Research On The Social Status Of The Marine Fishermen In China

With the accelerated pace of industrialization and modernization of China, the issue of agriculture,rural areas and peasants is heating up and becoming a hot problem of the whole society. By comparison, the issue of fishery, fishing village and fishermen isn't valued to an equal extent. For some provinces which mainly depend on fishery, the issue of fishery, fishing village and fishermen is as important as the issue of agriculture,rural areas and peasants, especially its core the issue of fishermen. As the important part of rural population, the fishermen play an important role that can't be neglected in the stability and development of coastal areas. At the beginning of the reform era, the fishery of our country made breakthroughs and the incomes of fishermen were far beyond farmers'and close to urban residents'. But with depletion of fishery resources and full implementation of the new international marine order, the extensive pattern of economic growth caused many problems. The income growth rate of fishermen changed gradually even dropped, and some people returned to poverty. In addition, damage to the fishery resources of seawater pollution, occupancy of projects on the sea and harbor construction, operation of agreements of fisheries between China and Japan,Korea, Vietnam, implementation of zero-growth strategy and production and vocation transition policy, make the fishermen in a more difficult position. Fishermen are excluded in political life, economic life, cultural life and social life because of poverty and small population. So it's necessary to study on the exclusion of fishermen in China, in order to provide theoretical reference.Based on the Theories of Social Exclusion and other sociological theory, the study analyzes the social status of fishermen in our country in use of empirical analysis and theoretical analysis. The study gives a definition of Social Exclusion, Social Status and Marine Fishermen and analyzes the economic exclusion, political exclusion, cultural exclusion and social relational exclusion which they are facing, then discusses the influencing factors. In the end, it analyzes their economic, political and cultural status, and offers countermeasures to improve their social status.Marine fishermen are facing social exclusion in many dimensions. In economic life, marine fishermen are excluded from labor market and consumer market, and some of them fall into poverty. In political life, marine fishermen are lack of political rights, participation and ways of interest articulation. In cultural life, marine fishermen are excluded in education and subculture, and discriminated sometime. In social relation, the quantity and quality, even the structure of their social relation are at a low level. The characteristics of social exclusion which marine fishermen are facing are multi-dimension, systematicity, accumulation, procedural and inheritability.The two influence factors are institutional factor and individual factor. The former includes imperfection of Social Protection System, such as endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance and employment injury insurance, and problems of social policies, such as low education level, simple skills and the sense of inferiority.Social exclusion is not good for social integration. It also easily leads to poverty and marginalization of people excluded. The dual social system in our country pushes marine fishermen to a lower social status which is marginal, whether economic status, political status and cultural status. To improve their living condition and social status, we must take measures at different views of economy, politics and culture.