ABSTRACT
China’s recent meteoric rise in the global economy is closely related to the strength of its manufacturing sector, which is heavily dependent on cheap migrant labour. This chapter analyses China’s recent migration trends, spatial patterns, and their relationship with China’s economic strategy. Internal migration in China is special in that it is heavily controlled and regulated by the hukou (household registration) system. The system enables China to create a massive exploitable migrant labour force that makes China’s industry highly competitive in the global economy. This chapter explains how the system works and analyses the migration statistics to present a relatively complete picture of migration over time and space, including the latest changes. Special focus is on the ‘rural migrant labour’, which is essentially the human cog powering the China economic engine. Long-distance, interprovincial migration is also studied in relation to the changes in the regional economy. Two major current issues of migration are also examined: the precarity of migrant labour and the plight of the children. They presage important changes to come, which are likely to impact both China and the rest of the world.
