Characteristics Of Migrant Workers And Social Identity Research

Rural migrant workers' social identity is a hot issue of the current social psychology research. Because of the researchers' different viewpoints, there are still a lot of controversies in this research field: a disagreement on the construction of rural migrant workers' social identity system, a lack of effective questionnaire to survey their social identity, and different research results about the features of their social identity. Based on the existed research and Tajfel's theory of social identity, this paper analyzes and verifies the rural migrant workers' social identity system, by separately studying the random samples of 280 and 520 rural migrant workers in Chengdu. Then, based on the survey of 520 rural migrant workers in Chengdu with the self-designed Rural Migrant Workers 'Social Identity Questionnaire, the paper explores the features of rural migrant workers' social identity.The research result shows that: (1) the rural migrant workers' social identity has three dimensions—identity of belonging, sense of belonging and review of belonging—which accords with the original theoretical assumption; the designed questionnaire is proved to be reliable and effective. (2) The rural migrant workers' social identity has the following features: Most of the rural migrant workers hold positive attitude towards the social identity, but it is positive mainly in the sense of belonging and the review of belonging, while it is vague in the identity of belonging; In respect of gender, the male has higher social identity than the female, which is represented in sense of belonging and the review of belonging; In respect of age, there is a great discrepancy between different rural migrant workers, which is represented in sense of belonging and review of belonging, and the general trend is up at first and then down, with an obvious turning point at the age of 25—35; In respect of education level, the discrepancy is great, which is represented that the social identity and the identity of belonging lower and the review of belonging rises while the education level rises; In respect of personal income, the discrepancy is great and the rural migrant workers with monthly income of 1200—2000 Yuan have the highest social identity, while the identity of belonging shows a gradual down trend and the sense of belonging and the review of belonging show a gradual up trend; In respect of working time, the discrepancy is not very great, and the identity of belonging shows a down-and-up trend with 8-12 years as the lowest point, and the review of belonging shows an up-and-down trend with 8-12 years as the highest trend; In respect of family residence, the discrepancy is great, and the social identity shows a gradual down trend as the distance between the family residence and the city increases, while the identity of belonging shows a down trend and the review of belonging shows a up trend.After making an analysis and discussion over the research result, the paper presents the following conclusions: (1) the model of rural migrant workers' social identity system has three dimensions including identity of belonging, sense of belonging and review of belonging. (2) There is a great discrepancy on rural migrant workers' social identity in respect of gender, age, education level and so on.