Zhou shares a factory dormitory with four girls her age, whose company brightens up her off-shift life. One of the girls bought a laptop and they share the cost of an Internet subscription. Zhou’s greatest pleasure after work is to chat online into the early hours.

Yang Qin sees these younger migrants as quite different from the first generation, though they started their harsh migrant life the same way as the older generation – by working on the production line. Born in the 1980s and the 1990s, they had TV and the Internet at an early age and are independent-minded. When problems arise, “They are ready to stand up for themselves, and they know how to protect their rights and interests,” comments Yang.

Yang Qin’s younger sister Yang Yue is a case in point. Born in 1982, Yue came to Shenzhen right after college graduation and worked in the same factory as Yang Qin, ten years her senior. But after a few weeks, dissatisfaction set in: the factory was too far from downtown; the work was tedious and repetitive; the work-wear was ugly. Soon she quit without telling her sister and got hired as a waitress at a star-rated hotel – a job that came with an attractive dress uniform. Although Yang was annoyed at her sister’s headstrong action, once she checked out the hotel she admitted Yue had made the right choice. Yue was soon promoted to shift manager. “My kid sister is always on my case, telling me not to work so hard and that I should learn to enjoy life,” says Yang with a smile.

“The expectations of the two generations are totally different. Young migrant workers come to cities because they want to settle here and build a better life,” comments Liu Kaiming, director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation (ICO), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the development of labor and encouraging corporate responsibility.

Liu’s frequent contact with younger migrant workers has given him a clearer understanding of this group. “Most of them are their parents’ only child and have barely experienced hardship. Many grew up in cities and had their schooling there. They have easy access to information via TV, the Internet or cell phones. Every ad tells them that success means making big bucks, owning a nice villa and driving a Mercedes, but cold reality soon sets in. Unless you work overtime, you can hardly get by in Shenzhen,” says Liu.

Help with Integration

Liu quit his university job to work in Shenzhen in 1997. What struck him most about first-generation migrant workers was their stamina. He recalls, “Most of them could work for days without a break and would send most of their savings home. Every Sunday at the post office near my home there was a long line of workers waiting to send home remittances.”

The Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions’ survey on the life of second- generation migrant workers shows that most of them have no experience of farm work; they want to do more than just survive in the city, they want to enjoy the modern urban lifestyle.

Their hard work did pay off. At the time average wages were low: a college professor earned RMB 180 a month and an assistant professor like Liu earned RMB 96. But a migrant worker could make RMB 200 per month, and some even earned over RMB 1,000.