1This paper explores the local governance of services for (im) migrant children through the lens of two not-for-profit organizations in Givors (Mission Locale, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes) and Shanghai (NGO SF, Shanghai).1 Without being comparative, because of some irreducible differences in scale and structure, this paper nevertheless aims to highlight some of the common experiences, representations, and themes that resonate with my work on the local governance and migration in Canadian and French cities.

2Three points in particular caught my attention. First, the provision of local services appears to be one answer to some limits of national policies. Both the French politique de la ville (city policy), which seeks to remedy social and economic inequalities in specific deprived urban areas (Donzelot 2006; Tissot 2018), as well as China’s hukou registration system, aimed at preventing rural migration to cities (Zhang 2013; Roulleau-Berger and Yan 2018), can be considered as powerful “peopling tools” governing territories (Desage, Morel Journel and Sala Pala 2014).

3Second, both interviews show the importance of understanding relationships among actors in the context of multilevel and intersectoral governance. These complex relations are particularly worth studying in centralized countries, such as France and China. To facilitate and enhance service delivery and social integration, the literature has highlighted the need to build close partnerships among stakeholders, whether they be from the government or from the not-for-profit or private sectors (for a review, see Fourot 2021). Reasons for greater collaboration include: the waste of resources caused by service duplication; policy failures due to the inadequacy of coordination with—and within—different divisions; the need to find innovative solutions that reach beyond administrative silos; the sharing of and sharing in both expertise and resources; and the decentralization and deconcentration of powers that make the challenge of coordination much more difficult (Huxham 1993; Williams 2012). Nevertheless, governance arrangements can quickly become dysfunctional, particularly when different interests, various cultures, and multiple forms of management and accountability coexist (Ansell and Gash 2008; Rigg and O’Mahony 2013). This is notably the case for partnerships involving actors playing multiple roles, like “government agencies as both funders and partners; local government as both government and community representatives, and community organizations as both service providers and community representatives” (Larner and Butler 2005, 93). Partnerships are not synonymous with equal power relationships, and service providers are more vulnerable than others given their non-dominant position in the policymaking process and their various forms of accountability (public, funders, boards, communities, etc.).

4Finally, in both cases, local actors are confronted with migration and the provision of integration services, even though children in China and the youth in France have not crossed international borders. Yet, cities are marked by internal boundaries and zones of urban segregation (for instance, Préteceille 2011; Roulleau-Berger and Yan 2018; Roulleau-Berger et al. 2020). These forms of social and geographical differentiation lead to a paradoxical situation where the lack of social mobility is an indicator of migration and the raison d’être of services provided to those who hold second-class citizenship status in their respective societies (Jenson and Papillon 2000).

5To explore these issues, the first section presents both organizations and the services they deliver to school-aged children in Shanghai and to teenagers and young adults in France. The second section focuses on their respective governance models.

Service Delivery by Not-for-Profit Organizations

The Social and Professional Integration of Immigrant Youth in Givors

6The Mission Locale is located in Givors, a small city located in the southern part of the agglomeration of Lyon (approximately 20,000 inhabitants). The Missions Locales were created during the 1980s and were conceived as a tool of the French national politique de la ville. By aiming to promote the economic development of the most impoverished neighborhoods in France, the politique de la ville can be considered as the primary answer given by the national state to respond to social and economic inequalities existing in urban areas since the 1980s (Lelévrier et al. 2017). Despite many changes in this state policy, the focus has always been on the territorial dimension of poverty—captured by the idea of “priority geography” (géographie prioritaire)—rather than on the social and ethnic characteristics of its inhabitants. Indeed, following the republican model of integration which favours a state-national model of citizenship based on universalism (Schnapper 2003), ethnic groups cannot be recognized as a legitimate public policy category without putting at risk the existence of the “One and Indivisible” Republic (Geddes and Guiraudon 2005, 70). In this context, anti-discrimination policies in France cannot be based on ethnicity. As stated by the Haut Conseil à l’intégration, “the question of integration cannot … be understood only in terms of discrimination” and cannot “be implemented through a policy of positive discrimination” (my translation, Cour des comptes 2005, 43). Because of these discursive, institutional, and legal constraints, French public authorities have dealt indirectly with the concentration of immigrants in urban settings. By adopting the politique de la ville, which avoids the direct consideration of ethnic criteria through the mechanism of positive territorial discrimination, immigrants or people with immigrant backgrounds are nevertheless affected by positive discrimination measures since they live in large numbers in priority neighborhoods (Jaillet 2003). However, priority neighborhoods’ residents are far from receiving “privileged” treatment from the French public services, in the sense that one generally understands affirmation discrimination (Epstein 2011). And after 40 years of the politique de la ville, severe inequalities persist.

7This is the case for Givors, which is characterized by a significant poverty level and unemployment rate, especially in the neighborhood of Les Vernes, one of these “priority neighborhoods” (quartiers prioritaires de la politique de la ville) which brings together the poorest residents of French urban territories (Roulleau-Berger et al. 2020). Ms Martin, social worker at Mission Locale is not originally from Givors; she moved there only two years before the interview was conducted, after having enjoyed a successful career in the region of Lyon since the early 2000s. Ms Martin graduated from a business school and has always worked with economic actors. This specific lens frames her understanding of the youth professional insertion as well as her evaluation of how partnerships with the private sector should be managed.

8In general, the Missions Locales aim to facilitate the social and professional integration of youth (16 to 25 years old). Despite a focus on employment, services also include all sorts of support to help young people navigate the challenges posed by their social and professional insertion. Overall, Ms Martin’s appreciation of the Mission Locale’s services is positive, although she notes that it could be more diversified. She notably regrets the lack of mental health services. She explains that referrals and appointments are needed to access mental health services, and there is no hotline that young people can call directly in Givors. One flagship program of the Missions Locales is the Garantie Jeunes, which is a partnership with employers willing to hire young people. In addition to work, the youth receive various services from the Mission Locale as well as an allowance of approximately €500 per month, up to a year.2 Ms Martin evaluates this program positively, and she considers that it is desperately needed, so that young people who “have nothing, literally” can access some resources.

9Indeed, the youth who are benefiting from the Mission Locale’s services face significant difficulties integrating into the workplace. As Ms Martin describes it: “Finding a job was not possible for them, accessing training was not possible, nothing is possible for them.” Most of them went to the same high school in Givors and left school with a low level of qualification.3 According to Ms Martin, a majority of them struggle with low self-esteem and need specific support to become familiar with everyday activities (opening a bank account, taking care of their health, accessing recreational and physical activities). Her description of the youth’s situation fits with the statistical portrait of priority neighborhoods’ inhabitants.

10Indeed, these residents follow more erratic employment integration paths, face higher unemployment rates, have more precarious jobs and working conditions, and are more often hired on fixed-term contracts or for temporary work. These professional trajectories are impacted by the young people’s shorter length of education (higher school dropout rate and school orientation in low-skilled professional fields) and by their parents’ activity and employment (Mas 2019; Roulleau Berger et al. 2020).

11Families are indeed often mentioned by Ms Martin. She stresses a high level of domestic precariousness and family units in crisis. Moreover, several youths are isolated and no longer live with their parents. This situation becomes even more complicated when some, in turn, become parents. She believes it is a critical issue—particularly for young women—and plans to add a gender lens to the services they are offering. She explains:

… we will also work on relationships between girls and boys, the violence of these relationships, and the place of women in society, in public places, etc. … There are still some places in the city where women do not go because they are “places for men,” things that are quite significant in this territory. So yes, these are questions that interest me, like questions of sexuality. We still have very, very young pregnant girls quite regularly. And young dads too. So, I think there may be some sex education that is needed.

12These remarks on sexuality, as well as on mental health, illustrate that Ms Martin’s concerns regarding the youths go beyond the framing of employability/professional insertion. She states that “it is very important that the youth feel welcome here [at the Mission Locale].” She emphasizes the need to be “attentive to the services we deliver, to question ourselves about how we welcome the youth, to listen to them too.” In general, she has positive assumptions about the youth in Givors. Her willingness to protect “her” youth is palpable throughout this interview. Several times she insists on destigmatizing the youth of Givors who, according to her, have earned a reputation they do not deserve (incivility, violence). To illustrate her point, she notably compares them with those living in the eastern suburbs of Lyon (Vaulx-en-Velin, Meyzieu, Décines), where she previously worked, and insists on saying that she does not “feel insecure at all in Givors, at all.”

13Ms Martin also mentions that young people’s attitudes towards work have changed in general and that we should not limit behavioral issues solely to young people with low levels of qualification (and an immigrant background). This is particularly interesting because even though she insists on destigmatizing the youth and puts an emphasis on some of the structural reasons for unemployment (notably skills mismatch, labor market tensions, lack of mobility, isolation, and lack of social networks), she does not recognize the systemic or indirect discrimination that the youth are facing. For instance, she is aware that they feel discriminated against and penalized for living in specific neighborhoods, such as “Les Vernes.” She recalls:

The priority neighborhoods, it’s almost 60 % of the city, but Les Vernes neighborhood is even more degraded than the other ones. [Silence.] In any case, they [the youth] feel it, they express it. We had meetings in the neighborhood; they express it strongly; they feel discriminated against. They say: There’s no job when you live in Givors. They were talking about the recruitment at Carrefour [a supermarket chain], and they said: They don’t hire youth from the 6-9, they only hire the youth from the 4-2!4

14But when asked by the interviewer if she would corroborate this employer’s discrimination, she says:

I don’t think it’s true. In any case, we do not have that impression. After, indeed, the young people of Les Vernes neighborhood are a little bit more stigmatized than the others. But, it’s difficult to perceive it. In any case, what I feel is that young people, themselves, feel discriminated against and they express it.

15According to her, the current labor market prevents more direct forms of discrimination:

There have been no cases [of discrimination] here, I haven’t heard of anyone. I haven’t had any feedback from colleagues who say to me, “you see, he was not hired because of this …” I have never heard anything like that. This is not what I experienced a few years ago when there were things and words from downright clear employers.

16This understanding of discrimination as “direct prejudice” only (rather than recognising more “subtle” or systemic forms of discrimination) is unexpected when numerous studies have documented blatant or indirect territorial, ethnic, racial, and religious biases against the youth “des banlieues” in terms of labor market opportunities (among others, Adida, Laitin, and Valfort 2010). Moreover, Ms Martin did not mention immigration except at the beginning of the interview, and then it was just to recall the history of the city and its different “immigration waves.” At no other time does she refer to the immigrant background of the youth who are benefiting from the Mission Locale’s services. Albeit surprising, this non-recognition of discrimination is not isolated among local and national actors working in the employment sector. It shows a form of internalization of norms embedded in the politique de la ville and the French Republican model, leading to a type of blindness towards ethnicity and immigration.

17This pervasiveness of the French Republican model and its “citizens’ community” resonates with my work on anti-discrimination policies at the local level. By studying the implementation of the program “Chinese From Europe and Integration,” founded by the European Commission at the beginning of the 2000s, I showed the limits of the diffusion of policies against ethnic and racial discrimination in France. Initially set up to take anti-discrimination measures on behalf of new Chinese migrants in Paris (unaccompanied minors and women from the Zhejiang Province in particular), the program took a completely different form once it was implemented by local actors, namely the City of Paris, one Mission Locale, and several not-for-profit organizations. In these stakeholders’ view, Chinese women and youth were first and foremost considered the “victims” of the “Chinese community” or “their families.” The idea that discrimination may also come from the local host society was absent from their discourses; and local actors framed the project in terms of the fight against communitarianism instead (Fourot 2007).

Migrant Children’s Integration via Education and Recreational Activities in Shanghai

18In the early 2000s, SF started as a small organization in the Shanghai megalopolis (24.2 million inhabitants). Given that currently the world’s most significant rural-to-urban migration flows occur in China (Dilworth, Clothey, and Adams 2020), it appears evident that the hukou system—originally aimed at tightly restricting population mobility to impede rural-to-urban and small city–to–large city exodus while promoting migration in the opposite direction (Wang 2010)—has changed over time.

19Initially set up in 1958 in the context of a shortage of cereals and migration to cities, the central government has lessened the hukou system since the end of the 1970s (Roulleau-Berger and Yan 2017). For instance, Deng Xiaoping introduced in the 1980s a series of economic reforms that triggered massive migration within the country (Ming 2013). Nonetheless, the pressure of the migrants themselves, the consolidation of networks of migration in villages (Mallee 2003), and the actions of some local governments and their willingness to attract investors, “talent,” or skilled workers (Wang 2010) were also factors that contributed to this trend. If nowadays, authorities have considerably relaxed restrictions on internal movements, the hukou system remains critical in differentiating a permanent versus a temporary urban residence and in discriminating against people’s rights. Indeed, a rural hukou inhibits migrants from benefiting from an equal allocation of social services (education, welfare, employment, and other public resources) that are enjoyed by the other city residents. As such, it constitutes a powerful tool of social stratification in China (Zhang 2013).

20The migration of families started to increase in the 1990s, leading to growing numbers of migrant children in Chinese cities, notably in Shanghai and Beijing (Ming 2013). These “floating” children might have moved to the city when they were very young, and some of them might have been born in Shanghai. In all cases, their residence permits do not differ from those of their parents because they inherit the citizenship status of their parents, no matter the length of their stay in the city (Yiu 2016). Since the 1990s, the central government has stipulated that host cities should ensure that children have access to education. Nevertheless, local governments have implemented these policies differently (Ming 2013). As a result, few migrant children were registered in expensive schools, while the majority attended unlicensed migrant-run schools (Mallee 2003). Nowadays, the registration of migrant children in public schools seems to be more effective. In 2008, Shanghai was the first Chinese city to legalize migrant children’s right to public school enrollment (Yiu 2016). Yet, it is often done under strict conditions: for instance, in Shanghai, families must be long-term residents and have steady jobs (Liu et al. 2018). Moreover, the most critical restriction for migrant children, namely their exclusion from post-secondary opportunities in the city, still applies. Therefore, migrant children are not allowed to undertake further studies in their city of residence and have to go back to their parents’ hometown to do so (Yiu 2016).

21Similar to other migrant children in China, the kids enrolled in SF’s activities belong to families that earn a fraction of what the urban-hukou residents make, have a more erratic income, and have more unstable jobs (Roulleau-Berger and Yan 2017). Indeed, as explained by the SF director, migrant children’s parents usually work in segregated and stratified job markets, in low-skilled and low-paying industries, such as the manufacturing sector, service industry (e.g. cleaning or housekeeping), and construction. According to Liu, some of them are small retailers and have a better economic situation, but this tends to be rarer.

22Since migrant parents often have little time or the knowledge to help their kids with school homework, several volunteers were determined to step in and started to go to migrant children’s homes (aged 5–14 years) to provide them with academic counselling (maths, Mandarin, English, etc.). Over time, the organization has grown and professionalized, and currently SF has four full-time staff members and numerous volunteers. Two centers—one located in the Jing’an district (city center) and the other one in the Minhang district (immediate suburb)—are currently operating. The SF director has been involved with this organization since the beginning. Liu attended Fudan University in Shanghai, where he studied social work and sociology. Although he earned all the credits for the courses, he did not write his graduation thesis and did not receive his degree. Instead, he decided to work with the SF organization immediately after the completion of his courses. His education has had a profound impact on him. Indeed, Liu analyzes the situation of migrant children through a structural lens, rather than through an individual one: “While studying such majors, I thought more about it. It made me feel that it was not the children themselves who had problems, but the system.”

23At present, activities at SF are very diverse and aim to meet the needs and the interests of the children and their families. They include outdoor activities, piano lessons, weekend classes, and winter and summer vacation, as well as night shifts in case parents are working and are unavailable to pick up their children from school. Several projects (such as a library) are ongoing. Up to now, the project has provided more than 100,000 hours of service to more than 2,000 migrant children and their parents. The director also notes that several children live with a single parent. He insists on the importance of helping the children on two levels. The first focuses on “learning and play,” and the second on the “children’s personality and behaviors.” He acknowledges that migrant children face a significant “lack of resources and support” as well as a lack of “self-confidence.” At the same time, he insists on being positive and provides several examples of children who, despite their rural hukou, can be considered “successful.” He gave the example of one child who went back home after graduating from high school in Shanghai, whereas the other one stayed in Shanghai and did not graduate:

Let me give you two examples of SF children. … The first one is now back home. … He studied for two or three years in a design institute, now he has graduated, and is preparing to start his own business in design, back home, in Anhui. There’s another kid who was, uh, very undisciplined. He also finished junior high school, but he did not go to high school and had been staying in Shanghai instead. Now he is working in the delivery industry. Then, it’s not very good at the moment. Some time ago, he owed money, and he borrowed money from me so he can pay his debt. You know, it’s hard to be a delivery man now. It’s a very tough job. But now, at least, he is down-to-earth, he’s working, although delivery is very hard. Then … his personality, his father and mother are divorced, his parents do not care much about him; he has to rely on himself …. But it’s better now, and he is down-to-earth, he’s doing things.

Interviewer: So, would you say that you and your team are frustrated? Do you consider that you have not achieved your goals?

Respondent: No, I think, like the child I just mentioned; he can work steadfastly now. He has done nothing against the law. I think this is our success because he was a very naughty child at that time. We were all very worried about his journey. But, at least, he’s working very hard now, and that’s a success. And sometimes when he needs help, he will think of us and contact us. He will let us know what’s going on. He has not given up hope in life.

24For Liu, it is essential not to focus only on the children’s “weaknesses” or their “problems,” but to respect the children and not make them feel like they are weak. For that reason, he is very critical of some not-for-profit organizations and private businesses whose help is harmful to the children and who do not hesitate to use child poverty to advertise their work. Liu explains:

Interviewer: What activities are not suitable for children?

Respondent: It’s very simple. Now, many public welfare organizations are not very good. It’s like … some companies support needy children, and they let them go to the stage to get their subsidies. This is obviously very harmful to children. It’s insulting. They are taking pictures.

25As for Ms Martin in Givors, the motivation to help children and the youth is palpable. To refer to the different forms of relationships between service providers and their “public” identified by Roulleau Berger et al. (2020, 112), both directors seem to develop relationships based on “solidarity.” Both of them see their work as a means to help the youth and the children to foster internal resources, such as self-confidence, adaptability, knowledge, and skills. They are also aware of the importance of offering a welcoming environment that will make them feel appreciated. In other words, they are aiming to develop their resilience, a concept that has been increasingly mobilized in migration studies, notably in North America (see Dauphin and Veronis 2021).

Governance Models

26In order to explore the relationships among stakeholders in the social policy domain, I will (i) present the position of not-for-profit actors in the local governance of service delivery, and then (ii) analyze their evaluation of such relations.

Being Considered as an Economic Actor Rather Than a Socio-Cultural Association

27Missions Locales have an associative status but operate under a public service delegation contract. Local elected officials chair them. Their funding is shared between the state, municipalities, regional authorities, and inter-municipal institutions, as well as the European Social Fund. The Missions Locales allow the territorial implementation and adaptation of national policies in the area of youth professional insertion, notably through the development of partnerships and networks with economic, political, public, and associative actors. In Givors, the Mission Locale works with Pôle Emploi—a governmental agency that helps unemployed people find jobs and provides them with financial aid—as well as with businesses and temporary employment agencies. For instance, Ms Martin explains that the Mission Locale, along with two major public stakeholders in employment (i.e. Pôle Emploi and Plan Local pour l’Insertion et l’Emploi), plans to open an “Employment and Vocational Training Office” in Les Vernes, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of Givors. The goal is to pool the resources and the services offered at the neighborhood level, to make their services more identifiable and more accessible to the youth. According to Ms Martin, this pooling of resources might be inevitable, since she believes that “the service offer in terms of employment and social integration is becoming poorer, so it’s better to work together rather than stepping on our feet.”

28Overall, she evaluates the functioning of partnerships rather positively: “It’s a strong partnership. Not very developed in terms of service offerings, but the partners work well together, it’s healthy, there is a desire to get things done, so it’s very pleasant.” She continues:

We are four at the table to find a solution. And we do! That’s worth gold. Let’s say that if a youth is in a desperate situation on a Friday night, well, we know that we can call the Métropole5 and that they will find emergency solutions. Even if their services are overstrained …. It’s not the case everywhere. I think it’s a real asset, that’s for sure.

29The main challenge seems to be the “image” of the Mission Locale. According to her, its mandates seem unclear for some partners, such as the municipality of Givors, which tends to associate the Mission Locale with socio-cultural activities rather than with employment and economic development. Martin explains: “It’s not instinctive. We are not necessarily associated with economic development. Yet, if there is an economic activity that is developed here, we should be informed!”

30Although the Missions Locales are not new, their mandates can be mistaken since (i) their statuses mix both governmental and associative characteristics, and (ii) they are linked to both a specific territory and a national network. These ambiguities might be more noticeable in this particular case because of the previous preferred name of the Mission Locale—MIFIVA, or Mission intercommunale pour la formation et l’insertion dans la vie active—which evokes an organization with local ties, rather than national ones. Ms Martin clarifies:

We see it after two years; we are better known, identified as a Mission Locale. Because a particularity of this territory is that the Mission Locale was called Inter-municipal Mission for training and integration into working life, MIFIVA, very pretty! [Smile]. So, everyone knew MIFIVA, except that MIFIVA is an association and we did not associate it with a Mission Locale. So, it’s been two years that I hassle everyone by saying: “No, no, here it’s not MIFIVA, it’s the Mission Locale Rhône Sud,” and I think that, in the end, after two years, they understood [Smile]. … Now they know it’s not a specific local structure, but it is indeed a Mission Locale that integrates the network of Missions Locales. At the departmental level, we have a departmental network, at the regional level, at the national level as well …. We have a public service mandate. We offer public services for young people. We work closely with Pôle Emploi; we have joint actions. These are all things that we pushed forward, and it seems that now, it is less confusing for partners.

31To be considered as an economic actor is critical for Ms Martin. In terms of communication, she is worried that a dominant socio-cultural image might damage their relationships with the business sector. She explains: “I think it’s important, including for the image that we send back to the companies we want to work with. The community in general needs to see us as an actor of employment and integration, and not as a socio-cultural association [Laughter].” Following the politique de la ville framing, Ms Martin stresses the importance of the territory’s attractiveness. But this is also in continuity with her entire career and a way to stand out from the Mission Locale’s previous team.

Keeping Its Independence from the Local Government in Shanghai

32Most of the volunteers who created SF were already members of one non-governmental organization, Home-Loving, located in the Shanghai Jing’an district. Since some of them were already working with this association, SF was attached to it as a project. Over time, SF managed to become more autonomous. Liu describes the relationships between the two associations as being harmonious, in particular because they are somewhat independent, notably in terms of finance. Similarly, he says that there are conflicts with the board (composed of four members, including him), even though some tensions might arise regarding the nature of the relationship with the municipal government, a partnership that the director would rather avoid, despite the money SF could receive from it:

Like the Council, it’s going to conflict with me a little. The Council, they want more cooperation with the government. They hoped to establish a relationship with the government because now Shanghai has a strong government. They wished to have a good relationship with the government. (Humm) and that with more resources, they think we can run summer schools.

33Keeping his independence is critical for the SF director. Several reasons are evoked. First, the number and the duration of meetings with the municipal government are too burdensome. According to Liu, “It’s always inexplicably like: you go to meetings, and then there will always be a variety of other information [laughter].” Later in the interview, he also explains that the Shanghai government also uses these meetings to “publicize its plan and policy,” which “has little to do with us.”

34Second, reporting to the municipal government is very complicated and time-consuming because Shanghai bureaucracy requires tedious operational and financial audits. Liu explains that once the partnership is in place, civil society organizations are asked to “fill out various forms.” The time needed to report to the government has negative consequences on activities, and it is considered a waste of human resources. The requirements are so cumbersome that they even disrupt the flow of activities. As the director says:

They [the municipal government staff] want every child who is participating in our projects to sign an attestation. Every single time. Each signature takes a long time. It completely disturbs the rhythm of our classes. Because they all have to sign, they must sign.

35In sum, Liu considers that the resources and efforts needed to get some funding from the municipal government are too high with regard to the actual amount he can get from it. He describes the procedures as being “very rigid,” like “robots who must do so and so.” He makes it clear: “we simply can’t accept it, and we don’t want the money, because the 30,000 yuan is not a very large amount. For the 30,000 yuan, the staff is dog tired. [Right]. Then, I might as well not have the money.”

36In addition to these administrative constraints, Liu mentions the restrictions on the use of funds, which might lead to a profound and non-desirable change for the organization. To the specific question of the relationships with the municipal government and the possibility to access “a lot of resources,” Liu’s answer leaves little room for doubt: “Yes, yes. But having a good relationship with the government means you have to give up a lot. You might have to give up some of the core missions, some of your very original reasons to do things.” For instance, getting more government money could allow SF to become a bigger organization and to open a summer school, as suggested by the Council.

37Nevertheless, for Liu, this option is not conceivable, because he wants to focus on migrants’ children and not on all disadvantaged kids. He continues: “because we don’t need the government, we don’t need to please him.” In Liu’s case, accepting the government’s money seems to be a synonym for endorsing municipal views on migrants: even though this position towards migrants is not communicated, the director is confident that internal directives ask municipal staff to decrease the number of services offered to migrant children. To him, this hostility towards migrants is reinforced by the perception that the municipal staff, who earn an urban hukou, want to protect their cultural and socioeconomic group by maintaining migrants’ status as second-class citizens.

38Indeed, in “super-large” cities like Shanghai, the control of the urbanization rate has become a priority. The Shanghai City Development Plan 2016–2040, for instance, aims to limit the population to 25 million, notably by controlling poor migrant populations (Liu, Kathryn and Zhang 2018). The presence of more than 20 million rural migrant children poses extraordinary challenges to municipal governments, which face the dilemma of integrating this growing population while at the same time enforcing strict migration policies so that migrants do not “overwhelm” the city and its infrastructure (Yiu 2016). According to the SF director, this restrictive and discriminatory approach to migrants is illustrated by the changes Shanghai went through in the last ten years, such as the demolition of small and poor residential buildings in the old city center and their replacement by high-rise buildings, as well as the transformation of residential districts into commercial ones. Then, by increasing the price of commercial rentals, the Shanghai municipal government uses its own tools to make them unaffordable for small businesses (notably owned by rural migrants) and not-for-profit organizations, while enriching its municipal finances via land leasing, an essential source of enrichment, making the local government a somewhat independent actor (Dilworth, Clothey and Adams 2020).

39This is important from a governance point of view. As analyzed by Holly H. Ming (2013), these self-generated revenues impact how the central government can force cities to implement national policies, in particular policies enacted after the increase of decentralization and fiscal reforms in China since the 1980s. Contradictions and tensions between central and local governments have been observed since then, which is particularly problematic for migrant children. Indeed, even though the central government maintains that the education of migrant children is the cities’ responsibility, the latter tend to be reluctant to use their education budget for migrant children—as this is considered as being unpopular among the local residents—and they have no incentives to include low-skilled migrants in their social welfare. In this context, it is not likely that local hukou policies will benefit the most disadvantaged groups of rural migrant workers and their children.

40By not working with the municipal government, the SF director is clearly trying to protect his independence. Broadly speaking, protecting their autonomy from funders is a critical issue for not-for-profit organizations in many different contexts. In Canada, for instance, where networks and partnerships are considered as essential mechanisms to policymaking, closer integration in the policymaking processes can result in a more significant financial dependence, limiting not-for-profit organizations’ capacity to tailor their activities and services. Stakeholders who observe this dynamic see it as a form of asymmetrical power relations, some even describing them as “father-child relationships” between a federal government that funds the services and those who deliver them. In all cases, the funder’s presence at the table influences the other actors’ discourses, including those of city governments, which avoid controversial topics deemed “too political” (Fourot 2021).

41In this context, Liu prefers to work with national and international foundations that place more emphasis on the processes and the outcomes of associations helping migrant children. As a result, more than 90 % of the organization’s funding comes from foundations (Lianquan, Oxfam Hong Kong, and the Shanghai Charity Foundation). Liu reports that this type of financing is relatively stable. Foundations require reporting and auditing—such as mid-term evaluation—but they seem to be more sensible, and to focus more on the outcomes as opposed to outputs. As Liu explains:

The government mostly adopts performance logic. It doesn’t really care about the service itself. What mostly matters is if services can be reflected in political achievements. But as far as we are concerned, as non-governmental organizations, we really do hope to do something.

42The question of the “origin” of funding is critical to understanding the relationships between the not-for-profit-sector and the government. Indeed, receiving the same amount of money but from two different funders makes a notable difference in terms of power relations, leadership, credit, and competition. I find the following example particularly relevant.

43In 2012, the Canadian federal government decided to harmonize newcomer settlement services across the country and “repatriate” the services that were still managed by two provinces, namely British Columbia and Manitoba (respectively since 1998 and 1996).6 In other words, instead of funding the provinces and letting them distribute the money to the settlement sector, the federal government decided to support the service providers directly. Although the federal justification for the repatriation was the need for a consistent level of settlement services across Canada, other factors were at play. Visibility was a peculiar concern for the federal government. For instance, a provincial public servant recalled that when the settlement decision was announced, the federal government expressed the need for a national program, for which it would be taking authority and credit for the money it was spending. Although the amount of funding was not in jeopardy, settlement organizations showed considerable anxiety, confusion, and dismay at this unilateral decision. In both provinces, the service settlement sector feared that this national harmonization would reduce flexibility and weaken the ability of settlement agencies to respond to the specific needs of immigrants in their province. They were alarmed by more rigid administrative practices, a different working culture, and more restrictive eligibility requirements. Changes brought by the federal repatriation were indeed visible, for instance, there was a greater emphasis on outputs reporting and auditing. Similarly to SF, the scale of funding does matter (Fourot 2018).