Precarity Diverged: Social Capital, Career Paths, and Spatial Mobility of the Chinese Internal Migrants

• In Event: 4367 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 8. Migration, International and Internal

Abstract

Arguably the “precariat” of post-reform China, rural-to-urban migrants have long been seen as a unitary population highly unstable in both occupational and spatial terms. For decades, the precarity has been explained from the perspective of state and market: on the one hand, by the institutional exclusion under the Hukou Regime; on the other, by the low job security in the secondary labor market. Probing into their highly diverged career paths and migration outcomes, however, this research finds both the state and the market explanation inefficient and proposes a social explanation that emphasizes rural migrants’ active utilization of resources embedded in different forms of social capitals. Three types of rural migrants and three types of social relations are hence identified: “floaters” rely on peer support to survive career transitions, but later 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 involvement 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