Using data from four cities in China (Shenzhen, Suzhou, Beijing, and Chengdu), this article examines the occupational and social mobility among migrant peasant workers in urban areas. Through qualitative interviews with 109 peasant workers in 2005, we found that institutionalized social structures, such as the household-registration system, constrain the occupational and social mobility of rural peasant workers who migrate to and reside in urban areas. Obtaining more education and skills appear to be viable mechanisms for at least some migrant peasant workers to achieve higher occupational or social status in the city. Nonetheless, after several years of working in the urban areas, many rural workers plan to return to their rural hometowns, largely due to the social exclusion they experienced in the cities
Abstract:The current study draws on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to examine what determines employees' pension participation in China. For the purpose of exploring which employees actually receive pension coverage and why, econometric analysis was conducted with China's Employer-Employee Matched Survey data (N=3412). A variety of both individual factors, ranging from age and Hukou status to job characteristics, and macro factors, including interprovincial migration and level of economic development, are all found to predict insurance coverage. Qualitative research results contextualize these findings by discussing the often ambivalent and triangulated relations among employers, employees and government. These three groups primarily use shared core policy beliefs to structure their interactions in the form of advocacy coalitions. Various types of cross-coalition interaction, including negotiation, cooperation and conflict, are examined. These findings carry both theoretical and policy implications.
Purpose
Aiding employment is an important poverty reduction strategy in many countries’ social welfare systems, as this strategy can help empower the recipients with a better living standard, development and social inclusion. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most significant individual and systematic variables for the employment status of low-income groups in urban China.
Design/methodology/approach
The data of this study are drawn from “Social Policy Support System for Poverty-stricken Families in Urban and Rural China 2015” report. The Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China appointed and funded the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) at Peking University to deliver the related project and organize a research team to write the report. Multiple binary logistic regression analysis is adopted to identify both individual and systematic factors that affect the employment status among low-income groups in urban China.
Findings
According to the results of the binary logistic regression model, individual factors, including: gender; householder status; education; and self-rated health status, play a significant role in determining the employment status of low-income groups in urban China. Clearly, the impacts of individual factors are more influential to marginal families than to families entitled to receive Basic Living Allowance. In contrast, compared with marginal families, systematic factors are more influential to families entitled to receive Basic Living Allowance.
Originality/value
This study highlights the importance of precise poverty reduction strategy and the issue of “welfare dependence” among low-income groups in urban China. Policy recommendations derived from the findings are hence given, including: the promotion of family-friendly policies; the introduction of a smart healthcare system; the establishment of a Basic Living Allowance adjustment mechanism; and the provision of related social services.
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