Can migrant workers still go back to the countryside today?

Can migrant workers still go back to the countryside? The true story of a migrant worker from Anhui

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Plan for Promoting the Urban Settlement of 100 Million Non-Household-Registered Residents," which requires "promoting the settlement of whole families in cities for the agricultural transferred population that has the ability to find stable employment and live in cities and towns." Resolving the urban settlement of migrant workers is an important part of the country's current strategy of advancing new urbanization. Regarding migrant workers, a view is popular in society: migrant workers "cannot stay in the city, and cannot go back to the countryside." If their way out is not properly resolved, migrant workers will become a major social problem. The judgment about where migrant workers will go determines how the new urbanization strategy is implemented and how relevant policies are formulated.

　　Migrant workers' choice between entering the city and returning home

Let us first look at the true story of a migrant worker from Anhui. In December 2015, we organized a field study in Shanghai, during which we met a migrant worker from out of town. This migrant worker was 36 years old, surnamed Wang, and was from Lu'an, Anhui Province. Almost the entire extended family of Master Wang went out to work, and the circumstances and choices of his relatives across several generations in urban-rural mobility are highly representative.

Master Wang himself first went to Shanghai to work in 1999, before finishing high school, and had remained there until now. In the first half of 2015, the enterprise where Master Wang worked relocated to Jiangsu Province. Because his wife, father-in-law, and others were all in Shanghai, Master Wang did not leave with the enterprise. After leaving the enterprise, Master Wang used his own JAC-brand private car, worth several tens of thousands of yuan, to run an unlicensed taxi in a town in Jiading District, earning more than 200 yuan per day. Master Wang's wife worked in a factory, working 12 hours a day, resting 2 days a month, with a monthly wage of about 4,000 yuan. Master Wang's wife was also from Lu'an, Anhui, and her parents' family currently lived in the same town.

Master Wang's parents-in-law belong to the first generation of migrant workers. In 1991, when flooding occurred in the Yangtze-Huai River basin, the rural house of Master Wang's parents-in-law was destroyed and collapsed. His father-in-law took his wife and children to Shanghai to work, and they had remained there ever since. Master Wang's father-in-law was 55 this year and now did hauling work, with a monthly wage of 3,000 yuan. Because he gradually felt physically unable to keep up, Master Wang's father-in-law planned to return to his home village in Shou County, Huainan City, which he had left 24 years earlier. Before this, Master Wang's parents-in-law had both worked in Shanghai and raised three children to adulthood and marriage. Master Wang's wife was the eldest of the three siblings and had married Master Wang more than ten years earlier. His first younger brother-in-law was born in 1987 and married in 2012 at the place where he worked in Shanghai; his sister-in-law was from Anhui. His second younger brother-in-law was born in 1988, graduated from Anhui University of Science and Technology, and previously worked in Nanjing. After his sister-in-law gave birth, his second younger brother-in-law's family also moved to Shanghai to be near his parents. To marry off and establish two sons, Master Wang's parents-in-law spent more than 600,000 yuan in total. The two elders invested most of their lifetime savings from working into their sons. Now, in order to return home, they planned to build a house in their hometown, estimated to cost more than 100,000 yuan, funded by their two sons.

Master Wang summarized the work characteristics of migrant workers in cities: "When enterprises recruit assembly-line workers in workshops, they generally require ages 18-35. Those over 35 cannot keep up with the pace, and most of those over 45 do heavy physical labor, such as loaders. On construction sites, they are all over 50. Construction work is dirty and tiring, and young people are unwilling to do it." Having stayed in Shanghai for more than twenty years, Master Wang's father-in-law had been considering where to go in recent years: "Should I stay in Shanghai with the children, or should the children follow me?" After some hesitation, he finally chose to return to his rural hometown, and had already prepared the raw materials for building a house in the countryside. In 1991, there were more than 10 households from the same village who went to Shanghai to work in the same group as Master Wang's parents-in-law. Now, 5 of them had completed building houses in their hometown and returned to the countryside. Master Wang's parents-in-law and the other 10-plus households could all be considered first-generation migrant workers. After completing the task of supporting the next generation through work, they returned to the countryside one after another. In fact, not only first-generation migrant workers face the choice of returning home; migrant workers in their thirties and forties, like Master Wang, are also considering their future way out. Master Wang believed he might not be able to stay in Shanghai for many more years, because his son was about to enter junior high school and faced pressure over schooling. Master Wang planned to have his wife take their son back to their hometown while he worked hard for a few more years to earn money. This year, Master Wang took 150,000 yuan from his work savings to build a house for his father in their rural hometown. Master Wang and his wife were still discussing whether to buy an apartment in Lu'an's urban district with a mortgage, preparing to "go back to the city and do some business" later.

Migrant workers in their twenties and thirties, younger than Master Wang, also face choices. Master Wang's first younger brother-in-law was 28 this year. He worked in a factory, earning 4,500 yuan a month. His wife partnered with people from the same hometown to open a clothing store, with a monthly income of nearly 10,000 yuan. The savings of the first younger brother-in-law and his wife, plus a betrothal gift and housing money given by his parents at marriage, could cover the down payment for a house in the town where he worked (local commercial housing prices were about 10,000 yuan per square meter). Despite the relatively high income, the first younger brother-in-law had never made up his mind to buy a house in Shanghai. His reason was: "Shanghai cannot accommodate outsiders born in the 1980s. First, housing prices; second, employment instability. If the enterprise is eliminated by the market, you personally go bankrupt. Migrant workers without technical expertise have to start from scratch when they change enterprises." Most migrant workers who are frontline workers are highly replaceable in the urban job market, which creates unstable expectations for urban life.

In our survey, we also interviewed other migrant workers. The example of Master Wang's family is not unusual. These cases show a clear and similar track for migrant workers entering the city. Usually, young migrant workers in their twenties have a strong drive and longing to integrate into the city. Young and middle-aged migrant workers in their thirties and forties begin to invest their work savings in building or buying houses in their rural hometowns and plan to return home to start businesses. Middle-aged and older migrant workers in their fifties and sixties voluntarily withdraw from the city and gradually return home. The popular social view that migrant workers "cannot go back to the countryside" is seen from the perspective of the few who succeed in entering the city. Those who successfully enter the city have already obtained urban life with more opportunities and better conditions, so of course it is impossible for them to return to the relatively declining countryside. But for most farmers who, after struggling, still cannot settle in the city, returning to the countryside is not a bad choice compared with falling into urban slums. The general public usually only sees farmers' willingness to enter the city to obtain a better life and ignores farmers' choice to return home after failing to succeed in the city. In 2008, the financial crisis affected China's export processing industries and brought about the unemployment of about 20 million migrant workers. At that time, it did not cause a huge social shock, mainly because these unemployed migrant workers smoothly returned to the countryside. At the time, some farmers thought that since they had not gone home for many years, it was a good opportunity to "go home and take a look" while the enterprises suspended production; and parents who stayed in the countryside thought their children's return home was merely "one more pair of chopsticks." The urban-rural relationship that allows both entry and retreat formed the foundation for the steady advancement of China's urbanization.

　　Being able to go back is also a choice

There are many reasons why migrant workers can go back to the countryside. From the perspective of individual life expectations, although cities have more economic opportunities and better public service provision than rural areas, and becoming an urban middle-class person is certainly something to look forward to, returning to the countryside after failing to succeed in the city is not unacceptable. The survey found that not only are some "dirty and tiring jobs" in the construction industry mainly done by migrant workers from out of town, but also that in the same factories, local Shanghai people work less overtime than migrant workers from out of town, because migrant workers from out of town have a stronger willingness to earn money. Shanghai farmers believe that many local people only need to earn Shanghai's minimum wage standard of 2,020 yuan per month when working in enterprises. The main purpose of local people working is to pay pension insurance and wait until they reach the required age to receive a pension. Shanghai farmers observed of outsiders: "The wages of outsiders are all earned by overtime. They work 12 hours a day and also work overtime on Sundays. Outsiders come to work just to make money. They work desperately, save money, and take it back to their hometowns." Just like Master Wang and his parents-in-law in the example above, migrant workers define the city as a place for work and employment from the very beginning. They actively choose to work overtime and engage in heavy physical labor, with the goal of channeling urban work income back to their rural hometowns. The goal that supports migrant workers' hard struggle in the city is mainly not to live as the urban middle class, but to improve their lives relative to before. Building houses, marrying sons, and raising and supporting the next generation are the true source of motivation for most migrant workers' striving. From the perspective of farmers, the city is not a place they must stay, and the countryside is not a place they absolutely cannot return to.