Agriculture to Industry: The Labor and Life of Displaced Farmers

Author: Zhang Ruli
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The topic of this article has two aspects of significance: , rural-to-urban migration is a unique form of rural residents entering the city during the process of urbanization, and so far, there has been a lack of systematic research on this issue; second, the absorption and exclusion effects of China's existing system on farmers entering the city are concentrated in rural-to-urban migrants, which is very meaningful for people to predict and infer the constraints on farmers entering the city after the household registration system reform. The concepts of "marginalization" and "re-marginalization" are of great value for analyzing the living conditions, social status, social identity, and the relationship between rural-to-urban migrants and the existing urban system.
— Professor Sun Liping, Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University
Based on a large amount of literature and reliable field research data, the author analyzes China's rural-to-urban migration over the past 50 years and examines the characteristics of rural-to-urban migrants in urban economic and social life during different periods, with a focus on their living conditions. The author points out that during the planned economy period, rural-to-urban migrants were actively marginalized, while in the context of market economy development and changes in the comparative benefits of urban-rural migrants, they were passively marginalized. In the face of declining efficiency in state-owned enterprises, increased layoffs, and unemployment, rural-to-urban migrants were re-marginalized. The author's description of the re-marginalization of rural-to-urban migrants is detailed and the analysis is profound. This research on the consequences of rural-to-urban migration under severe market fluctuations provides valuable insights for China's choice of rapid rural urbanization paths.
— Professor Wang Sibin, Department of Sociology, Peking University
This book primarily reveals the institutional reasons behind such changes by analyzing the process of rural-to-urban migrants in a specific village moving from marginalization to re-marginalization, as well as the development of the resettlement capacity of the units responsible for resettling these migrants. On this basis, the author attempts to construct a more broadly applicable theory of re-marginalization.