While living in Beijing, I came to know well a migrant family. They had arrived in Beijing in the mid-1990s and had managed to find good jobs and earn enough money to buy an apartment and start a family. Even though they did not have a Beijing hukou, they managed to get their children into a decent school. It was interesting to watch the children grow up, because clearly they saw themselves more as urbanites, even though they technically weren’t.
The editor's point of view ...
A personal look at two migrants in Beijing illustrates the character and strength of many ordinary people who live in difficult situations in a changing China.
Even after thirty years of economic reform, the majority of rural migrants in China's cities are still kept out of the formal labor market and professional tracks. Most of them pick up jobs in the informal sector. Such social inequality is likely to be perpetuated given the fact that their second generation is not provided with quality education. In China, education, often considered a way of changing one's life trajectory, now only reproduces social status and reinforces class boundaries.
China's migrant population presents both challenges and uncertainties.
Migrant workers make important contributions to China's cities but also pose tremendous challenges. A resident of Beijing explores how migrants fit in the capital and how Beijingers view them.
The world of China's "floating population" is vastly different from the world of its city dwellers.
A look at China's migrant cities.
The phrase “rural urbanization,” at first glance, appears to be an oxymoron. Yet it is an apt phrase to describe what has been happening in China, especially in the eastern regions, over the past two decades.