The local state and nongmingong citizenship in Guangdong: local welfare as developmental contributory rights

ABSTRACT

This study analyses the changing socioeconomic status of nongmingong – village-originated informal migrant workers in Chinese cities – by examining how their local welfare rights are conditioned upon individual developmental utilities. In Guangdong Province, which is an exemplary case, the local state has provided a kind of developmental-cum-social citizenship to migrant workers with desirable qualifications. The state achieved this by granting hukou (formalized local citizen status) according to a point-based system that emphasizes qualifications that are considered useful for the local economy and society. Such developmentally contingent local citizenship, despite its inclusionary effect on those eligible, has inevitably amplified the inequalities among migrant workers in the labour market.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• local state
• welfare
• nongmingong
• citizenship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Their population is estimated to be in the range of 240-290 million as of 2018.

2. A representative example of the human rights issue is the sunzhigang case from 2003. The Nanhai Honda strike (2010) and the sequential suicides of Foxconn workers (2010-2011) are key examples of labour and human right issues.

3. In Shenzhen and Dongguan, the number of migrants were seven times higher than that of the hukouresidents in early 2000s.

4. Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is typical.

5. As a result, especially in rural areas, family inequalities are widening, and many migrant families are experiencing de facto family disintegration or crisis.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Asia Research Foundation Grant funded by the Seoul National University Asia Center (0448A-20200007).

Notes on contributors

Yoon Jongseok

Yoon Jongseok is an adjunct professor in the Liberal Arts College at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. He studied in Asian History at Seoul National University and received his MA and Ph.D in sociology from Seoul National University. His main research interests are migrants, citizenship, mobilities, social governance, and Asian (Korea and China) studies. His related works include The Shenzhen Dream and the Transformation of the Developmental Discourse in Shenzhen (The Journal of Modern China Studies, 2017, in Korean), Community Building in Northeast China amidst the Expansion of Social Governance (coauthored with Cho Mun Young and Jang Youngseok, Sino-Soviet Affairs, 2017, in Korean), Formation and Transformation of the Concept of Rural-to-urban Migrant Worker after the Reform and Opening-up in China (China Knowledge Network, 2020, in Korean), and a short article Negotiating the New Normal in the COVID-19 Era (IIAS The Newsletter, 2020, forthcoming).