Migrant Workers' Self - Employment And Social Mobility

The crystal manufacturing industry in Pujiang county Zhejiang Province originated from the local family works in the rural areas in 1984. As the development of this industry after 1990s, more and more migrant workers join this trade and become the major workforce in this county. The migrant workers are not willing to work in the local crystal factories, instead, they start to run their own family workshops and become individual manufacturers.This article is a case study about the individual crystal manufactures who could be regarded as a special type of migrant workers. The core problem the author attempt to answer is that whether the migrant workers can achieve upward mobility by self-employment in the subcontracting system. Based on the method of participant observation and in-depth interviews, relevant literature and government statistics, the author analyzes the reason why the external crystal individual manufacturers choose to leave the factory, their current work experience as well as their consideration and selection when facing the opportunity of upward mobility. The study reveals that the crystal industry characteristics bring the migrant workers entrepreneurial opportunities. However, the diversity of entrepreneurship also leads to the diversity of flow path. Due to the fact that the individual manufacturers still rely on others for work resource and have to participate in the production process, they still stay in the bottom of the subcontracting system. The opportunities for them to become the outsourcer are limited. They cannot challenge the subcontracting system but push themselves to work hard under the dual function of survival ration and pure labor consciousness. But they expect their children to fulfill upward mobility through education. Having seen through the development trend of crystal industry, the individual manufacturers try their best to avoid their children inherit their career.Through the research on the external individual manufacturers, this article presents the pluralism of social mobility and reveals the impact of industry characteristics on social mobility. The emphasis on the regression of the subjectivity of laborers in labor research was used to analyze social mobility and deepen the combination of labor studies and social mobility perspective.