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Anecdotally, I had heard that the pandemic was hitting China’s migrants much harder; this research by @kamwchan and team shows worst fears confirmed. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15387216.2020.1791726#.XxJEdL_FUt1.twitter
2/ “the pandemic has acted a magnifier of the pre-exiting disparities, worsening the situation of the poor and the disadvantaged. In China, the rural-hukou population have borne more of the brunt of the outbreak.”
3/ “More than 90% rural-hukou migrant workers were stranded after they returned home and could not find work as of late February. This percentage was only 42% for urban-hukou holders.”
4/ “Based on the comparison between different education levels and age groups, the survey also shows that the lockdown, as an instrument for infectious disease mitigation, has had the biggest impact on those who are less educated and/or low skilled.”
5/ “Facing an extended shutdown and high work resumption requirements, many rural-hukou migrant workers could only scrape out a living by setting up small stalls or picking up low-paying odd jobs in the home village.”
6/ “Apart from work, rural-hukou children’s educations were also disrupted more by the pandemic because as education hastily went online in February, many rural children lacked computers or internet at home.”
7/ “In short, both across the Chinese population at large and within the migrant population itself, the pandemic has created new layers of inequality along the hukou line.”
For a book length treatment examining the deep inequalities migrants face and what it means for China’s future, I humbly suggest you read my new book “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: the Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250089373
Publishers Weekly calls it “a clearheaded and persuasive counter-narrative to the notion that the Chinese economic model is set to take over the world”; “Tenacious reporting that seeks to expose the murky underside of the Chinese miracle” writes the Financial Times/ends
