On this planet, around a billion people are on the move, in other words, 1 out of 7 people are migrants. While international migrants have gripped most of the attention of scholars in migration studies, the number of internal migrants significantly outnumber those migrating beyond the borders of their home country. For instance, in 2010 across the world, there were an estimated 740 million internal migrants compared to 214 million international migrants (International Organization for Migration 2011, 73). In fact, traditional migration patterns have been steadily changing due to the âsignificant growth in internal migration in the colossal BRIC countriesâ in the past few decades while they grow richer and subsequently at the same time, it becomes less desirable for citizens in these nations to emigrate. Internal migration involves four types of migration streams: ruralârural, ruralâurban, urbanâurban, and urbanârural. Due to the urbanization and industrialization of many developing countries, ruralâurban migration has become the most common type of internal migration, especially so in emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil.
Nowadays, the largest human mobility is occurring in China, which 281 million ruralâurban migrant workers alone account for around a third of all internal migration in the world. This research intends to study this group of ruralâurban migrant workers in China, who are subsistence farmers migrating from impoverished rural areas to prosperous urban centers seeking off-farm employment. In the history of the Peopleâs Republic of China (PRC), farmersâ ruralâurban migration has been deeply shaped by the state intervention and economic dynamics (Huang and Pieke 2003). Generally speaking, the official response to this type of migration among farmers has progressed through four phases: prohibition (1949â1983), permissiveness (1984â1991), liberalization (1992â2001), and facilitation (2002 onward).
In 2010, China has become the worldâs second-largest economy, and between 2000 and 2010 Chinaâs GDP grew by 10% annually on average. While the Chinese âeconomic miracleâ is well known worldwide, one of the key drivers behind it, hardworking migrant workers, is ignored somehow. For example, there are one million migrant workers in Foxconn Corporation, which produces half of the worldâs electronic products such as high-priced iPads and iPhones. They work a minimum of 60 hours weekly, all for a corresponding salary equivalent to only US$63 (Ngai and Chan 2012). As the âworldâs factory,â with the Foxconn phenomenon existing widely, China can be regarded as a nation with a âworker-madeâ economy.
Migrant workers have made a great contribution to Chinaâs economy. However, because of the unique hukou (household registration) system, migrant workers find themselves part of a distinct group of the Chinese working class which, unlike âordinaryâ workers, do not share equally in its benefits. Migrant workersâ hukou status remains that of âfarmerâ (or âagricultural hukouâ), even when they are working and living in cities. Registered under the agricultural hukou, migrant workers are excluded from urban social welfare systems such as social security (Chan 1994, 2018; Solinger 1999; Whyte 2010). In other words, they are not entitled to the same rights and benefits enjoyed by local, non-migrant urban workers who are registered under a non-agricultural hukou. In order to solve these problems (i.e., balance this unequal treatment) related to hukou statuses, from early 2000 onwards, the Chinese government introduced a series of migration policies to explicitly facilitate farmersâ ruralâurban migration, presenting a historic and fundamental breakthrough (Hussain 2007).
Ruralâurban migration policies are somewhat rare worldwide, as China, according to a recent United Nation (UN) report, is one of ten countries in the world that have policies to raise (as opposed to maintaining or reducing) ruralâurban migration (UN 2010). Combined with the fact that China accounts for such a large part of the global ruralâurban internal migration, it is worth taking a closer look at ruralâurban migration policies in China. In the years following the initial implementation of these policies, some achievements have been made, for instance, there are indications that migrant workersâ social security is improving (Zheng and Huang 2007). However, IOM (2011) states there are very few examples of successful migrant support programs. As such, it is unsurprising to find that not every migrant worker enjoys the benefits they are entitled to under these policies as they do not or cannot make claims related to governmental policies. Instead, they often choose for alternative strategies to cope with migration-related problems, which can be regarded as âpoliciesâ undesired outcomesâ (Kaufmann 1980). This puzzle of why these policies fall short of their expectations provides the impetus for a study of Chinese migrant workersâ action in the policy context.
This research seeks to examine these recent migration policies in China and explore migrant workersâ coping strategies in the policy context. When migrant workers face an event, obviously, making a claim under the governmental policy is one coping strategy they may employ, which I defined as âadministrative coping.â On the other hand, migrant workers may choose to adopt other strategies to cope with these events, such as taking political actions (e.g., protest or strike) or unitizing social capitals (e.g., seeking help from fellow migrants), which I identify as âpolitical copingâ and âsocial coping,â respectively. In this research, four policies regarding ruralâurban migration are examined including the Skills Training Program for Migrant Workers; the Circular on Managing Wage Payment to Migrant Workers; the Circular on Migrant Workers Participating in Work-related Injury Insurance; and The New Rural Medical Cooperative Scheme (Health Insurance). The four policies target four corresponding events during migrant workersâ migration trajectories: job seeking; wage exploitation; work injuries; and illness. Therefore, this empirical research will unveil what coping strategies migrant workers adopt when facing these four events in cities.
Based on a review of existing literature, on the one hand, most studies of the behavior of migrants focus on the personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender, and educational background) and social dimension (e.g., social networks) (Zhang 2001; Xiang 2007), yet ignore the effect of policies. On the other hand, studies on migration policies in China, with a focus on policy formulation and policy implementation, fail to take a viewpoint of migrant workers (Nielsen and Smyth 2008). Against this backdrop, this study aims to fill the research gap by exploring policy at the macro-level and individualsâ action at the micro-level.
Farmersâ ruralâurban migration studies become prevalent in the 1990s. Scholars have examined the impact of hukou system on ruralâurban migration because hukou was regarded as an âinternal passport,â these studies have suggested that the hukou system represents the largest barrier for farmersâ migration (Hsieh 1993; Chan and Zhang 1999; Bian 1994; Young 2013). From the early 2000s onwards, with the introduction of the new migration policies, scholars approach these migration policies from two angles. Firstly, they look at the process of the policy change over time from a state-centered approach, which stresses the role of the government (Cai et al. 2002; Jiang 2006). Secondly, they analyze these policies with the policy cycle framework, with a focus on the stages of policy implementation. Through quantitative research, scholars find that implementation of these migration policies is very poor. For instance, it is estimated that only 26% of migrant workers, nationally, are covered by work injury insurance. Two main reasons for this poor result are addressed including the weaknesses of the policy design and agentsâ discretion when putting into practice (Zhou 2004; Wu 2009; Yu and Liu 2011; Zhu 2002; Zheng and Huang 2007; Bai and Li 2008; Wang et al. 2011).
Studies on behaviors of social actors would help the understanding of the functioning of policies (North 1990; LekoviÄ 2011). Although the existing researches stress w...
