Spring Grass’ experience as a migrant worker in a busy city in chapters 11 through 13 of Spring Grass, details an experience that was both familiar and unfamiliar for the time. She leads her husband into the shop that helps them sell pillow cases which was unconventional in that era. However, her nerves and lack of knowledge traveling into the unknown territory of the city mirrored the experiences of workers before her. Where her story pauses with her and River Ho largely in control of where they sell and the profit they make, many migrant workers have no control of how much they make or when they get paid. Migrant workers have been subject to suboptimal treatment socially and economically as globalization and a more westernized capitalist economic approach have gained traction in China. This essay will examine the various ways in which migrant workers have been disadvantaged in the past by the Chinese government, economic, and social structures. Then, the essay will discuss the complications that reframing migrant’s status could have on China due to globalization.
The disadvantages migrant workers face fall into two overarching categories: social and economic. Social disadvantages refer to the disadvantages that affect their social status or mobility in society, their interpersonal interactions with family, and their access to similar benefits afforded to urban citizens. Economic disadvantages refers to the disadvantages that affect their pay, their ability to find less taxing work, and require large fees from migrant workers in cities. These two types of disadvantages are interconnected and affect the daily lives of migrant workers. I will first focus on the economic disadvantages and the history behind the systems that have led to this point.
China’s economic structure over the past few decades has catapulted them into the spotlight because of their fast economic growth. This period of market success stemmed from economic reform policies put in place by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Prior to these reforms, China had an economic system where prices and profit were controlled by the government and had limits on foreign trade. After 1979, China’s potential for economic growth exploded. “Since then, the Chinese economy has achieved an average annual growth rate of about 10%. This growth is unprecedented in world history, with the exception of small, diamond-rich Botswana” (Wu, 2000, 279). These reforms gradually opened up their closed economy and increased profits leading to the more capitalistic economic approach China has today. China is in an economically desirable position but that has come at a cost to an often overlooked population: migrant workers. In this capitalistic system, migrant workers are at the bottom of the hierarchy and receive the brunt of the disadvantages this system can bring.
Since migrant workers typically lack higher than a middle school education and are often referred to jobs in cities not by employers but by fellow village members, they are more susceptible to being taken advantage of. In cities, they know little about their environment with even less knowledge on how to negotiate with an employer or demand ethical working conditions before starting their jobs. River Ho and Spring Grass experience similar difficulties in chapters 12 and 13 of Spring Grass. Spring Grass, riding on a foreign train into a city where she knows one person and nothing else, is terrified. Her fear and River Ho’s optimism as they venture into the city to sell their wares mirrors the emotions likely felt by other migrant workers. They’re hopeful that they’ll make more money than they could in the village but overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of everything around them. This unease makes them weary of job contracts and their employers which ultimately hurts them more economically than it helps them. Employers can go months at a time without paying migrant workers and they have no legal way to fight back. Multiple surveys conducted in big cities found that “migrant workers’ work time is twice that of their urban counterparts. But at the same time they only receive 60 percent of urban workers’ average salary” (Jiang, 2009, 23). Though the government has recognized and implemented policies to help for over two decades, profit is more important in a capitalist system. The employer is merely the middleman to get the products the migrant workers make to the international brands looking to make a large profit. Everyone in this hierarchy shares the common goal of wanting to make enough money to live comfortably but migrant workers are disproportionately negatively affected.
Another economic factor that adds further stress on these workers are the fees and formal paperwork necessary to move from village to city. The fees range anywhere from 500-1000 RMB with the average salary from a factory job being 539 RMB (Jiang, 2009, 25). These fees symbolize a conflict between tradition and modernity. Cities are the epicenters of globalization and commerce and these expensive fees serve as a deterrent to keep villagers out. In attempting to increase the urban population and the notability of Chinese cities globally, a certain image of economic class and youthfulness is important. A city filled with young college-educated adults seeking rewarding jobs and ways to spend their money is economically preferred to a city filled with older inhabitants who have never had these luxuries and work menial jobs in the eyes of some. This conflict also serves as a symbol of the hukou system’s legacy in China. The system was initially used to tightly control migration from villages into cities to improve conditions where one is born. Under the hukou system, the identity and benefits an individual receives is tied to whether they’re from a city or a village and individuals in cities were afforded more benefits. This created a subtle negative stigma that villagers don’t belong in cities that seeped into the employment market in big cities. Even though urbanization and migration are now openly encouraged, village workers have not been able to shake off the stigma that the hukou system placed on them. The system was never meant to hurt migrant workers but through China’s modernization they were unintentionally hurt. This constant conflict between tradition and modernity seeps into the social disadvantages migrant workers face.
Migrant workers’ complicated access to social mobility is another reflection of China’s complex relationship between tradition and modernity. Migrant workers social mobility is often stagnant because the potential to improve your mobility within a village doesn’t compare to the potential within a city. Cities are densely-populated economic centers with plenty of opportunities if you have the money or resources. Villages and villagers symbolize China’s past. The systems that once were the backbone of a nation are no longer as beneficial or as profitable as they once were.
Despite these disadvantages, there is an expectation that the children of migrant workers will overcome these trials and improve their social status. If migrant workers are making the bridge from tradition to modernity, their kids are expected to cross that bridge at a young age and use their parent’s sacrifices to make a better life for themselves and their future family. In the documentary Last Train Home, the couple the documentary follows put a lot of pressure on their daughter, Qin, and her brother to do well in school. They often further this argument by saying that it’ll benefit them in the future and that they don’t want to end up like how their parents did. This hounding at times and the absence of the parents to work in the city, creates a disconnect and resentment in their daughter. In Qin and her mother’s relationship I see a mirror to Spring Grass and her mother. Both mothers are trying to help their daughters in the best ways that they know how but that is often unclear to the daughters who misinterpret their tough love. Neither party is at fault but there is a disconnect between the parent’s dream of status for their daughter and the daughter’s dreams for herself. The social disadvantages of their villager status complicate their familial relationships. It also furthers the belief that the blame for lower status is on the individual and not on the system. Though agency plays a big role in this, “inequality now appears as the result of each individual’s different ability to exercise rational choice and succeed (or fail) at accruing wealth and status” (Gaetano, 2015, 15). More pressure is put on themselves and their family to work harder and as a result more money should come. This ideology does not acknowledge the role that a more capitalistic society plays.
In a capitalist society, hard work does not always equate to more money and status but that is the message that is sold to the public. In the early 2000s in China, the Chinese Dream emerged. The belief that you could work hard into a comfortable, ideal lifestyle regardless of your background spread like wildfire. Making individuals directly responsible for their economic circumstances takes the blame off of the systems that created these circumstances. There is only so much one person can do to improve their status if there’s an obstacle at every step of the way preventing them from moving upwards. The disadvantages migrant workers face does not stem from a place of malice or a genuine desire to see these workers fail. These disadvantages likely stem from two sources: a lack of effective structures put in place to protect these workers and the exacerbation of the problem by globalization.
The globalization of China occurred when they entered the World Trade Organization in 2001. Their addition to this organization was preceded by many economic changes in the 1990s to better prepare the country for the global market. These changes proved worthwhile as China has seen a significant amount of economic growth. China is currently seen by many as “the world’s largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis) manufacturer, merchandise exporter and importer, and holder of foreign exchange reserves” (Hang, 2017, 48). Their economic rise does not seem to show any signs of stopping and migrant workers significantly contribute to their economy. These workers produce products for foreign and domestic brands at incredibly low prices so large amounts of profit can be made by the brands these products are for. In America, we enjoy the benefits of this profit without truly thinking about the needs of the people who make that profit possible. China is in a more complicated situation. The profit from these exports and manufacturing greatly helps the economy but increases the wealth gap. As China’s economy is increasingly influenced by Western capitalism, serious thought needs to be given to the social repercussions of this.
At its core, globalization is about the flow of capital and capitalism can’t benefit everyone. The country that can find the cheapest labor and have the greatest profit margins has more global power and more effectively utilizes capitalism. China has currently set itself up to be a leading provider of cheap labor. The people who do not greatly benefit from these systems are migrant workers but reforming the systems that disadvantage them affects more than just China. “For the first time in history, emerging economies are counterparts in more than half of global trade flows, and trade between these countries is the fastest-growing type of connection” (Woetzel, 2017, 2). If China reinforced stricter guidelines to better serve migrant workers, the global export and manufacturing industry would also change for better or for worse. Globalization is a double-edged sword and China has entered a grey area in which globalization must be looked at more critically for its advantages and disadvantages. It promises potential economic benefits and global power but at the expense of Chinese citizens. The social and economic wellbeing of all citizens is a priority in most countries but serious and effective reforms are necessary in China in order to improve the lifestyles of migrant workers.
Citations:
- Wu, Yanrui. “Is China’s Economic Growth Sustainable? A Productivity Analysis.” China Economic Review, Vol. 11, Issue 3, 2000, pp. 278-296.
- Gaetano, Arianne M. “Rural Women and Migration under Market Socialism.” Out to Work: Migration, Gender, and the Changing Lives of Rural Women in Contemporary China, University of Hawai’i Press, 2015, pp. 14–27.
- Jiang, Wenran. “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers Are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise.” Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China: Chinese and Canadian Perspectives, edited by Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan, University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa, 2009, pp. 16–29.
- Hang, Nguyen Thi Thuy. “The Rise of China: Challenges, Implications, and Options for the United States.” Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, vol. 30, no. 1/2, 2017, pp. 47–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26465816. Accessed 13 Mar. 2021.
- Woetzel, Jonathan at al. “CHINA’S ROLE IN THE NEXT PHASE OF GLOBALIZATION.” McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Company, 2017, pp. 1-21.