Tweet
The US led the world in labor force migrations, both internal and through immigration many times in the past. Nothing like these numbers in China.
Nonagricultural employment, as a share of China’s total employment, increased from 31 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 2000, and increased further to 60 percent in 2008. According to a report prepared by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2002, about 80 percent of the nonagricultural labor force consisted of wage workers, such as industrial workers, service workers, clerical workers, and the unemployed. Since the overwhelming majority of nonagricultural workers are wage workers who have to sell their labor to make a living, the rapid growth of nonagricultural employment suggests massive formations of the working class in China.
China’s rapid capitalist accumulation has been based on the exploitation of hundreds of millions of Chinese workers. From 1990 to 2005, China’s labor income, as a share of GDP, fell from 50 to 37 percent. The Chinese workers’ wage rate is about 5 percent of the U.S., 6 percent of the South Korean, and 40 percent of the Mexican level.
Since the early 1980s, about one hundred fifty million migrant workers have moved from the rural areas to urban areas in search of employment. China’s export manufacturing is largely based on the exploitation of these migrant workers. A study of the workers’ conditions in the Pearl River Delta (an area that includes Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong) found that about two-thirds of the workers worked more than eight hours a day and never took weekends off. Some workers had to work continuously, up to sixteen hours. The managers routinely used corporal punishment to discipline the workers. About two hundred million Chinese workers work in hazardous conditions. There are about seven hundred thousand serious work-related injuries in China every year, claiming more than one hundred thousand lives.
As more and more migrant workers settle in the cities and increasingly regard themselves as wage workers rather than peasants, a new generation of workers with growing class consciousness is emerging. Both the official government documents and the mainstream media now recognize the rise of the “second generation migrant workers.”
According to the Chinese mainstream media’s description, currently there are about one hundred million second-generation migrant workers, born after 1980. They moved to the cities soon after completing their high school or middle school education. Most of these people had no experience in agricultural production. They identified more with the cities than the countryside. Compared to the “first generation,” the second-generation migrant workers tend to have better education and higher expectations in employment; they demand better material and cultural living standards, and are less likely to tolerate harsh working conditions. Over the summer of 2010, dozens of strikes hit China’s auto, electronics, and textile industries, forcing capitalists to accept wage increases. Mainstream Chinese scholars are worried about the possibility that China is entering a new period of intense strikes that will bring China’s cheap labor regime to an end and threaten China’s “social stability.”
Capitalist development itself is preparing the objective conditions that favor the growth of working-class organizations. After many years of rapid accumulation, the massive reserve army of cheap labor in China’s rural areas is starting to become depleted. China’s total working age population (those who are between fifteen and sixty-four years old) is expected to peak in 2012 at about 970 million and then gradually decline to about 940 million by 2020. The prime age labor force (those who are between nineteen and twenty-two years old), from which the bulk of the cheap, unskilled workers in manufacturing are recruited, is expected to decline drastically from about one hundred million in 2009 to about fifty million in 2020. The rapid decline of the prime age working population is likely to increase the young workers’ bargaining power further and encourage them to develop more permanent workers’ organizations.
In both Brazil and South Korea from the 1970s to the ’80s, when the nonagricultural share of employment rose above 70 percent, the working-class movement emerged as a powerful social and political force. A similar development is now taking place in Egypt (it's not Twitter!).
China’s nonagricultural employment share is now about 60 percent. If China follows its own trend from 1980 to 2008, with nonagricultural employment shares rising by about 1 percent a year, then China’s nonagricultural employment share would pass the critical threshold of 70 percent by around 2020.
Minqi Li (minqi.li [at] economics.utah.edu) has taught economics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, since 2006. He was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. His book, The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, was published by Pluto Press in 2009.
Nonagricultural employment, as a share of China’s total employment, increased from 31 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 2000, and increased further to 60 percent in 2008. According to a report prepared by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2002, about 80 percent of the nonagricultural labor force consisted of wage workers, such as industrial workers, service workers, clerical workers, and the unemployed. Since the overwhelming majority of nonagricultural workers are wage workers who have to sell their labor to make a living, the rapid growth of nonagricultural employment suggests massive formations of the working class in China.
China’s rapid capitalist accumulation has been based on the exploitation of hundreds of millions of Chinese workers. From 1990 to 2005, China’s labor income, as a share of GDP, fell from 50 to 37 percent. The Chinese workers’ wage rate is about 5 percent of the U.S., 6 percent of the South Korean, and 40 percent of the Mexican level.
Since the early 1980s, about one hundred fifty million migrant workers have moved from the rural areas to urban areas in search of employment. China’s export manufacturing is largely based on the exploitation of these migrant workers. A study of the workers’ conditions in the Pearl River Delta (an area that includes Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong) found that about two-thirds of the workers worked more than eight hours a day and never took weekends off. Some workers had to work continuously, up to sixteen hours. The managers routinely used corporal punishment to discipline the workers. About two hundred million Chinese workers work in hazardous conditions. There are about seven hundred thousand serious work-related injuries in China every year, claiming more than one hundred thousand lives.
As more and more migrant workers settle in the cities and increasingly regard themselves as wage workers rather than peasants, a new generation of workers with growing class consciousness is emerging. Both the official government documents and the mainstream media now recognize the rise of the “second generation migrant workers.”
According to the Chinese mainstream media’s description, currently there are about one hundred million second-generation migrant workers, born after 1980. They moved to the cities soon after completing their high school or middle school education. Most of these people had no experience in agricultural production. They identified more with the cities than the countryside. Compared to the “first generation,” the second-generation migrant workers tend to have better education and higher expectations in employment; they demand better material and cultural living standards, and are less likely to tolerate harsh working conditions. Over the summer of 2010, dozens of strikes hit China’s auto, electronics, and textile industries, forcing capitalists to accept wage increases. Mainstream Chinese scholars are worried about the possibility that China is entering a new period of intense strikes that will bring China’s cheap labor regime to an end and threaten China’s “social stability.”
Capitalist development itself is preparing the objective conditions that favor the growth of working-class organizations. After many years of rapid accumulation, the massive reserve army of cheap labor in China’s rural areas is starting to become depleted. China’s total working age population (those who are between fifteen and sixty-four years old) is expected to peak in 2012 at about 970 million and then gradually decline to about 940 million by 2020. The prime age labor force (those who are between nineteen and twenty-two years old), from which the bulk of the cheap, unskilled workers in manufacturing are recruited, is expected to decline drastically from about one hundred million in 2009 to about fifty million in 2020. The rapid decline of the prime age working population is likely to increase the young workers’ bargaining power further and encourage them to develop more permanent workers’ organizations.
In both Brazil and South Korea from the 1970s to the ’80s, when the nonagricultural share of employment rose above 70 percent, the working-class movement emerged as a powerful social and political force. A similar development is now taking place in Egypt (it's not Twitter!).
China’s nonagricultural employment share is now about 60 percent. If China follows its own trend from 1980 to 2008, with nonagricultural employment shares rising by about 1 percent a year, then China’s nonagricultural employment share would pass the critical threshold of 70 percent by around 2020.
Minqi Li (minqi.li [at] economics.utah.edu) has taught economics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, since 2006. He was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. His book, The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, was published by Pluto Press in 2009.