Research On Symbol Consumption And Social Identity Of The New Generation Of Migrant Worker

The new generation of migrant worker has become the main body of the migrant worker group. The rural youth, who are born after 1980s, going up to urban society, have the strong desire to integrate into the urban it. On the one hand, their identity with rural community declines; on the other hand they try their best to identify themselves with urban society. In addition, the new generation of migrant worker is both producers and consumers. However, our society has become a consuming one, the greatest feature of which is symbol consumption that is to display personality, taste, social status, life styles and social identity by means of consumption of the goods. Now that the new generation of the migrant worker is living in such a society, how do they perform?This research proves the relationship between symbol consumption and social identity through studying the characteristics, causes and effects of symbol consumption on the basis of the field study of the new generation of migrant worker of some college and its neighboring and the analysis of status quo of social identity of this group. This research can be divided into five parts:The first part is the Introduction, introducing the cause of the research question, the definition of basic concepts, the literature review of related study as well as the purpose and research methods of the study.The second part constructs the theoretical analytical idea under the framework of consumption and identity.The third part analyzes the status quo of social identity (including internal and external) of the new generation of migrant worker on the basis of empirical information. The findings are that the new generation of migrant worker is confused with their own identity after they enter urban society. And gradually, in contrast with the identity with rural community, they prefer to identity with urban society; however, their strong desire to have access to urban society is difficult to achieve.The fourth part concludes that by means of the description of condition of daily consumption and consuming attitude of the new generation of migrant worker, symbol consumption of the new generation of migrant worker is characterized by the pursuit of famous brand; consumer fashion; purchase under the influence of advertising etc. Besides, their motive of symbol consumption can be interpreted from two sides: one is to intensify internal social identity through show-off and the other is to attain internal social identity through imitation. In the end, this part analyzes the negative influence of symbol consumption on the new generation of migrant worker.The fifth part makes a conclusion and points out the limitations and questions needed to be further study.