Acceso usuarios
Kam Wing Chan
This essay examines the impact of the global financial crisis on rural migrant labour inChina, with a focus on unemployment. It illustrates the interaction of global andChina-specific processes in the context of the worldwide recession. The essay firstsummarizes China’s unique socio-economic system and the mechanisms that havecreated a system of ‘rural migrant labour’ and ‘super-cheapened’ it to help make Chinathe ‘world’s factory’. The main part of the essay examines the unemployment situationfor migrants in late 2008 and the first half of 2009, and the dislocations and problemsmigrant labourers are facing. The China story is complex but interesting, not only for itsrather complicated lexicon and statistics that often confuse outside observers, but alsofor its distinctive system of exploiting the rural population and internal migrant labour.This system makes the impact of the global crisis on migrant labourers, which are at thebottom of the global supply chain, all the more apparent. The last part of this essayanalyses recent governmental fiscal-stimulus policies and measures as well as theirimpact on rural migrant labour, making some broader observations and linking the crisisto China’s model of development.
