Migration and development in China: trends, geography and current issues

Abstract

China’s recent meteoric rise in the global economy is closely related to the strength of its manufacturing sector, which is heavily dependent on cheap migrant labor. This paper analyzes China’s recent migration trends, spatial pattern and their relationship with China’s economic strategy. Internal migration in China is special in that it is heavily controlled and regulated by the hukou (household registration) system. The system enables the country to create a massive exploitable migrant labor force that makes China’s industry highly competitive in the global economy. The paper explains how the system works and distils the complex population and migration statistics to present a relatively complete picture of migration over time and space, including the latest changes. Special focus is on analyzing ‘rural migrant labor’, which has constituted the most important human cog powering the China economic engine. Long-distance, interprovincial migration is also studied in the context of the changes in the regional economy in supporting China’s ascendancy to being the ‘world’s factory’. Three major issues pertaining to this migrant labor system and recent developments in China and the global economy are examined. They presage important changes to come, which are likely to impact both China and the rest of the world.