Urbanization in China - Who are the Migrant Laborers?

Figure from Kojima, Reeitsu. "Urbanization in China." The Developing Economies, XXXIII-2, (June 1995)

Urbanization in China has been occurring for over fifty years, consisting of a cyclic pattern of urbanization and rustication resulting from the Great Leap Forward and the consequential Cultural Revolution. Up to the 1970s, urbanization policies were enforced and thus urbanization was slow. By the 1980s, however, China's urbanization undoubtedly was at the highest pace in the world (Kojima). Despite the explosion of growth, the urban areas of China experience no great degree of unemployment (~ 3-4%), low poverty levels (~4-6%), and contained urban sprawl (worldbank). This may be due in part to China's urbanization policy.

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.