Immigration Laws: July, 2004 - Number #02

China: Migrants, Emigration, Economy

China's State Statistical Bureau reported that there were 114 million migrant workers in 2003, making migrants a sixth of the 744 million strong Chinese labor force. The survey of migrants, based on interviews with 69,000 families in 7,100 villages in 31 provinces, found that two-thirds of migrants come from grain producing areas, 56 percent worked outside their home provinces, and 70 percent worked in eastern coastal provinces. About 86 percent of migrants were under 40; 47 percent were under 25.

Competition for migrants is breaking out among Chinese regions. The Yangtze delta area pays about five percent more than the Pearl River Delta, and some migrants who returned home for the Lunar New Year in 2004 traveled to Shanghai rather than back to Guangdong, where wages are about 800 to 1,000 yuan a month.

In April 2004, Beijing announced that migrants employed in construction must be paid at least the city's minimum wage every month, ending the practice of some employers promising annual wage payments and then going out of business. Beginning July 1, 2004, employers must provide workers compensation insurance to their employees, including the area's three million migrant workers.

For the first time, a migrant worker was one of the 1,000 winners of the National Labor Medal, the highest honor for Chinese workers. Bao Xianfeng was a rural urban migrant who is now a group leader for a construction company. The government said there are 100,000 migrant workers, and their number is increasing by five million a year.

Emigration. The number of Chinese-born US residents doubled in the 1990s to almost one million, and China has become the number one source of migrants to Canada, sending about 35,000 immigrants a year. However, the fastest growth in Chinese-born residents has been in western Europe, where numbers have often doubled or tripled in the past decade, to 75,000 in Germany, 50,000 in Italy, and about 40,000 each in France, Ireland and Spain.

Many of the Chinese in Ireland are on work and study visas, with the emphasis on work, with the deputy prime minister of Ireland saying "the Chinese are judged to be people who come and work hard." Many of the Chinese migrants are young people going abroad to study- some 125,000 left in 2002, and estimates in 2004 suggest 181,000 Chinese students in the US and 74,000 in the UK. Some of the Chinese settle in Europe, which has increased Europe-China trade, while others return to China, where they are leaders in China's high-tech, property and publishing industries.

There are about 120 boys under the age of four for every 100 girls, threatening "bare branches" in family trees when young men cannot find brides. Some project the emigration of young men, or more instability at home due to rising crime.

Economy. There are fears that the Chinese economic bubble may burst. Real estate prices are rising sharply, up 30 percent in one year in Shanghai, so that the average 100 square meter house costs 600,000 yuan, or $72,500, equivalent to 40 years income for most middle-class urban residents (per capita income in Shanghai in 2003 was 14,900 yuan). In Beijing, real estate prices rival those in Los Angeles county. State and local governments in China are using inflated land values as collateral for investment projects that may turn out to be white elephants.

China's economy boomed in the past decade, fueled by foreign investment and an expansive money supply, leading to excess capacity in steel, aluminum and real estate. China's trade deficit of $90 billion is comparable in share of GDP to that of the US, and China needs continued foreign investment to finance this deficit and keep creating jobs. Despite very rapid economic growth, unemployment has been rising. About 15 percent of 18-to-22-year-olds are in college, but graduates are having a hard time getting jobs.

China produces seven percent of the world's manufactured goods, compared with 30 percent in the Nafta countries, 27 percent in the EU, and 16 percent in Japan. China's share is rising, and so are the wages of especially skilled workers such as engineers, up 15 percent a year despite the entry of 400,000 new engineers in the labor market each year. Some companies have tried to retain engineers by posting them abroad temporarily, and found that they did not want to come back to China.

China's millions of peasants are falling behind in the economic boom, caught between flat or falling prices and rising costs. A new book, "An Investigation of China's Peasantry," recounts how migrants were overtaxed by local officials, and then hounded by local authorities when they protested- farmers' taxes normally cover local officials' salaries. In March 2004, the book's publisher stopped printing copies, and some of the officials named in the book sued the authors for libel, suggesting central government efforts to suppress the book and its authors.

Taiwan. The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has 100 inspectors to check employers and ensure that they do not hire unauthorized foreign workers. Employers face a fine of NT$ 30,000 to NT$ 150,000 for using migrants to do work unrelated to their contracts, and fines of NT$ 150,000 to NT$ 750,000 for hiring illegal foreigners.

Hudson, Valerie M. and Andrea M. Den Boer. 2004. Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population.