Female Rural-urban Immigration in China - Research Paper Example

College Female rural-urban immigration in China Introduction China is a third world country whose economy has grown rapidly over years. Its economy remains “mostly unfree” while its legal system remains susceptible to political and communist parties’ influence. The party’s influence to the economic system of China weakens the principle of government by law for example through corruption which is rampant. The Communist party in China plays a role of retaining the control of political speech, expression and religion. Therefore there is hope for economic reform and not for political reforms from the succeeding government of General Secretary Xi Jinping. The environmental degradation which is mainly caused by the low birth rates among the population in China has resulted to social unrest in the nation. In the late 1970s China made its economy liberal by integrating and working alongside other developed countries especially through trade and other financial systems. Since then, China has experienced a great improvement in the Gross Domestic Product. This marked the beginning of China’s reform by restructuring the economy. Goods were produced by factories and farmers indulged into crop production and sold their produce according to the plans of the state. Leaders in the state realized the gap between the economy of China and that of neighboring states and decided to reform it since 1978. This paper focuses on the economy of China and how it was finally reformed since 1978. It also analyses why most people in China, precisely female, preferred to work in the urban areas of China to working in the rural areas. Major elements of the economic reform in China The major elements included in the reform of China’s economy included: agricultural sector, enterprises owned by the state, price system, financial sector, infrastructure and the welfare system at large. As from 1984, the restructuring of the China economy was moved from rural regions to the urban areas. The major aspects in the reform of the economy in China included developing the economic elements while placing the economy’s public sector in a major position. The requirements of the market economy had to be met and this had to be strictly ensured by changing the enterprises owned by the state to fit in the modern system of enterprise. The main reason why China aimed at establishing such a market system is to enable links to rural, urban, domestic as well as international markets. The intended market system would also promote the efficient resource allocation (Meng, 77). The establishment of a security system would ensure social stability as well as the development of the economy. In 1997, the Chinese government emphasized on the importance of private sectors in the social economy of China with the claim that they encourage the profitability of factors of production such as capital, labor and technology. It was until 2001 when major achievements were realized in the various fields and reforms were then running smoothly. At the present China has established a market system that plays the role of ensuring efficient allocation of resources. Future plan include establishing a fully developed market economy by the year 2020 (Meng, 78). As an already developed country, China’s economy is now characterized by huge infrastructural developments such as roads and industries. It is also characterized by advanced technology which has come to replace human labor in their work places, good education and health facilities whose working conditions are hygienic. Workers in various institutions in the country especially in the urban areas are paid high wages. Roads, industries, agriculture and health facilities such as pharmaceuticals all contribute to the Gross Domestic Product of China which is continuing to increase. Population increase has also been realized in China. Population statistics of China indicate that the female population is less than the male population. Over the past decades, birth rates included eighty girls out of every hundred boys. Leaders in the country including political and business leaders have their main agenda as developing and growing the economy of China. Most businesses in the urban areas of China require labor force. This triggered the migration of rural residents to urban areas in search of better paying jobs than those in the rural areas. The Hu Kou policy in China triggers the migration of the female population from rural to urban areas. Women are more interested in the search for jobs with higher wages because they hold the responsibility of taking care of their families. Population flow before 1978 Migration in China before 1978 was rampant and this resulted to high population flows especially in the urban areas. Population movement then became an issue of concern by the Chinese Government. After the Chinese war, most people were moved back to their villages and other moved to cities to look for jobs. Urban cities were magnets for the rural residents who aimed at benefiting from the state. Later, the Government realized that there were a huge number of people moving into cities and it criticized the blind population flow. Later on, the government introduced the Ho Kou system which checked and regulated the movement of people. The Ho Kou system Hu Kou is a resident permit issued by the Chinese government on the basis of family. It divided population into four classes and this divide the society into two main groups. The first group referred a person according to the place he or she was registered; Hu Kou Suozaidi which stood for either rural or urban registration. The second group referred a person according to registration type; Hu Kou leibie which stood for either agricultural or non-agricultural registration. The Ho Kou system was managed by the police. The government requires every family to have a Hu Kou booklet which contains information regarding the family members, individual names, birth rates, marriage status and the addresses of both parents. The system controlled mobility of people because it required them to remain in their particular birth places until their death since that was the place where the Hu Kou was, initially. This bound many people in their homes which are mostly the rural areas where there is no access to schools, jobs, food, public services and health facilities such as hospitals. However, the system allowed movement of the people but not the access of the above essentials from other places. In the olden days, nobody could buy food without a “Liangpiao” despite the amount of money one had. The “Liangpiao” was only provided by the Chinese government at the same place where the Hu Kou was issued. Ho Kou was therefore used as a tool for mobility, without it, no movement. Two types of Ho Kou are mentioned: rural Ho Kou and the city Hu Kou. The rural residents were not considered by the Central government and they had to depend on the locally available resources for their survival. Implications of the economic reform The Ho Kou system has changed since the 1980. Its enforcement was then not as strict as before. The economic reform reduced the restrict of population flow as people began rural residents began to migrate to urban cities in search of greener pastures. However, it is possible to move around the country with a Ho Kou to access food and jobs outside your birth place. The change of the Ho Kou system has also led to the immigration of many people from other countries to China to seek for jobs with a high wages. Female rural-urban immigration has been common in China since the change of the Ho Kou system. Women move to the urban areas of China to seek for typical works such as workers in manufacturing, service and textile industries present in the cities, construction works for example in roads and jobs for taking care of children in their households (Davin, 60). The service industry provided job opportunities for the immigrants to work as housecleaners and provide massages. Reasons for female rural-urban migration Increased labor demand Economic reform goes hand in hand with the impacts of population mobility. There has been a great flow of population after 1980, an issue that constitutes labor flow from rural to urban areas in China. The introduction of both rural and urban markets through the market economy has triggered the increased cheap labor demand that forms the basis for nascent labor market. These population and labor flows have caused some impacts on the political and social-economic structure of China. The immigrants have also caused a great change in their origin and destination places. In their destination places, the female immigrants have contributed positively to the economic growth of the nation through their works in constructions and industries. They therefore participate in the urbanization process and act as a link between the rural and the urban. The female population was attracted by the increased labor demand in the urban areas after the successful establishment of urban enterprises especially after the restructuring of the economy of China. Women therefore migrated to the urban areas in search of surplus capital. Millions of immigrants have relocated to the coastal cities of China to look for jobs (Davin, 60). Household responsibility Other than looking for jobs with high wages than those in the rural areas, the female population in China had adopted the household responsibility system in crop production or agriculture. Generally, women hold the responsibility of taking care of family needs. In the rural areas of China, agriculture was communally practiced by a team of members who would finally share the outputs. The communal system was later dismantled and land was distributed to individual households where members of each household would practice agriculture separately. The communal system was later advanced to “household responsibility system”. As a result, outputs from the agricultural sector increased as farmers’ wealth also increased. Therefore, production, decisions on migrating and allocation of labor was decided by the household structure. However, the surplus female labor involved themselves in other works outside the farm in order to maximize on the income obtained from the household system. Non –surplus labor also involved themselves in non-farm works. Attempts to seek surplus capital by the female population led to their migration into urban areas where there were no farm works. This led to the decline of work opportunities in the rural enterprises (Davin, 65). Technology developed Development theorists have described industrialization as a tool for urbanization. Urbanization is accompanied by the development of high and new technology in the urban areas. The development of this improved technology has been the cause of female rural-urban immigration in China since the reform of the economy. However, industrialization in China had been launched in the 1950s economic plans. The economic plans, through the Mao-era jurisdiction, aimed at preventing the rural residents from migrating into the urban areas while maintaining the population density in the urban cities. Improvement of technology included the development of equipment and machines which were used in the rural areas for agriculture to replace human labor. This led to the emergence of a group of jobless people among the rural residents. This implied that, most rural residents would lack jobs in the rural enterprises. The need to make surplus money to support families in the rural areas made the female population to migrate to the urban cities in China whose technology, jobs and better living conditions were much improved (Davin, 67). Price system The pricing system in China continued to rise especially for the rural residents. Before the reform of China’s economy, prices for basic goods and services continued to rise and this affected the economic and social welfare of all the citizens. The most affected were the rural population who did not even have the enough capacity to purchase the locally available resources. The price system reform was therefore included in the agenda for economic reforms in China in 1978. The main objective for reforming the price system by the government was to withdraw the control of prices by the Chinese administration to allow market forces to determine the price system. The rising price of goods even after the economic reform raised needs to make more money to enable the ease access of the resources and to support family life. Female population therefore migrated to the urban areas to make money for them to manage the rising price system (Mallee, 53). Value of the female rural-urban migration Generally, the female migrants in China are in a vulnerable status though they contribute to the improvement of the economy. The female migrants became vulnerable because of inadequate supervision of policies on migration and social security (Lin et al, 173). There was an empirical research regarding the female rural-urban migration which described a migrant worker as a person who moves from his or her rural home to the urban cities to look for jobs and then return home for further farming when out of work. The main objective of this research paper was to identify the gains or losses of the migrant workers in urban areas and also the quality of life they lived. The paper also attempted to identify the gender features of the migrating population. The research found out that the improved living and working conditions in the urban cities of China brought fourth, various gains to the lives of the rural female workers who migrated there. The various studies were conducted in various towns in China such as Anhui. From the surveys, conclusion was made that the huge economic development that China is experiencing promoted the migration of female workers to the modern cities and gain employment. Statistics showed that the most young, educated and unmarried female workers migrated to the urban cities to in search for off-farm jobs. The proportion of the migration of the male population was much less than that of the female population. This represented the gender features among the immigrants (Mallee, 54). Rural women play a crucial role in the household economy. It is true to the fact that off-farm jobs enable them to gain surplus money to improve the living standards of their family. From the arguments raised on the positive impacts of female migration to the urban areas, we can suppose that, other than monetary gains, their role of providing the needs of the family accrues to their position in the family and in the society as a whole. The financial role of rural women to their families is an essential factor to consider in identifying and justifying the reasons why they migrate to urban areas to look for jobs (Mallee, 55). It also assists in the identification of the effects of their rural-urban migration. Regardless of the significance of the economic incentives in the urban cities, the female migrants are frequently dogged by many obstacles. The main obstacle faced by the female migrants is the relation constraints between them and their children. They unfortunately have to choose between abandoning their children at their rural home under the care of their grandparents or bring them to the urban cities where they enroll for school programs. Studies have proved that children who are left back at their rural homes develop constraints in relating with their parents who are away from them. Generally, the social status of the female migrants is low despite the high economic gains in the urban areas. They are loaded with physical work and they work for long hours, ten to twelve hours in a single day and are paid insufficient wages. In addition to this, their social status is characterized by the lack of labor protection as well as protection from security agencies. Long working hours weakened their ability to return home and interact with their children and the children’s grandparents. Stress was placed on the elderly people who were left to take care of the migrants’ children who did not choose to do that. Economic goals triggered their migration. Being away from their children also stressed the female immigrants. They were materially stressed because they did not obtain the intended amount of income from the low paying jobs in the urban areas. The female migrants also suffered health and education problems. Education was an obstacle especially for those who brought their children to the urban cities to enroll them in school. However, the immigrants’ children did not receive an equal quality of education as other children; immigrant schools were instead established to educate their children (Lin et al, 173). The issue of health among the female migrants is a major point of concern in the urban cities of China. The health quality embraces all physical, social and mental aspects of the migrants (Norstrand, 326). For many years, health research institutes have done measures of the health related issues among the female migrants to urban cities. Studies by the institutions have deduced that the quality of health can be influenced by various factors which include age, occupation, working hours and the education level of the people in question (Norstrand, 326). The socioeconomic health issues such as education and occupation are difficult to reverse while other social aspects such as relationships and sleep are easy to reverse. Studies proved that health promotions in work places influenced both the female workers and the population at large. Interventions to reverse the above health issues among the female migrant workers was mainly designed to promote good health quality especially for those female workers assigned jobs in factories. During this period of intervention, the female migrant workers in the factories received health services from the Local Government. They were also issued with an intervention package which consisted of the access to education facilities and lectures regarding occupational, reproductive and mental health. Those reading materials were distributed to the female workers equally (Norstrand, 326). Why female migrants still prefer to work in the urban areas Most female migrants prefer to grow their roots in the cities than going back to their rural homes. Among all migrants, recent studies have proved that female migrants have a higher willing to settle in the cities than their men counterparts. Young female migrant workers have a negative attitude towards their countryside hence prefer to work and settle in the urban area; this is their dream. In case they are not satisfied in their current jobs, they to move to new cities for other jobs in but do not return to their rural homes. Urban areas in china provide high opportunities for employment. Besides having readily available jobs in the cities, educational and health facilities present in those areas make the female migrants prefer to work and settle in the urban cities (keung et al 36). Conclusion In simple terms, China is a developed nation with better living conditions, better jobs, better facilities such as hospitals and schools. However, these are found in the urban cities. There the rural population gets attracted by these and much more opportunities found in the urban areas. It’s everybody’s wish to have a better life having a good paying job. This is the sole reason for the female rural-urban immigration China. Work cited Davin, Delia. Internal Migration in Contemporary China. New York, N.Y: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Internet resource. Keung, Wong D. F, Chang Y. Li, and He X. Song. "Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: Living a Marginalised Life." International Journal of Social Welfare. 16.1 (2007): 32-40. Print. Lin, Danhua, Xiaoming Li, Bo Wang, Yan Hong, Xiaoyi Fang, Xiong Qin, and Bonita Stanton. "Discrimination, Perceived Social Inequity, and Mental Health Among Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China." Community Mental Health Journal. 47.2 (2011): 171-180. Print. Mallee, Hein, and Frank N. Pieke. Internal and International Migration: Chinese Perspectives. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999. Print. Meng, Xin. "Labor Market Outcomes and Reforms in China." Journal of Economic Perspectives. 26.4 (2012): 75-102. Print. Norstrand, JA, and Q Xu. "Social Capital and Health Outcomes Among Older Adults in China: the Urban-Rural Dimension." The Gerontologist. 52.3 (2012): 325-34. Print. Read More