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

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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

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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