Located in Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, the fieldwork counties of Eastern County, Western County, Tranquil County and Jade County shared many characteristics. These included: a devalued ‘rural’ status; a prevalence of low-quality and low-paying local off-farm jobs; histories of economic and educational deprivation manifest in the grandparents’ and parents’ emplaced biographies; and a patriarchal family culture. In the 2010s these counties also had high rates of labour migration with over half of rural children affected by the migration of at least one parent. At the same time, the four fieldwork sites had distinctive features that impacted on the children’s lives. Specifically, the counties each had their own linkages to certain ‘outside’ places and economic sectors that intersected with other aspects of local geographic context such as physical location, the local school regime characteristics – including whether there were school boarding facilities, school lunches and private schools – and customary gender relations and divisions of labour. These factors affected the immediate setting within which families deliberated who should and could migrate and who should and could deliver childcare, which in turn influenced the children’s experiences of daily care and routines in and around school, and their expectations of parental support for their education.