Social Capital, Career Choices and Differentiated Migrant Patterns of the Chinese Rural Migrants

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 18. Marginalized Work and Workers

Abstract

Rural-to-urban migrant workers in China have long been seen as a population highly mobile in both occupational and spatial terms. On the one hand, the state-defined Household Registration System denies them of permanent urban residency; on the other, the jobs they take in the cities are often categorized as those in a secondary labor market, which is marked by the lack of job security. Probing into the highly differentiated migration patterns and career paths among the rural migrants, however, this research finds both the state perspective and the market perspective inefficient and proposes a social perspective that emphasizes rural migrants’ active utilization of resources embedded in different forms of social relations. Three types of rural migrants and three types of social relations are hence identified: “floaters” rely on peer support to survive career transitions, but latter on the reciprocal responsibility to support other peers often lead to a further career crisis. As a result, they frequently change jobs and dwellings without upward occupational mobility. “Sojourners” rely on family support to pursue entrepreneurship, but without community access to a monopolized market niche and facing a competitive market, their upward mobility is realized through ceaselessly changing occupations and business locations. “Settlers” collectively create a monopolized and lucrative business through the support of their hometown community, and thus fulfill their career development by further involving in the economic/ social activities of their urban enclave. In this case, therefore, occupational mobility is tied to spatial immobility.

Author

• Thomas Peng, University of California-Berkeley