Scientific Communication and Education Research