Migrant Worker Generation Gap Underscores

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 GUANGZHOU 000082 SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/CM, S/P, EEB, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2035 TAGS: ELAB ECON PGOV CH SUBJECT: Migrant Worker Generation Gap Underscores Changing Demographics REF: 09 GUANGZHOU 711 GUANGZHOU 00000082 001.2 OF 002 Classified by Economic and Political Section Chief Steve Lang for reason 1.4 (d). ¶1. (C) Summary and comment: China's new generation of migrant workers has more education, less interest in rural life and a higher rate of criminality than the previous generation. Younger workers favor jobs in the service sector over manufacturing and often do not plan to retire to the countryside in their old age. An inability to assimilate into normal city life remains a problem, according to a variety of south China labor watchers. The government predicts that the number of migrant workers in China will double by 2020, with almost all growth made up of young workers. Shortsightedness and a distrust of government savings plans has made a new social security pension scheme unpopular with many migrants. Demographic changes -- both quantitative and qualitative -- in China's migrant labor population will almost certainly present novel challenges to the country's leaders' quest for a harmonious society. End summary and comment. Generation Gap -------------- ¶2. (C) The "new generation" of migrant workers -- those born since 1990 or so -- is markedly different from its predecessors who left their villages during the early decades of China's reform and opening, according to Guangzhou University labor expert Xie Jianshe. Xie said that new generation migrants tend to have more education than the previous generation; most have completed junior high school or even senior high school, a relative rarity among old generation workers. The new generation also tends to lack agricultural experience and has little interest in subsistence farming. ¶3. (C) Generational views of work and the future diverge as well. Xie said that younger workers favor jobs in the service sector, while the stereotype of the older generation has traditionally involved manufacturing, a view echoed by our NGO contacts. The new generation tends to change jobs more often than their elders, and young workers often intend to make their move to the city permanent, in contrast to the older migrants who ultimately plan to retire to the countryside, said Xie. ¶4. (C) Old and young migrant workers have differing views on law and order, too. Xie surveyed three Guangdong prisons and found that a "high percentage" of inmates are new generation migrant workers. Xie speculated that a major factor in young migrants' criminality is their simultaneous emotional disconnection with their rural hometowns and an inability to be assimilated into cities. Regardless of the reasons, said Xie, it is clear that new generation migrant workers have a higher criminal rate than the old generation. ¶5. (C) And the number of new generation migrant workers is predicted to grow dramatically over the next decade. Official estimates put China's migrant worker population at 250 million, 60% of which are new generation workers. Xie says the government predicts that by 2020 the number of Chinese migrant workers will double to 500 million and account for one-third of the country's population. Almost all this growth will come from the younger generation. ¶6. (C) Development policies in Guangdong province will likely reduce the number of jobs for migrant workers in the province's major cities, said Xie. Xie predicted that, when Guangzhou Steel Works and the Guangzhou Shipyard move from the city as part of an industrial upgrading program (reftel),the number of migrant workers in Guangzhou will decrease. Other types of enterprises GUANGZHOU 00000082 002.2 OF 002 will provide jobs to a reduced number of these workers, said Xie, but many will have to leave Guangzhou for work elsewhere. Widespread Distrust of New Social Security Scheme -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) Many migrant workers prefer to have cash now instead of a pension later, according to Xie and a number of labor NGO contacts. Xie called the spate of migrant workers canceling their social security accounts "myopic," but also judged the new regulations -- which cost workers approximately 100 yuan (about US$15.00) each month and prevent access to that money until retirement - - as inconvenient for workers used to counting only on themselves and their families for support in old age. Shenzhen Spring Breeze Labor Dispute Service Director Zhang Zhiru separately said that the new regulations are well intentioned but nonetheless inconvenient. Though Zhang had heard media reports of workers canceling their accounts before the January 2010 deadline, he said he had not heard much complaining about the regulations since then. ¶8. (C) Panyu Migrant Workers Documentation Center Director Zeng Feiyang commented that some workers were reluctant to participate in the social security program simply because they were worried that some new policy would be implemented in the future that would prevent them from receiving their pensions. "They don't feel like their money is in safe hands," he said. Separately, Zhuhai Center for Social Work Facilitators Project Coordinator Yang Daimo said that workers resent what they view to be a paternalistic policy limiting their financial options. Yang noted that a number of individual workers hoping to start their own businesses in other parts of the country found the new regulations particularly inconvenient. Jury still Out on Train Ticket Policy -------------- ¶9. (SBU) In an effort to better control the chaos that is millions of migrant workers returning home for the Chinese New Year holiday, Guangzhou officials during this year's exodus have required rail tickets to be issued in travelers' names. One NGO contact said the policy was a "good practice" and had already helped prevent scalpers from cornering the market or illegally selling tickets. Nonetheless, another NGO contact said that migrant workers had found the process troublesome and unnecessarily complicated during an already stressful time of year. JACOBSEN