Children without known parents or extended family in China either become state wards under the guardianship and responsibility of state child welfare institutions or live in informal non-kinship relationships with members of the community. In this second case, the welfare institutions sometimes also come to learn of these children and intervene in direct or indirect ways with these informal care families. Some institutions formalize and financially support the community family relationships when the children come to their attention. In recent years, the state has more publicly recognized its policy responsibility to these children, as scandals even resulting in children's deaths have gained a profile in public media.

In January 2013, seven children died in a house fire in Henan Province. A local street vendor had used her house to shelter many children, perhaps as many as 100, found abandoned over at least two decades. She was well known to the local community and officials, who had not intervened and, in fact, had sometimes directed others to her to leave children in her care. While deeply regretting the fire and loss of lives, nationally, government officials, scholars and the general public also queried the issues raised by the disaster. Among them was the debate about government obligations to protect abandoned babies and children in informal care. Why had the officials allowed or facilitated the woman to care for so many children? What other protection was available for the children? What would have happened to the children if she had not cared for them?

This chapter examines the implications of these informal care relationships for children as they become young adults. These questions are important for the larger questions about good types of alternative care that benefit the well-being and outcomes for children and young people in care and as they prepare to leave care. This chapter considers the advantages and disadvantages of informal care compared to institutional care, the role of government in supporting or prohibiting informal care, and the implications for social policy change to support these traditional arrangements.

The research participants were young people aged 16 years or more from Taiyuan who had experienced informal care during their childhood (listed in Table A.4 in Appendix 1).