Tradition And Modern Times: A Study Of Migrant Workers' Unbalanced Social Support Networks

China is experiencing the largest scale of population migration in human history. The number of migrant population has dramatically climbed to 211 million in the year of 2009 from 6.57 million in 1982. Being rich labor forces, these large-scaled migrants have made great contribution to China's economic growth, urbanization, modernization and hence the advancement of China's overall national strength and the quality of people's life. The flow of the migrant workers from rural to urban has a significant impact on their social relationship networks. In a Sense, the process of the migrant workers entering cities, meantime, is also a process of continuous re-build new social ties and social networks. To a migrant worker who just gets into cities, his communications mainly depend on the primary relationship networks which base on his regional and blood relationship, and this relationship network runs through the whole process of the reflow, living and association of migrant workers.Based on the analysis of the status of migrant workers, we find the migrant workers' social support networks are mostly traditional social supports as well as the modern social supports are short of. This article respectively has a deep analysis of the status and influence of migrant worker in the said industries from three aspects--family support networks, friends support networks and the social support networks in system. At last, some thoughts and suggestions are proposed.