Aging and the drastic decline in employment, with minimal income, are a serious obstacle to the survival of the “first generation” that began to build the large metropolises in the mid-1980s. A report highlights the lack of social assistance and situations of abandonment. Beijing censors complaints and blocks criticism on social media.
Beijing () – After experiencing urbanization and economic reform, the first generation of Chinese workers who emigrated from the countryside are facing the problem of retirement. With the lack of social security and welfare, many have low pensions and far from the limit necessary for survival. According to a report, which was censored on Chinese social media, about 60% of migrant workers will keep working until they are too old to do so.
It seems that migrant workers have been abandoned, considered too old to work in the city after 30 years or more of career. Research by Qiu Fengxian, an associate professor at Anhui Normal University, shows that working hard has not improved the condition of migrants. After distributing 2,500 questionnaires and interviewing 200 people, the report concluded that 60.7% of those surveyed will continue working until they are too old and have no strength to continue doing so. And, on average, they will have a pension of only 100-200 yuan (12.6-25.2 euros) per month.
The report also shows that more than half of migrant workers have less than 50,000 yuan (6,309 euros) in their bank accounts, having worked in the city for more than 15 years. And 15.2% have no savings. They often send their wages back to their hometown for their children’s education, but less than 20% of the next generation managed to make the “social leap” into a higher class than their parents. On the contrary, most children drop out of school early and less than 20% are admitted to university. 63.5% of the second generation are still migrant workers. Only 5.1% work in the public and government sectors, which are considered prestigious and stable jobs in China. Furthermore, for the next generation, marriage represents a huge expense, even several years of salary.
After the Cultural Revolution, country dwellers were allowed to seek work in the cities. The first generation of migrant workers, born before the 1970s, began to head for the metropolises and large urban centers from the mid-1980s. According to the latest official statistics, China has 295 million migrant workers, of whom some 86 million are first generation and are now at the threshold of – if not beyond – retirement age. At the same time, the average age of migrant workers continues to increase, having already reached 42.3 years in 2022.
In this report, Professor Qiu concluded that the first generation of migrant workers exhibit “social fragility” and that their living conditions and future are not determined by their individual actions. Most workers perform or have performed strenuous, polluting, and hazardous tasks for low wages. 40% work on construction sites. 18.9% work in factories. Others are restaurant waiters, cleaning staff, and security guards.
Health problems and accidents at work become evident as they age, but due to concerns about losing their job and the high cost of medical services, migrants often choose not to go to the hospital. Although the authorities currently provide basic medical services in rural areas, migrant workers have to go to the hospital in their hometown, which incurs additional transportation costs. As many as 63.4% of migrant workers have never been to a hospital in the city where they work, and 58.5% choose to endure illness and injury without resorting to medical and hospital care even when they need it. .
During the decades of economic boom, migrant workers are, in fact, the forgotten group, among other things because household registration policies, that is, the Hukou system, restrict people’s freedom of mobility. As a consequence, the inhabitants of the rural areas do not have the same rights as the residents of the cities, which is also evident in the salary statistics, whose growth rate among migrant workers is much lower than that of urban workers. .
Immigrant workers have contributed to China’s urbanization as a major labor resource, but they are the victims of unreasonable policies. For decades, in Beijing and Shanghai, only some sectors where companies found it difficult to hire local workers were able to hire migrant workers, which also came under severe restrictions during the mass unemployment phase of the late 1990s. In 2017 , thousands of people were evicted from their homes in the dead of winter, without warning, in the name of “laying off non-functional and essential capital”, sparking widespread anger.
Although migrant workers want to continue working, as they age, the available positions decrease. Restaurants and hotels prefer younger staff. In many cities, the authorities have prohibited men over 60 and women over 50 from working in construction, for security reasons. The crisis in the real estate industry has forced more migrant workers to leave the sector. The report shows that some migrant workers have acquired fake IDs with a rejuvenated date of birth, also risking jail time.
To this must be added the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the stagnation of the economy, which have caused massive unemployment. Lastly, the slowdown in urbanization causes a drastic decrease in the number of jobs available, as witnessed by official statistics in the ever-decreasing mobility of workers, who prefer to seek employment in their locality. In 2022, the percentage of those looking for work outside their city of origin increased a paltry 0.1%. The report continues to be shared and discussed on social networks, while government authorities respond with the ax of censorship, but that does not, of course, prevent the enormous number of problems and social tensions that characterize the country of the dragon from being erased with a clean slate.
“RED LANTERNS” IS THE NEWSLETTER OF ASIAN NEWS DEDICATED TO CHINA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY THURSDAY IN YOUR EMAIL? SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER AT THIS LINK.
