China has undergone major changes over the last few decades, its results exemplified through the phenomenal 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Buildings have sprung up over the once rural landscape, Shanghai's skyscrapers could be compared to New York City's, and the sheer transformation of Chinese cities is undeniable. And yet, the people physically behind this transformation are often overlooked, their stories are largely untold, and the conditions under which they live are muffled by the grandeur of what they've produced.
The migrant workers, the constituents of China's "floating population" (流动人口), are the reason for the urban metamorphosis. Having migrated from the rural areas of China to the cities for work, these migrant laborers are largely underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked. Stories of their lives, in which they work for little or nothing at all, have slowly surfaced into local and international news but only among those who are interested. The aim of this blog, therefore, is to promote awareness of their situation to the general public, and allow others to see what China's economic backbone truly consists of.
Wednesday
Urbanization in China - Who are the Migrant Laborers?
China's urbanization policy is one that aims to highly restrict internal migration. Using the hukou (户口) system of internal passports, in which each individual is given a rural or urban hukou that determines the legal and often binding area to which they must live, the Chinese government prevents massive migrations of country workers into the city from occurring. Nevertheless, the internal migrant labor migration is enormous, as the youth of the countryside often enter the cities illegally to work as migrant laborers; their occupations consist of factory workers, construction site workers, nannies and babysitters (保姆 baomu), hostesses and sex workers, among others. Migrant workers often go to large industrial cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to search for employment; the money they earn is sent to the families they have back home. and the little they have leftover is used or saved at their own leisure. More often than not, migrant workers, especially females, willingly spend their money and remake their physical appearance in order to appear like a native urbanite; in doing so, they are able to display their sophistication and attempt to mingle with the urbanites using consumerism as their leverage. |
Evolution of the Hukou
China’s politcal parties have attempted to control this floating population with the rise of the negative pressure the rural Hukou places on migrant workers attempting to situate themselves in urban cities for an economically stable setting or their child’s future. As migrants desperately vye for these Hukou’s, the government hands them only to those who meet impossible migrant standards; those who’ve obtained a professional degree, investors in a city's government budget, or those who are able to purchase high-end apartments[1].
Although the Chinese government has made minute concessions toward the Richie noveau in the metropolitan cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, smaller fishing and production cities have made “urban” Hukou much easier to acquire with a few years of domestic settlement in the city . Despite the seemingly straightforward way the government allows these citizens to obtain “urban” Hukous, the negative aspects of gaining a “urban” Hukou happen to be the loss of land in the migrants home city[2]. With these deficient choices, the migrants must choose to be either self-sufficient for themselves or for their future generation.
[1] Employment and Residence Regulations in Cities) (Beijing: Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, 2003
[2] Kam Wing Chan, ‘‘Internal labor migration in China: trends, geographical distribution and policies,’’
Proceedings of United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal
Migration and Development, ESA/P/WP206, United Nations (2008)
Chengzhongcun
Rural Urban migration growth in China has been responsible for 70% of the country’s urban population growth over the past three decades. Researchers in the field of Urban growth have dubbed the places where these migrants have settled as 城中村 (Chengzhongcun), or “village amid the city”. Land in these Chengzhongcun are allocated to migrants through village officials, but instead of acquiring an agricultural profession, these migrants instead build houses and rent them out as a way to procure more income. Hundreds of these Chengzhongcun in growing migrant factory cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The main reasons these villages exist is due to the fact that migrant workers can’t find affordable housing due to their low paying jobs along with the fact that migrants with rural hukou can’t apply for housing even in these villages as rural citizens.
Zhang, Kevin Honglin and Shunfeng Song, “Rural–Urban Migration and Urbanization in China:
Evidence from Time-Series and Cross-Section Analyses,” China Economic Review, 14, 4:386–
400, 2003.
The History of Guangzhou's Chengzhongcun
Guangzhou's Chengzhongcun started out when the Chinese government requisitioned houses and farmland in the city in order to build an "urban" city and in return gave land and money to the owners of these houses. Thus the locals discovered the very financially rewarding situation they were in, so they began to build more stories and more houses, leasing to new migrants on the outskirts of the city with increasingly smaller rooms and minimal walking space in between, leading to residents calling them "houses that kiss each other", "houses that shake hands", while outsiders called them "tumours" and "pustules" for their unclean appearence.
While Beijing's Chengzhongcun have been renamed multiple times, Guangzhou's
Chengzhongcun have kept their original names; in addition gates seperate the villages with the average number of inhabitants around 50,000 with only 40% having residence permits to live there. While both the natives of a village and new migrants are "marginalized" by the Chinese governemnt, one makes up the "novue richie" as the landlords, and the other the ones who live in slums, leading to an imbalance of societally equal citizens.
Gransow, Bettina. "Slum Formation or Urban Innovation? – Migrant Communities and Social Change in Chinese Megacities." Freie Universität Berlin and Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou, P.R. China. Print.
Guangzhou's Social Inequalities
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| A construction worker demolishing migrant slums. The image shows the average housing size a migrant is able to afford. (LIFE) |
The aggregate of creating smaller villages in order to "kick" them out of the city defines the Chinese societal ladder as one that has missing rungs. With the pursuit of new smaller cities instead of housing these citizens in a mega city supporting all of its residents, the government has issued a statement saying these migrants are second class citizens and will continue to stay that way, thereby eliminating the need for government effort in order to "support" them in health, insurance, or education benefits. This erroneous policy, while it has served the older generation as their needs weren't apparent in staying in the city, needs to change in order to accommodate the new generation, staking their future on lives in a city unwilling to accept them. Even those with college degrees from their province or city have only become white collar workers, not yet equivalent to the middle class.
While the older generation worked fields until they decided coming to cities and factory work was more financially stable compared to agriculture, while the new generation simply comes to the city for business and promising opportunities, as they lack the knowledge in working on a farm. Given this, the new generation's access to magazines, the Internet, and an pop-culture infused media has fueled the need to vie into materialism and what other people have instead of staying content with what they have. Metropolises look more appealing to this generation because that's what's portrayed on TV, sprawling homes with luxurious cars and rich decoration, but migrants are "forced" to live in apartments barely 10 meters squared, with 38.4% of total migrants in Guangzhou living in less than 5 meters squared.
Gransow, Bettina. "Slum Formation or Urban Innovation? – Migrant Communities and Social Change in Chinese Megacities." Freie Universität Berlin and Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou, P.R. China. Print.
Guangzhou's East Asian Games Urbanization
Guangzhou's recent 7 year urbanization method consisted of several Billion Yuan spent on infrastructure and "beautifying" the city for its East Asian Games hosted this earlier this year. Similar to Beijing's Olympic games in 2008 and Shanghai's Expo earlier this summer, Guanzhou has also reached a higher level of urbanization with an international event. With more than 14,000 athletes and officials from 45 countries attending this event, the magnitude of its "incredibility" shocks most migrants. A bigger, but unknown number, 30 million, is coupled with the number of migrants who came into the city looking for jobs once this event was hailed. With this monstrous event comes the underlying negative aspects, doled out to migrants, who are forced to work long and tiring hours for little pay and families tossed out of their homes in order to demolish houses that are deemed "eyesores".
Hailed as an "breakthrough" for Guangzhou's international image, the public are forced to accommodate more laws and regulations through this time. Though roads and structures have been rebuilt and foliage planted in order to resonate the "quintessential perfection" Guangzhou has achieved, workers have been inconvenienced by the law that requires drivers alternate days on the road in order to create less traffic, shutting down construction sites and factories, banned interior decoration, as well as evicting more than 600 beggars from the city. Migrants have been calling this event a "show" for Communist party officials rather than the people; bosses have been given tickets to see the games, while mere employees are stuck working, but if they had wanted to see the games, the likelihood that they would be able to afford it seems minimal.
Guanzhou residents unwilling to relinquish Rural Hukou in exchange for Urban Hukou
More than 30,000 migrant workers in Guanzhou in 2009 have been eligible to transfer their Hukou status from an rural one to an urban one, but less than 200 of them have actually gone through the motions of changing it. Hu, one Xiaoyan, one of these residents, stipulates the reason as the plots of land that they own in their hometowns being taken away once they request Urban Hukou. Another, Jiao Tianyin, says that he earns nearly 4000 extra Yuan per year as he can lease out the land for 100 yuan for one mu of farmland, and 30-50 Yuan for agricultural machinery with bonuses in food supplies. With this, if Jiao is without a job, he can at least fend for himself.
The negative aspects of this include the lack of insurance, education, or health benefits received by the native Hukou carriers; Current Chinese President Wen Jiaobao has promised to promote the urbanization of rural cites and restructure the Hukou in the next few years and has started by loosening the requirements for the Hukou, but keeping in place the rule that rural land must be returned once a Rural Hukou is given up in exchange for a Urban one.
Guangzhou's Advancement in Migrant Treatment
Guangzhou, another megacity (more than 10 million residents) has their share of migrant abuse. In 2008, once rural migrants entered the city, they were met with "informlisation", "relationships that are not regulated contractually, or legitimised by legal frameworks, but instead are based in large part on personal relations or social networks". Bordering on "illegals" with this issue, migrants are also asked to produce an irrational amount of papers including residence permits, work permits, employment registrations, and family planning certificates. Within these three are necessary in order to avoid deportation, the "three-without population"(sanwurenyuan), a valid ID, housing, and regular income. If a migrant were to lack these three essentials, he would be taken in to be deported (shourong qiansong zhidu), a measure not only used for "getting rid" of migrants, but also as a way for authorities to make money as they hold migrants for "ransom".
In 2003, Sun Zhigang, died from this practice as he was unprepared for paper checks and was thrown in jail for this crime. As this outraged the population, the Chinese government has since rescinded this practice. The Chinese governments view of these migrants as an "economic" force instead of actual citizens with civil rights has led to the disproportionate treatment of urban and rural residents. Now, the government, has to some extent tried to cooperate with migrant families due to realizing this. In 2006 residence statuses were starting to be legalized after numerous appeals to the government, resulting in the "Migrant Worker Problem Meeting", resulting in the practice of metting out easier sentences toward those without rural Hukous.
Gransow, Bettina. "Slum Formation or Urban Innovation? – Migrant Communities and Social Change in Chinese Megacities." Freie Universität Berlin and Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou, P.R. China. Print.
Saturday
Chengzhongcuns in Beijing
With 867 Chengzhongcun in Beijing, migrant workers play an important role in the urban city, occupying a total of 181 square km. A recent UCLA study from 2008 selected 50 cities from these Chengzhongcun and then 15-20 people in different geographical reigions from each chengzhongcun. This 756 completed surveys as well as several interview from different officials, show migrants vastly outnumber natives. Only 47.6% of migrants in these Chengzhongcun graduated from High school, the average of their wages are 1,984 Yuan compared to Beijing’s native 3,876 Yuan with nearly 75% working in China’s tertiary sector. Forced to live in tiny housing, these migrants on average occupy 13.2 square meters of living space whereas the average living space in Beijing is 80 Square meters. With these compact living spaces 90% of migrants in these Chengzhongcun don’t have bathrooms or kitchens, 86% don’t have heating, and 93.3% don’t have aircondioning. Although refridgerators are more essential than television, 50% more own televsions. Though living in these Chengzhongcuns, the average cost per meter of living space has around the same cost as one living in rural Beijing. Without hope for future progressions through living values, how can migrant workers hope to gain a better future?
Zheng, Siqi, Fenjie Long, C. Cindy Fan, and Yizhen Gu. "Urban Villages in China: A 2008 Survey of Migrant Settlements in Beijing." Eurasian Geography and Economics 50.4 (2009): 425-46. Print.
Monday
Statistical surveys concerning migrant living in Chengzhongcun's in Beijing
Zheng, Siqi, Fenjie Long, C. Cindy Fan, and Yizhen Gu. "Urban Villages in China: A 2008 Survey of Migrant Settlements in Beijing." Eurasian Geography and Economics 50.4 (2009): 425-46. Print.
Figures for Migrant Real Estate in Beijing Chengzhongcuns
Zheng, Siqi, Fenjie Long, C. Cindy Fan, and Yizhen Gu. "Urban Villages in China: A 2008 Survey of Migrant Settlements in Beijing." Eurasian Geography and Economics 50.4 (2009): 425-46. Print.
Migrant Laborers of Beijing
"Beijingers think we pollute their air and that our baggage takes their space. They always look at us scornfully, but our work alone is great. Without us, they couldn't live in their new houses...We have the same ideals in our childhood as people in Beijing, but we are not able to choose how to live. We have no money or education so Beijing can’t be our home."- Guo Tao, a Beijing migrant worker
China Daily, Sept. 9, 2003
Beijing's rapid urbanization is largely attributed to the work and efforts of the migrant workers who moved from the countryside into the city in attempt to find higher-paying wages. Approximately one million migrant workers comprises 90% of the construction worker population in Beijing, of which most of the recent workforce was directed towards the construction of the Beijing Olympics.
Such migrant laborers face considerable barriers to social acceptance. Given already the status of their hukou, which is immediately a stigma of social inferiority, migrant workers are barred from government-provided welfare such as medical care and public education. Work contracts are often not legally written out but instead are orally established, often leading to difficulties when it comes to payday or work-related medical coverage.
Sunday
Zhejiangcun
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| Zhejiang Village, Beijing. (Michael Dutton, Poverty in Beijing) |
Zhejiangcun (浙江村) (translated as Zhejiang village) is the biggest migrant settlement in China. Located only five miles south of Beijing, it originated from six migrant families into 1984 and by 1998 boasted of over 100,000 migrants. Known mostly for its local clothing business, Zhejiangcun represents an intricate network of people and their connections. Despite the deplorable conditions of the village, most migrants choose to stay and live among their fellow migrants due to the social network.
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| An alleyway in Zhejiangcun (Poverty in Beijing, Michael Dutton) |
Saturday
Woman in Zhejiangcun
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Wednesday
Zhejiangcun - Crime and Drugs
Zhejiangcun is already not the safest area due to discrimination against migrants as well as the the corrupt police system that distinctively puts migrants at a disadvantage unless they have connections within the police force. Migrants experience considerable fear at being robbed by both Beijing and Zhejiang liumang (流氓), or hooligans, who are often drug addicts as well.
Drugs are a serious problem in Zhejiangcun, developing into prominence around the 1990s. Drugs are easily accessed in the area due to lack of law enforcement and the high concentration of private wealth; migrants are introduced to the drugs upon arrival and slowly addicted. The migrants divide the drug addicts into two classes: chi dayan de (those who eat opium) and chou baifen de (those who smoke heroin [literally translated "white powder."])
Drug dealers hook the migrants early upon their arrival and, once the migrants are addicted, raise the prices to exorbitant amounts. The average heroin user spends up to 400 yuan per day, which accumulates to 100,000 yuan a year. When the drug addicts are arrested, their parents often rely on their connections with the police in order to bail their children (usually sons) out of jail. In doing so, they, in ways, allow their children to continue their drug addiction.
Drugs are a serious problem in Zhejiangcun, developing into prominence around the 1990s. Drugs are easily accessed in the area due to lack of law enforcement and the high concentration of private wealth; migrants are introduced to the drugs upon arrival and slowly addicted. The migrants divide the drug addicts into two classes: chi dayan de (those who eat opium) and chou baifen de (those who smoke heroin [literally translated "white powder."])
Drug dealers hook the migrants early upon their arrival and, once the migrants are addicted, raise the prices to exorbitant amounts. The average heroin user spends up to 400 yuan per day, which accumulates to 100,000 yuan a year. When the drug addicts are arrested, their parents often rely on their connections with the police in order to bail their children (usually sons) out of jail. In doing so, they, in ways, allow their children to continue their drug addiction.
Migrant Laborers in Beijing - 鸟巢。
Migrant Laborers in Beijing's Bird's Nest (Stadium of the 2008 Olympics)
Tuesday
Shanghai's Structural Expansion
Similar to Beijing’s exploitation of rural construction workers due to the high volume needed to build 2008 Olympic structures such as the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, Shanghai’ fuel to find construction migrants last year occurred with oral contracts, sub-par housing, and indecent hours. Shanghai’s chengzhongcun are characterized by poor quliality housing, limited buildings, and euphemisticall termed ghettos with poor hygiene and saftely conditins much like Beijing’s chengzhongcun.
According to the World Bank, China is expected to build more than half of the worlds construction with more than 2 Billion suquare meters of floor space every year between now and 2015. Shanghai is directly in part of this with construction allowing fiscal expeditures to grow 8% in a year due to the World Exposition. With a 17% population of liudong renkou, Shanghai consists of a large minority of Rurual Hukou status individuals. This megalith of people put strains on infrastructure, natural resources, and exacernbates the differnce between the already distant low and high classes.
Monday
Shanghai Housing Extremes
In Shanghai, with 13.6 million people living in an area of 6340 square kilometers, the population has nearly tripled over the last 50 years and is expected to quadruple by 2015. Although residents have started to grow the Chengzhongcun, this erection of the Chengzhongcun reacts only as a band aid to a national problem instead of solving it. With a formulaic equation for settling in housing, Shanghai’s rural migrants usually settle in the central city slum, then relocate into the intra-urban periphery.
A new group of people called “bridge-headers” have begun to maximize intentions of living near their place of employment. Small and tepid infrastructure such as the “dorms” of two/thirds of construction workers are built on construction sites to ensure timely work. Overall, 36% of migrants live where they work to save commune time and money. These buildings are frequently called “shanties” and are upgraded though they are essentially illegal apartments of “inferior quality on the urban fringe.”
A new group of people called “bridge-headers” have begun to maximize intentions of living near their place of employment. Small and tepid infrastructure such as the “dorms” of two/thirds of construction workers are built on construction sites to ensure timely work. Overall, 36% of migrants live where they work to save commune time and money. These buildings are frequently called “shanties” and are upgraded though they are essentially illegal apartments of “inferior quality on the urban fringe.”
"CONSTRUCTION WORKER HOUSING IN SHANGHAI INVESTIGATIONS OF URBAN MOBILITY – PART 1." Saa. Web. 19 Dec. 2010. .
Shanghai Government Intervening in Job Placements
The statistics from the Shanghai migrant population are largely due to poor and unqualified migrants being kept away from civil rights granting them access to basic amenities such as health care, insurance, and education benefits. Though this is widely known, discriminatory polices have led to an even further segregation of the urban and rural force; the Chinese government has passed laws guaranteeing a urban high position job over a rural applicant. While Shanghai businesses usually recruit members of their workforce from their own hometowns and provinces, the government has passed a law stating that companies must hire 15%-30% of urban laborers before beginning the process of looking for migrant workers.
The government has also segregated the working sector, naming three parts: The heavy industries and textiles, the mass consumer goods, and administration, with rising forms of "suitability" within each strata as migrants are guaranteed working in areas of heavy industries and textiles, but only allowed to work in mass consumer goods if the extreme need arises, with no potential to work in administration as the government believes the job to be too "difficult" for them, even going as far to publish a list of 22 jobs forbidden to them (taxi drivers, telephonists, insurance or bank clerks, and etc.)
Even though some migrants have achieved temporary resident statuses, they are still excluded from working in the government, public security, management of joint property, sales positions in state-owned stores, or in cleaning services. Though migrants are more freely able to move with in provinces and cities in order to complete their dreams, they're still hindered by the fact that they can only achieve so high a position before their denied their ambitions, not due to a lack of competence, but discriminatory measures meant to keep the urbanites on top.
Roulleau-Berge, Laurence, and Shi Lu. "Migrant Workers in Shanghai Inequality, Economic Enclaves, and the Various Routes to Employment." China Perspectives (2005). Print.
Sunday
Shenzhen Urbanization
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| A street in Shenzhen. |
Shenzhen was once a fishing city but has now transformed into a mega-city right across the border from Hong Kong. Now highly populated by locals, who were generations before farmers and fishermen, and migrants who arrive at the city in search for work opportunities, Shenzhen's landscape has transformed into one of many industries and what locals call "handshake houses," apartment complexes located so close to each other that one can shake hands with someone in the next complex.
The Shenzhen locals have grown extremely wealthy by transforming their farms into apartments and leasing them out to the influx of migrants that is constantly entering the city. The mindset of "looking down" upon migrants seems to be ubiquitous in China, where migrants are considered of a "lower" class than native Shenzhen citizens.
"China Urbanization: Shenzhen." PRI: The World. Reported by Mary Kay Magistad.
Classes of Shenzhen
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| Photo Credit given to Mary Kay Magistad |
Shenzhen is a city of migrants. Says Mary Ann O'Donnell, an anthropologist who has been living in Shenzhen for sixteen years, there are three general classes of people in Shenzhen. The first class is the locals, who were farmers before Shenzhen's urbanization and consist of approximately 300,000 people. The second class is the "white class," the migrants who have poured into Shenzhen and have transformed it into a mega-city in less than 30 years. The migrants look at the locals as the "nouveau riche" of Shenzhen, while the locals look at the migrants as the outsiders who work for them.
Pictures of Shenzhen
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| Shangbu Overpass, Downtown Shenzhen Photo credited to Mary Ann O'Donnell |
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| Songgang Road Photo credited to Mary Ann O'Donnell |
Migrant Women
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| Migrant women as they wait for a job-opportunity in Hangzhou (杭州), capital of Zhejiang Province Shanghai Daily, Sept. 16, 2009 |
Hangzhou, like many other major cities in China, is overflowing with migrant workers, with the exact number of migrants somewhere close to three million. Hangzhou is a magnet for many migrant women who are exploited as domestic workers (ayi 阿姨) or as masseuses in massage parlors that often have other implications behind the role.
Saturday
Birth Control for Migrants in Urban Areas
Women with more than one child already can be forced to have an intrauterine device (IUD) implanted to prevent the possibility of another child. The policy can also be implemented from afar, when the rural governments demand a cash deposit while the migrants are away from home in order to make sure that they do not have additional children. Violation of the one-child policy can lead to heavy fines or loss of residency or employment.
Zhang, Li. Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China's Floating Population. Stanford, California: 2001. 37. Print.
Reformation of Migrant Treatment
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| Shanghai Urban Construction Group workers visit Shanghai Expo after contributing to its construction. | (Chinatoday). |
Some Shanghai construction companies have recently taken the economic term of corporate responsibility. Shanghai Urban Construction Group has recently built movie theaters, exercise rooms, libraries, and Karaoke rooms for the psychological health of the workers.
As Zhang Haojun admits the now wide variety of applications that the company offers; initially, he was cut off from all sources of outside communication other than through his own personal cell phone. Now, he states that, "...once I’ve finished work I can use company facilities to watch TV, read books, play basketball or Chinese chess. I can watch a film for free every week too. It’s great.”
Monday
Conclusive Thoughts
While this blog in no way encompasses all cities in China that deal with migrants, we hope that the brief overview we have given illuminates in some way the driving force behind China's rapid urbanization. The social division between migrants and urbanites is one that is comparable to the social divisions existing in the developing process of any other country, but considering that this is one of the most massive internal migrations in the history of the world, some light ought to be shed on the subject.
China is a remarkable country that is growing increasingly urbanized and modern. With the combined forces of the local urbanites and the incoming migrants, we can only expect that China will continue to grow in leaps and bounds. However, as we close up this blog, we leave you in hopes that you have learned about a group of people whom you may have not acknowledged before, as well as their fundamental position in contributing to one of the greatest economies in the world.
China is a remarkable country that is growing increasingly urbanized and modern. With the combined forces of the local urbanites and the incoming migrants, we can only expect that China will continue to grow in leaps and bounds. However, as we close up this blog, we leave you in hopes that you have learned about a group of people whom you may have not acknowledged before, as well as their fundamental position in contributing to one of the greatest economies in the world.
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