The Class Attribute and Social Identity of Migrant Workers in China: Based on Marxist Political Economics

Ma Yan; Yang Peixiang; Wu Jingjing; Li Yun

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.2018.07.006

Summary

The migrant worker is a special group of employees in China, which has caught the attention from the academia home and abroad. However, the existing research on the class attribute and social identity, and the logical relationship between the two of the migrant worker still has a vague understanding, and it is very difficult to set a clear policy plan for solving the problem of the migrant worker. Under the background of the 19th CPC National Congress putting forward socialism with Chinese characteristics into the new era and Rural Revitalization, there is still room to define their class attribute and social identity, and to necessarily analyze the internal logic between them theoretically.　　Based on the perspective of Marxist political economics and on the basis of combing the relevant literature, this paper firstly puts forward and analyzes theoretically that the migrant worker in China is semi-proletariat in the class attribute, their social identity is half-worker and half-peasant, and the latter is caused by the former; then, using the data of Chinese General Social Survey 2015, the paper empirically analyzes the identity of the migrant worker on their class attribute and social identity, and the above theoretical view is supported; finally, based on theoretical and empirical analyses, the future trend and way out of the migrant worker are predicted.　　According to the above research idea, the following conclusions can be drawn: first, the migrant worker not only has a strong sense of identity with their class attribute of semi-proletariat and half-worker and half-peasant of social identity, but also the sense of identity is greatly influenced by factors such as education level, own housing, income level, social security, labor contracts, union participation and so on; secondly, the migrant worker in China may maintain social status of half-worker and half-peasant in a long period of time; thirdly, there are mainly two way out for the future development of the migrant worker: one part of the migrant worker will transform into urban workers in the full sense; the other part of the migrant worker will transform into peasant household in the real sense.　　The conclusions of the paper provide important policy implications for solving the problem of the migrant worker: first, the government should adhere to the idea of people centered in ideology and make long-term preparations for ideology, the model of " Great Leap Forward” and " one-size-fits-all” can not be made; second, the government should focus on strengthening the vocational education and training of the migrant worker, improving the income level of the migrant worker, encouraging and supporting the migrant worker to own urban housing, improving the social security of the migrant worker, supervising the employers and the migrant worker to sign labor contracts, and guiding the migrant worker to join the union.　　In a word, the contributions of this study are mainly reflected in three aspects: first, the greatest contribution is based on the perspective of Marxist political economics, and constructs a theoretical framework for analyzing the class attribute and social identity of the migrant worker; second, the theoretical framework is proved and a consistent conclusion is drawn from the empirical analysis; third, measuring the future development trend and way out of the migrant worker, and the paper provides a reference for the direction of the government’s efforts.