Migrant workers in the economic crisis - the view from the ground
One of the big unknowns about how China is dealing with the economic crisis is the situation of migrant workers. At the beginning of the year, reports of 20m unemployed migrant workers conjured dark visions of social unrest. Fast forward several months, and the National Bureau of Statistics has published a note suggesting that the vast majority of migrant workers have in fact found work, and the ones that have not have industriously started their own micro-enterprises. An unemployed horde laying waste the social order or happy workers returning from the fields to the factories? The truth lies somewhere in between.
Huong Trieu is a PhD student at the University of Michigan, focusing on access to public services for migrants in China. She has spent the last 6 months conducting field research amongst migrant communities in Beijing, and will spend another year performing research in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong. She was kind enough to answer Chinatranslated’s questions on the migrant worker situation.
Chinatranslated: We hear a lot about how migrant workers are being affected by the economic crisis, you have spent a lot of time interviewing migrant workers over the last few months, what’s your assessment of the impact of the crisis on their lives?
Huong Trieu: This really depends on which city these migrant workers are located in. Since Beijing is not a large exporting city, its economy is less affected by the economic crisis. So migrant workers in Beijing are less affected. Unlike coastal cities where migrant workers are concentrated in factories, migrant workers in Beijing mainly work in service industries. When you walk around Beijing, you’ll notice job postings on restaurants, hotels, salon and so on, which suggest that there is actually a labor shortage.
The situation in Guangzhou is quite different. Migrant workers in Guangzhou are affected by the crisis because most of them work in factories and some of those factories have less work or have closed down. One surprising discovery from my conversations with scholars and social security bureaucrats in Guangzhou, is that many medium and large firms are not laying off workers. While these firms have cutback hours for many workers, they do not want to lay off workers because they are waiting for orders to rebound. They want to keep these workers on the payroll because it is difficult to hire and train new workers.
For migrants who have returned to the countryside due to economic crisis, many are not too worried. As migrant workers, they lead a very transient life style. It is not the first time that they have lost a job and returned to the countryside. They are optimistic that jobs will rebound, especially given the current government stimulus package. They still have land in the countryside, plus their expenses are very low. Housing and food are not a concern because their houses are paid up front, and they usually have enough food to subsist for at least 1.5 years. However, if they cannot return to the city within that time, social instability is definitely a concern. Migrants are exposed to new ideas and living conditions in cities, so a prolonged stay in the countryside where they are excess labor with little upward mobility could potentially lead to unrest.
Chinatranslated: The migrant experience is different in different parts of the country. You have been conducting research in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, what are some of the similarities and differences between life for migrant workers in these three important centers?
Huong Trieu: There are important similarities in the migrant experience across the country. Migrants are relegated to the poorest living conditions because their wages are often a fraction of the local population. They are often doing work deemed undesirable by locals or the so called “3-D” (dangerous, dirty and difficult). Plus they are treated as outsiders in their host cities, ‘waidiren’, in terms of social policies.
Despite these general similarities, major differences do exist between cities. In Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, migrants mostly work in factories. While conditions may be abysmal in these factories, most workers do have labor contracts which stipulate minimum wage, overtime pay, labor safety and social insurances. With the passing of the 2007 Labor Contract Law, workers are more aware of their rights. Even though workers are still at a disadvantage because enforcement of the labor contract law is a problem, the fact that these workers are employed in the formal sector means that there is an opportunity for them to use legal action to address their grievances.
In contrast, in Beijing and Shanghai many migrant workers work in the informal sector. They do not have labor contracts because they are usually working in small enterprises such as restaurants, hotels and so on. They may also be entrepreneurs themselves, selling knickknacks, operating 3 wheel carts, or performing household repairs. As a result, they do not have social insurances and are at the whim of city developers who can designate their home or workplace for demolition within a 1-2 month period.
As a result, migrant workers in Shanghai and Beijing are at a major disadvantage when it comes to disputing about their rights. Another point to keep in mind is that when you have a large number of workers in a single factory, it is much easier for workers to organize. So you see more worker protests and strikes in Guangdong. In contrast, you rarely see large protests in Beijing and Shanghai among migrant workers because they are working in a large number of small, disaggregated enterprises.
Chinatranslated: Your research is focused on access to public services for migrant workers, could you briefly outline the access migrant workers and their dependents have to education and healthcare, and how the costs and the benefits of the services they receive differs from the native population?
Huong Trieu: On education, migrant children are supposed to receive free, compulsory education in public school in cities, but all schools have quotas for migrants due to limited resources. Migrant children need to take qualifying exams to attend public schools. Good public schools are very hard to get into because the space is very limited. Even local residents have a hard time securing spots for their children in good schools because they need to have enough resources to buy an apartment in that particular community.
What is more, under the current education system, all migrant children need to return to their hukou place (home town) to take the college entrance exam. This is a not a national, standardized exam. Each locality has its own curriculum and therefore a different exam. So many of these migrant children are sent home to their grandparents when they reach middle school age because attending schools in their host cities would be useless if they want to pursue a college education. If these children plan to go attend vocational schools, they do not need to return to their hukou place.
On healthcare, there are three types of public insurance available in China: urban employee basic medical insurance, urban resident basic medical insurance, and rural new cooperative medical system. In the new healthcare reform released in April 2009, migrants can choose between urban employee basic medical insurance and rural new cooperative medical system (RNCMS). A 2006 State Council report showed that only 10% of migrant workers have any type of health insurance. I believe this number is much higher today because the 2007 Labor Contract Law has pushed many enterprises to provide social insurance for their workers. Plus the rapid roll out of RNCMS has also captured some of this migrant population.
In my interviews, many migrant workers have signed up for RNCMS at their hometown. While many of them do not have any experience using this new system, they are relieved to have some health insurance coverage. For many migrants, unless it’s an emergency, they would wait and return to their native place to seek medical treatment, partly because overall medical costs are lower and partly because they can get reimbursement from their health insurance in the countryside.
In China, all medical costs need to be paid in full and then reimbursed. To get a medical procedure done, you need to put down a deposit to secure an appointment. Depending on the procedure, it can be a couple of thousand to tens of thousands yuan. In many respects, migrants cannot afford to get sick. In host cities, local residents can apply for social assistance, but migrants cannot because local social assistance bureaus are not responsible for them. They would need to return to their hukou place to apply for social assistance.
Chinatranslated: Migrant workers have been a feature of Chinese society since the beginning of the reform period. How are the latest generation of migrants different in their attitude and expectations from previous generations?
Huong Trieu: The biggest difference between older and younger generations of migrants is that the younger generation is less tied to their native places. While many migrants still come to cities through social networks, they may not always stay within this social network. They may choose to socialize and live with friends made outside their native place network.
In Beijing, there used to Zhejiangcun, Anhuicun, Henancun where migrants from a single province would live in the same settlement, but these no longer exist, partly because the city government have demolished them and partly because people have chosen to live with people from other provinces. Migrant villages still exist in Beijing, mostly outside the 5th ring road, but not by native place anymore. These villages have become a melting pot of people from all over China coming to Beijing looking for better opportunities.
This younger generation of migrants does not see Beijing or Shanghai as their last destination. They are young, and they want to see the country. They are willing to move wherever their next job takes them. They do whimsically think about going back home eventually when they strike rich. But if they do get rich then they can buy an apartment in Beijing or Shanghai as well, they need not return to their native place. This is very different from the older generation who sees their last destination to be their native place (laojia). They have built 2-3 stories homes in their villages with earnings from earlier sojourns in the city. Even though they are still working in the city to support their children through higher education, they plan to retire to their village with future financial support from their children.
Agriculture, Financial Crisis, Labour markets, Law, Regional, Social Policy