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Summary Migration, sovereignty and identity case studies
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Migration, sovereignty and identity case studies
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Evaluate the extent to which it could be argued that immigration and the free movement of freepeople pose a threat to a country’s sovereignty (25)
Sovereignty = the authority of a state to govern itself or another state. The rights of a country to
have its own government and run its own affairs within an internationally recognised territory.
America – Mexico – Australia = tight control
Germany = controlled migration
Greece’s islands – Syrian crisis = no control
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Migration, Sovereignty and Identity: Case studies
China and the hukou system
1950s Hukou policy
- After the Chinese communist revolution, the new communist government introduced
restrictions on internal migration that were designed to keep people in rural areas
- These restrictions were known as the hukou (household registration) system where
everyone is registered at an official residence
Rural-urban distinction
- Very hard for migrant workers from rural areas to change their official residence to a new
location – those moving to cities must be ‘registered’ and buy a permit, which is expensive
Prejudiced and promotes inequality
- Some permits allow permanent migration, but normally only to highly educated workers, or
to those who have family legally residing in the city
- Without a permit, hukou workers earn less and their families have no entitlement to
schooling or healthcare
Gender divide
- 2/3 of the urban migrants are therefore men and women and children often remain in rural
areas
2014 Hukou reform policy
Why the hukou system is bad for Chinese economy
- Now that China depends so much on manufacturing and services industries within its cities,
the hukou system has become too restrictive
- Acts as a barrier to urban integration for many Chinese and the pressure on the transport
system during public holidays is intense – so many urban workers returning to their rural
homes and families
Time lag
- Analysts say the change to the hukou system is unlikely to have immediate effects on social
benefits And doubt it will bring an immediate narrowing of the gap between city and
countryside
- Still a long time before there is an equalised social security net among different regions. The
fundamental locution is to unify social security nationwide
Reform
- Citizens will be classified simply as ‘residents’ rather than as ‘agricultural’ or ‘non-
agricultural’ workers
- Social entitlements they receive will still be determined by where they are registered and in
rural areas these will remain far lower than in cities for a long time – for decades, the system
, has kept farmers from enjoying the same social, economic and political rights as urban
dwellers.
Intense pressure on city population growth
- 100 million migrant workers are expected to have their hukou transferred to cities by 2020,
according to an estimate by the Ministry of Public Security and National Bureau of Statistics
- While rural migrants will be encouraged to settle in smaller towns and cities, the biggest
cities, where a local hukou guarantees the best social benefits, will impose more restrictions
to curb population growth stated in a State Council document which announced the change
- Mega cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have seen the number of migrants grow by
400,000 to 500,000 a year in the past decade – the pressure is too high
Zhejiang
- One of the areas where the rural-urban gap is considered the smallest
- A retired government employee has a state pension of 5,000 yuan a month, but a farmer
often has less than 1,000 yuan
Rural to urban migrants
- In 2009, there were 145 million rural-urban migrants in China accounting for 11% of the
population
One child policy
- Promoted late marriage and delayed child bearing and limited the number of children born
in rural families to 1.5 (2 for a first-born girl, 1 for a boy)
Mid-1980s
- Began to loosen in response to the demands of both the market and rural residents wishing
to seek greater economic opportunity in cities
‘Reform and Open’ economic policy
Already on track for creating unprecedented growth and resulted in a
booming economy with increased incomes across china and large FDI
directed to the manufacturing industry in Eastern urban area s
Slower income growth for rural families increased demand for cheap labour
in China’s new manufacturing sector and booming development encroached
on rural lands which pushed a large amount of rural surplus labour to the
cities
New generation migrants
- These hound rural-urban migrants referred to as the new generation migrants
- This population is becoming the driving force behind China’s migrant labour
- According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics:
o 44.4% of new-generation migrant workers are employed in the manufacturing
industry compared to 31.5% of the previous generation
o Construction (traditionally the magnet for rural-urban migrants) now draws only
9.8% of new-gen workers compared to 27.8% of the previous generation
o NBS found the first migrating age of migrants born between 1980 and 1990 is 21.1
while the age of those born after 1990 is 17.2 – considerably younger
- Tragic string of 13 suicides in a factory owned by one of China’s largest employers of rural
migrant workers, Taiwanese-owned Foxconn Group, in Schenzen City broth the challenges of
these new-generation migrants into focus
Characteristics of rural-urban migrants
- Indications that young migrant workers are at a greater risk for falling victim to crime and
may have higher rates of participation in crime
- In 2010 it was estimated about 1/3 of urban crimes were related to new-generation
migrants
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