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18 January 2012

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Internal Migrants Moving

From Village to City

 

The number of people moving around within countries

dwarfs the volumes that migrate from one

country to another particularly in China

 

The United Nations estimates that 740 million people are migrants within their own countries; that’s four times more than the number of people who move from one country to another.

 

The internal migration happens for much the same reasons as international movements that can mostly be boiled down to a search for a better life.

 

Huge Urban/Rural Shift Underway

The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries triggered a massive movement of people from rural to urban centres in Europe and North America.

 

Since World War II, the same pattern has grown in the developing world.

 

Writing in The Globe and Mail (September 2010) Doug Saunders points to “vast shifts under way in India and Bangladesh, and huge numbers of Africans and Southeast Asians [that are] joining the exodus. In 1950, 309 million people in the developing world lived in cities; by 2030, 3.9 billion will.”

 

Tetraktys

Massive numbers of rural to urban migrants end up living in slums such as this one in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

 

Massive Population Movement in China

The most populous country in the world – China has 1.33 billion people – also has the most internal migrants. There were 210 million internal migrants in China in 2009; known as the “floating population.”

 

This is a staggeringly high number in a country that officially restricts where individuals can live. The household registration system goes back 2,000 years and is used as a means of controlling movement.

 

In May 2009, Andrew Scheineson wrote a background paper on China’s internal migrants for the Council on Foreign Relations; in it he said “Migrant workers are young, poorly educated, generally healthy, and highly mobile and are therefore heavily represented in manufacturing, construction, and social services industries - short-term employment sectors which account for over 60 percent of rural migrants.” Two out of three are male.

 

Migrant Workers Mistreated

But, as with millions of migrants before them in other parts of the world, China’s internal movers have discovered the hoped-for better life in the city can turn out to be an illusion.

 

The All-China Federation of Labour Unions claims migrant workers are owed $15 billion in back wages.

 

Meanwhile, reports have come out about bad working conditions in Chinese factories. A company called Foxconn has come in for particular criticism after at least 14 of its employees committed suicide in 2010.

 

Foxconn is based in Taiwan and is a major supplier to Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Nintendo, and many other high-tech companies.

 

Steve Jurvetson

A Foxconn facility in Shenzhen, China.

 

An October 2010 report by 60 teachers and students from 20 universities in mainland China related that “Foxconn’s labour system is characterized with highly-intensified workload, low payment, violent training, all at the cost of the workers’ dignity.”

 

The report, which describes Foxconn plants as similar to prisons, says the company routinely violates safety standards.

 

The report, published by the Chinese newspaper Global Times, has since been taken off-line.

 

Chinese Women Migrants Face Additional Obstacles

Investigators find that female workers in China often have a rougher time than men.

 

According to a report issued by the China Labour Bulletin (March 2004), a Hong Kong-based non-governmental group, “women migrant workers face job discrimination compared with men by being pushed into lower paying jobs…Women are frequently simply fired when they become pregnant.”

 

The group adds that “Young women more generally are seen as easier to control than male employees and many migrant women have little knowledge of their rights. Sexual harassment and abuse are frequently reported.”

 

Whether male or female rural migrants in China face considerable struggles in climbing out of poverty.

 

Sources

“How Slums Can Save the World.” Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, September 24, 2010.

“China’s Internal Migrants.” Andrew Scheineson, Council on Foreign Relations, May 14, 2009.

“ ‘Dagonmei’ - Female Migrant Labourers.” China Labour Bulletin, March 2004.

“India Urban Poverty Report 2009.” Core Centre, 2009.

“Slums, Stocks, and Stars of the New India.” Erich Follath, Der Spiegel, February 28, 2007.

“Nearly 49,000 Slums in India.” Mahendra Kumar Singh, Times of India, May 27, 2010.

“Will India’s Rural Job Scheme Work?” Jill McGivering, BBC News, February 2, 2006.

 

© Canada and the World, January 2012

All rights reserved

 

THE UPSIDE OF

URBAN MIGRATION

 

Not everything about moving from the farm to the factory is bad.

 

Life in rural Africa and Asia is characterized by extreme poverty and low life expectancies.

 

Incomes are higher in cities so migrants are able to send money home to impoverished families.

 

In cities people have access to health care and education that is not available in farming communities.

 

Globe and Mail writer Doug Saunders makes the claim that “The dramatic declines in the number of very poor people in the world around the turn of this century – with the world poverty rate falling from 34 percent in 1999 to 25 percent in 2009 – were caused entirely by urbanization.”

 

INDIA’S

MIGRATION WAVE

 

India is also a tidal wave of migration as people turn their backs on rural poverty and head for the cities.

 

A 2009 report by Core Centre, an Indian government-supported group, says that, “With over 575 million people, India will have 41 percent of its population living in cities and towns by 2030 from the present level of 286 million and 28%.”

 

But, for many of these migrants the good life hasn’t materialized. The Core Centre report notes that “the ratio of urban poverty in some of the larger states is higher than that of rural poverty leading to the phenomenon of ‘Urbanization of Poverty.’ ”

 

Big cities such as Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), and Hyderabad are having great difficulty absorbing the inrush of people.

 

A February 2007 article in the German magazine Der Spiegel reports that, “Mumbai…holds the dubious distinction of being home to Asia’s largest slums where, according to government statistics, 60 percent of all city residents live. In 2003 there were 17 public toilets for every million people, and to this day at least one third of the city’s residents have no access to clean drinking water.”

 

Across the country, there are 62 million people living in slums. Writing about these shantytowns for The Times of India (May 2010) Mahendra Kumar Singh says that “around 49,000 slums continue to blight the urban landscape forcing [hundreds of thousands] of people to live in pathetic conditions.”

 

The ramshackle communities are usually on public land and it’s rarely good quality real estate. Typically, slums in India are beside garbage dumps, railway tracks, or drains. Most get waterlogged during the monsoon season.

 

Because of the problem of growing urban poverty, the government has tried a strategy of encouraging people to stay in their villages.

 

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is aimed at providing public works employment to the rural poor and raising the income levels of 60 million families.

 

However, Jill McGivering of BBC News (February 2006) was not optimistic about the plan: “India has a long-standing struggle with corruption and bad governance…Many people question how transparent it will be and how much of the money will really reach the poor.”