T23a Community of rural migrant-workers - 中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

T23a Community of rural migrant-workers

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Documents

- Preparatory documents for the workshops - meeting in Paris in July 2009

- China-Europa Forum catalogue

Workshop presentation

Chinese Presentation

Migrant workers often face more challenges than local workers including difficulties related to securing employment, housing, education, health care and more. In China, the migrant worker population is mainly comprised of more than 100 million peasant-workers. They leave home for urban centers where they contribute their labor to help China maintain its status as the "world’s factory".

Throughout the history of international migration, the migrant worker community was the principal channel for rural natives to transition to city life. In China, however, due to institutional constraints, the communities of migrant workers which are treated as means of reproduction of labor force are at low levels of development. Our group is most concerned with this phenomenon and its implications on the future Chinese society.

Topics for debates

From China

- Topic 1: General conditions of peasant-workers’ communities.

- Topic 2: Role of local governments in the development of peasant-workers’ communities.

- Topic 3: Hometown and alien land: the relations between peasant-workers’ communities and their hometowns.

About us

Chinese Prime movers

Mr Lu Huilin Associate Professor,Department of Sociology, Peking University

Mrs Pun Ngai Professor,Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

European Prime Mover Mr Bruno RENÉ-BAZIN

Mediator Mrs Maria Cardines

Assistant in China Miss Zhu Qian 朱倩