On Migrant Workers’ Consciousness For Social Mobility And Theoretical Explanations

Since the Reform and Opening-up Policy was implemented30years ago, migrant workers have been rushing into cities. Though these workers are engaged in secondary and tertiary industry, they have different social status with permanent urban residents. They have rural household registration, but they are different from other peasants in their hometowns in that they are not mainly engaged in agriculture. Such migrant workers enjoy similar status in politics, economy, culture and income, and are members of a new social class—Migrant Workers Class, who are different from either permanent urban residents or permanent rural residents. From the perspective of subject’s subjective viewpoints, the author collects data from migrant workers by means of questionnaire survey and individual interview. The research aims at revealing migrant workers’deep consciousness for social mobility, analyzing factors influencing their consciousness for social mobility, analyzing and explaining above factors with Institutional Theory, Push-pull Theory, Capital Theory and Life-world Theory, and discussing which theory explains best the migrant workers’ consciousness for social mobility.With quantitative and qualitative analysis, the author makes the following discoveries:(1) as to personal identity, most migrant workers think that they are different from permanent urban residents as well as permanent rural residents;(2) as to the desire for social mobility, there are more migrant workers willing to live in cities than those who would rather return home. However, most migrant workers don’t have obvious desire for social mobility;(3) almost half of the investigated migrant workers desire to become permanent urban residents. They want to realize their dream by means of marriage, change of household registration, holding diplomas and certificates, and purchase of houses in cities;(4) behaviour orientation is mostly positive among those migrant workers who desire to become permanent urban residents.As to the explanatory power of the four theories, the author has such findings:(1) Institutional Theory explains well the behavioural orientation of migrant workers in their urbanization process. However, the Institutional Theory may partly explain the individual identity of migrant workers, especially the social security system may explain better; the Institutional Theory may partly explain migrant workers’judgement for social mobility, especially the personnel system may explain better; the Institutional Theory may partly explain the choice of migrant workers in their decision for urbanization or returning home, especially the social security system may explain effectively their choice of returning home, and household registration system may explain effectively their choice of urbanization; the Institutional Theory fails to explain migrant workers’desire for social mobility.(2) the Push-pull Theory explains effectively migrant workers’individual identity, desire for social mobility, judgement for social mobility, path choice in social mobility and behavioural orientation in social mobility.(3) similar to Push-pull Theory, the Capital Theory also explains effectively migrant workers’individual identity, desire for social mobility, judgement of social mobility, path choice in social mobility and behavioural orientation in social mobility. However, the human capital explains better the above-mentioned factors than social capital.(4) the Life-world Theory doesn’t explain migrant workers’ individual identity, desire for social mobility, judgement of social mobility, path choice in social mobility and behavioural orientation in social mobility.Further analysis reveals that the Push-pull Theory and Social Capital Theory explains effectively migrant workers consciousness for social mobility, whereas the Institutional Theory and Life-world Theory don’t.With above analysis, the author thinks that analysis of subject’s subjective viewpoints brings understanding of reality of migrant workers’consciousness for social mobility, and helps find out factors influencing their consciousness for social mobility. Besides, the application of several theories would explain better factors influencing migrant workers’ consciousness for social mobility.