A Beautiful Dream

By YIN PUMIN

A Beautiful Dream

By YIN PUMIN

The new generation of migrant workers are seeking a better lifestyle in the cities

Like many migrant workers, Xu Xiaojun, a 25-year-old kitchen cabinet installer who came to Beijing in 2001 from a small village in central China’s Henan Province, hopes to find his way in the city instead of going back to the countryside.

“My hometown is a village with dry land. You can’t imagine how hard the lives are for people living there. I cannot live there anymore,” Xu said. “Besides, I know little about farming.”

Xu is one of millions new-generation migrant workers in the country. The term “new generation” refers to migrant workers born in the 1980s and 1990s who work and live in big cities but hold rural hukou, or registered permanent residence, said Tang Renjian, Vice Director of the Offce of the Central Leading Group on Rural Affairs.

This year’s “No.1 Central Document,”jointly issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on January 31, addresses problems the new generation of migrant workers face. This is the frst time the term “new generation of migrant workers” has been used in an offcial document.

According to information provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the total number of migrant worker in China reached 230 million at the end of 2009, up 1.9 percent from the previous year. About 100 million of them were born after 1980, NBS said.

Hukou something

Zhang Yi, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that most of the new generation of migrant workers went to high school, but have not done agricultural work, and they want to live in cities.

According to NBS statistics, 90 percent of new-generation migrant workers have done little agricultural work over the past two years. Xu left his home without completing his high school education, but he was still the one holding the highest education among his co-workers at his frst job on a construction site.

“I didn’t want to be a construction worker for life so I quit the job a month later. Then I found a job as a salesman selling cosmetics,”Xu said shyly.

After two years of working as a salesman he was recruited as an apprentice for the Beijing Branch of south China’s Guangdong Optima Group Incorporation, a manufacturer of kitchen cabinets.

“I have worked and lived in Beijing for nine years but I still don’t feel like I belong to any group,” Xu said. He always felt that he was seen as a second-class citizen because of his identity as a migrant worker.

Zhang said the new generation of migrant workers always have strong desires on equality and fghting social discrimination. They are determined to become urban residents.But in reality, the current household registration system makes it hard to become urban residents, said Gu Shengzu, Vice President of the Demographic Society of China.

He said, the fow of Chinese farmers can be measured in three waves over the past 30 years. In the frst wave, which started in the 1980s, they worked in their hometowns for rural enterprises. In the second, they left their villages for temporary work in cities. The country is now experiencing the third wave in which farmers are settling in cities and being joined by their entire families.

Xu’s hukou is still in the countryside in Henan. Although today he earns more than 2,000 yuan ($292.8) a month, he still cannot enjoy the same rights and benefts as urban residents, in terms of medical and working insurance.

Decent life

(Left)RISING CAREER: Three workers check the products in a shoe manufacturing factory in Jinjiang City in east China’s Fujian Province on March 4. Because of their hard work, the three new-generation migrant workers have been promoted into the factory’s management team

(Middle) FREE TIME: A worker plays billiards at the leisure center of a local factory after work in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, on March 3

Feeling the same as Xu, 23-year-old Xiang Jing, a shop assistant in Guangdong, said she wants to live in the city, too, and will not go back to the countryside.

“I have become used to city life and I hope to be a real urban resident,” she said.

Xiang was born and raised in a remote village called Xiangjiatai in Shimen County in central China’s Hunan Province. After graduating from middle school, she went to Guangdong’s Foshan City, and found a job in a clothing factory. That year she was barely 16 years old.

“The job was very dull and I was just sewing buttons onto clothes,” Xiang recalled.“I was very tired during that time because I had to work more than 12 hours a day.”

Only eight months later, Xiang left the job and came to Shenzhen, a prosperous big city also in Guangdong. In the following seven years, she worked as a waitress, barbershop apprentice and cashier. Now she is selling clothes in a department store.

“I don’t mind working hard, but I hate it when people call me a migrant worker,” she said. “I am not different from city people. I wear the latest fashions and I speak standard Mandarin.”

“They are used to life in the city but they don’t have much education or skills. They are inferior to their city peers and have to work hard for meager pay,” said Xie Jianshe, Vice Director of the Guangzhou Development Academy under Guangzhou University.

“I have little choice but to do basic menial jobs. I’m limited by my lack of qualifcations,” Xiang said. It is diffcult for her to fnd a more decent job without professional training.

Unlike their predecessors, their mothers and fathers, the new generation of migrant workers hold high expectations for their career prospects in cities.

According to a survey of 2,500 young migrant workers conducted by Nanjing Normal University based in Jiangsu Province, of those in the manufacturing, mining and service industries, 58 percent attached more importance to learning skills and 64 percent have asked to receive technical training.

The survey also found that 54.2 percent of these young migrant workers moved to the city to broaden their horizons and for personal development.

“I believe I can find a satisfactory job with a higher salary in Shenzhen after learning some skills,” Xiang said.

At present, she earns 1,500 yuan ($219.62) a month and spends most of it.

The new-generation migrant workers look like city slickers with their fashionable clothes and hairstyles. They use cell phones and chat with their peers on the Internet.

“I don’t want to save money by leading a hard and boring life,” she said. “I always go to Internet cafes and go out for dinner with my friends in the evening. I enjoy it.”

According to NBS statistics, the new generation of migrant workers earn an average of 1,243 yuan ($181.99) a month while spending 478 yuan ($69.99), a consumption ratio of 38.5 percent, while that of their parents is only 28.6 percent.

Future

In the government work report delivered last March, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised to improve the employment service system and strengthen vocational training, with a focus on increasing the employability of migrant workers and new members of the workforce in urban and rural areas.

In February, the China Communist Youth League Beijing Committee and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security jointly launched a project to provide professional training to 12,000 workers in Beijing this year.

Besides government efforts, enterprises should also take more responsibility for training young migrant workers, said Su Liqing, former President of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. “If they just focus on cheap labor, one day the workforce will vanish.”

Meanwhile, according to the “No.1 Central Document,” China will ease the restrictions around permanent residence permits in county seats and townships so that more rural residents can move in and enjoy the same rights and public services as original urban residents.

The Central Government will also encourage city governments to allow migrant workers, who have stable jobs and have lived in the cities for a certain period of time, to join in urban housing programs.

In the future, migrant workers will also be included in the basic medical insurance and pension program in cities, according to the document.

“Reform of the household registration system is crucial to solving the dilemma of these young migrant workers,” said Su.“However, a system that has existed for more than 50 years cannot simply be cancelled overnight. Government offcials need to work out more ways to help younger workers solve their most urgent needs, either through creating more jobs, raising the minimum wage or enhancing social security.”

For a start, the Central Government should relax residence registration rules in small and medium-sized cities, said Gu. China has only 655 cities, and its 2,800 counties can be folded into cities with population of 100,000 to 300,000. Many migrant workers can become urban residents this way. In small cities, the government can encourage migrant workers to start their own businesses, and provide incentives such as tax breaks and small loans.

(Right)MODERN LIFE: Two young migrant workers with distinctive hairstyles look for work at a job market in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, on March 3