What leads rural Chinese people to migrate internally and why do they face discrimination when they work in megacities?

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What leads rural Chinese people to migrate internally and why do they face discrimination when they work in megacities?

Reasons for rural Chinese people to migrate internally

The Great Internal Migration

China’s economic boom has drawn rural Chinese to cities in search of higher incomes. The rural migrant worker population has expanded significantly, increasing from roughly 30 million in 1989 to more than 140 million in 2008, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (Boxun).

The massive influx of rural residents into cities was initially facilitated by important reforms in the 1980s. Li Shi, a professor at Beijing Normal University, observes that when China relaxed its restrictive policies on labor migration, the large surplus labor force created by agricultural decollectivization was finally able to find work away from home.

Throughout the early 1990s, a stream of peasants left their farmland and took up non-agricultural vocations, sending remittances home to family members remaining in the village. During the late 1990s, local government concerns about social instability stemming from high rates of urban unemployment led many cities to set restrictions on jobs available to rural migrants.

Most migrants could only find employment in dirty or dangerous sectors shunned by locals. By the following decade, however, Beijing realized these restrictions “generated many negative impacts on the…rural economy,” says Li, and in 2006 the State Council passed a directive requiring local governments to ensure equal rights and opportunities to migrant workers.

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