Chinese Migrant Workers Lecture

Last week, one of the Chinese professors from Xiamen University taught us a one-hour lecture about Chinese migrant workers, and it was so fascinating!! A migrant worker is a person that comes to the city from the rural areas of China in order to find work. In 2012, there were 263 million migrant workers. They generally came to the cities in between planting seasons and return to their villages to farm during the planting season.

These migrant workers’ standard of living is very poor because they do not receive the same public services (such as access to public schooling, healthcare, unemployment, etc.) as do the native urban residents. In fact, these migrant workers are compared to illegal immigrants in the USA because these rural residents do not have legal status in the urban areas. In order to receive full public services, they would have to return to their village of origin.

China has what they call a Hokou, or a house registration system, where every citizen of China is registered with their house (parents or spouse and children) and that registration indicates whether they are a rural or urban resident and of what village or city. Residency is generally established on where their mother is from since the mother is generally not the one to go to the cities to look for work. They are also given an ID card showing all their hokou information. They have to show their ID card in order to receive public services. A rural resident can become an urban resident if they marry an urban resident but, like trying to get a green card in the USA, they have to go through a lengthy application process and wait many years. Even then, it is not always successful. They can also become an urban resident through military service or going to university in a city. Otherwise it is a very difficult and long application process to change your hokou to allow you to move to a city or even a different village.

Migrant workers began coming the cities in the 1980s. Back then, the cities welcomed them because the economy was booming and the cities were growing and needed workers to help build them. Consequently, many of the older generations of migrant workers worked in construction. But once the cities discovered that the migrant workers weren’t going back to their rural villages, then the city had to think of ways to motivate them to return to the country. So the cities purposely started discriminating against the migrant workers by denying them public services, charging the companies that employed the migrant workers fees, and in some cases, making it illegal for some industries to employ them at all.

Newer generations of migrant workers, in an effort to avoid some of the discrimination, prefer to work in manufacturing and service industries, receive more education, and try to dress like the urban residents. They have little experience with farming life, and they are more aware of freedoms and rights. Consequently, there is kind of a civil rights movement happening in China right now for these migrant workers. Some see these migrant workers and their changing lifestyle as symbolic of China’s progress in development.

Culturally, the Chinese don’t like to travel because Confucius taught that children should not leave their parents, but remain in their native villages to care for their parents until they pass away and then the children could leave. But the Chinese will travel if they have to for such reasons as education or work. So there is a negative connotation on those that are required to travel.