Econ_May_05_2018

43 / 100

The Economist May 5th 2018 China 43
2 the nature ofmigrants’ work, caused by an
economic transformation that is making
China’s growth more reliant on services
and less on manufacturing. The earlier mi-
grants typically found jobs in construction
or on production lines. According to Mr
Tian, 60% of migrants in 2008 worked in
such “secondary industry” sectors. That
share fell to 52% by 2015. Meanwhile, de-
mand for migrants’ labour in the “tertiary
sector”, ie, in services, has taken off. For the
lesswell-educated this often involves inse-
cure work in areas such as food delivery
and cleaning.
The best-laid plans ofmigrants...
One result of this shift into shorter-term or
part-timeworkhas beena fall in savings. In
the past almost all migrants used to save a
third or more of their income to send back
to their villages. But in The Economist’s
sample a third of respondents saved noth-
ing. Most youngermigrants “will not make
the sacrifices of frugality in order to save
money”, harrumphs CASS’sMrWang. “It is
a far cry from their parents’ generation.”
The upshot is that the new generation
appears to be one of the most dissatisfied
segments of Chinese society. Because the
country has no reliable opinion polls, this
judgment must be tentative. But a proxy
measure, the way people view their own
achievements, suggests it is accurate.
Mr Tian’s survey includes a question
about where respondents place them-
selves in society on a scale from top to bot-
tom. Between 2006 and 2015 the migrants
he questioned gave, on average, ever lower
assessments oftheir social position. Initial-
ly, the younger ones (aged between 22 and
26) were the most likely to describe them-
selves as being in the top halfof society. By
2015 they were more inclined than older
migrants to put themselves in the bottom
half. Mr Tian concludes that those born in
the 1990s are the most disappointed of the
migrants he has studied.
The Economist’s survey bears him out.
Most migrants want to stay in the big city
but few feel welcome there. “There is no
sense of belonging,” complains a 24-year-
old coffee-shop waiter in Beijing. “For the
moment I will stay,” says a 28-year-old
hairstylist who also lives in the capital,
“but there’s no sense of happiness.”
...gang aft agley
In some ways, little has changed. Most of
the early migrants, concluded the Journal
of EconomicResearch nine years ago “knew
they were just passers-by in cities. They
came from rural areas andwere fated to re-
turn there.” But the new generation feels
alienated from the countryside even as
high living costs, the hukou system and so-
cial discrimination in the cities “crush their
urban dreams” as well. “They are truly
marginalised people,” it said.
How serious a threat to social stability
are they? They seem unlikely to challenge
the party itself (a surprising one in eight of
those surveyed by The Economist said they
were members of it). It is true that some of
those evicted last winter in Beijing prot-
ested loudly. One group (pictured) chanted
about human rights outside a local-gov-
ernment building. By and large, though,
these are exceptions.Mostmigrants are not
politically active. Few of those who spoke
to The Economist werewilling to talkabout
politics. Those who did mostly said they
supported the president, Xi Jinping, be-
cause of his anti-corruption campaign.
The party, however, cannot take their
passivity for granted. Throughout Chinese
history, opposition has seemed muted
right up to the point when it has exploded.
Yu Jianrong ofCASS wrote in 2014 that the
social exclusion felt by new-generationmi-
grants could forge a sense of common po-
litical cause among them that could even
lead to revolution. Mr Yu called this a “co-
lossal hidden threat to China’s future so-
cial stability”. There is little sign of that yet,
but there are several reasons for thinking
migrantsmight becomemore restless.
As themarriage squeeze tightens, it will
produce a generation of unmarried mi-
grant men with low incomes, poor educa-
tion and no tie to the social order that mar-
riage provides in China. It is a recipe for
discontent. Mr Tian worries about a vi-
cious cycle developing, with poor educa-
tion leading to low income that results in
anti-social attitudes and disruption to chil-
dren’s schooling.
Migrants form a huge group, roughly as
numerous as the middle class. But com-
pared with the middle class, they have lit-
tle to lose and less to keep them loyal to the
party. They revel in subcultures that the
party dislikes. Chinese rap music has its
roots among young migrants, who were
also the main users of Neihan Duanzi, a
popular app specialising in bawdy jokes
that state censors closed down in April.
There are signs that some young migrants
are starting to organise themselves. Strikes
over pay and conditions have become
more common. In April a court in Tong-
zhou, a district of Beijing (next to the area
where the forced evictions tookplace), said
32% of the labour disputes referred to it in-
volved collective agreements, almost dou-
ble the proportion in 2016. This suggested
there was a link between the number of
disputes and the expulsion ofmigrants.
The biggest uncertainty is what will
happen if the economy falters. The party
does not seem ready for this. The social-
safety net is threadbare. The hukou regime
means migrants cannot get full access to it
anyway. Modernisers want to reform the
systemand allowmigrants to live more se-
curely in cities. But change has been slow
and patchy. (InGuangzhou only two of the
40 respondents to The Economist’s survey
had a local hukou.) The government is try-
ing to cap the size of giant cities by pushing
migrants out. Charles Parton of the Royal
United Services Institute, a think-tank in
London, says young migrants will not
overthrow the party, but if the economy
stagnates “they will cause a lot more trou-
ble than they do now.”
The new generation is entering a diffi-
cult period. Itsmenwill remain unmarried
and its children will often be educated
away from home. Many will be on low, in-
secure wages. If the evictions in Beijing are
any guide, the party’s reaction to any dis-
content is likely to be greater repression.
That would make solving migrants’ deep-
seated problems harder, and an explosion
of ragemore likely. 7
“Low-end people” object to being evicted
РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News"