New Dreams, New Troubles Haunt New-Wave Migrants

They are rural according to their residential registration books, but in the real world, they are city birds. Many of the new generation of migrant workers joined their parents at an early age; others were simply born in the cities where their parents labored for a better life. Having grown up in their adoptive urban home, they are estranged from their familial villages and know little about farming. They resemble their urban counterparts more than their rural parents, at least in mindset and values. Fashionable clothes and hairstyles are a preoccupation and they use cell phones and computers, frequent McDonald’s as well as libraries and parks, and wander the big malls to exercise their grown-up purchasing power. But unlike their urban brothers and sisters, in other respects they are little more than the unfavored adoptive sons and daughters of the city, a marginal group struggling to climb up a crowded social ladder from their position at the bottom rung. Their lodgings are either factory dormitories or low-rent houses, and the obstacles they face in their quest for the good life make elusive such things as full-time employment, reliable healthcare, old-age and social security, and whatever else it will take to get their own children a good education when their time comes. The traditional urban-rural social divide is gradually becoming a more complex socio-economic duality.

Of the country’s 230 million farmer-turned workers 150 million went to cities as migrant workers, according to 2009 statistics released by the National Statistical Bureau. The new-generation migrant workers (age 16-30) presently make up 61.6 percent of the migrant workforce, making them the bulk of China’s current and future human resources. Most of this precious HR pool is engaged in manufacturing or service trades.

In early 2010, the Chinese government referred to them for the first time as the “new-generation migrant workers” and called for official attention to this special social group. Although they prefer to be called “new industrial workers” or “new urban inhabitants” or even “new workers,” and some of them even regard themselves as “white-collar,” they retain the name “migrant workers” simply because their registered permanent residence is rural.

In big cities, some of them have indeed moved into whitecollar posts. In medium-sized and small cities where manufacturing is concentrated, they still make up the main cohort of industrial workers. Take Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) as an example. In the 30 years since its establishment, its average annual GDP growth has clocked in at 25.8 percent. The migrant-heavy manufacturing industry has made great contributions to this figure, and the new-generation migrant workers in Shenzhen are essentially the future of the SEZ.

Various levels of Chinese government and a variety of private enterprises are helping the new wave settle into cities in various ways.