The Influence Of Education To Migrant Workers’ Social Integration

Since the reform and opening up, with the development of economy, a large number of migrant workers come into the cities. Zhejiang province as one of the coastal economic developed areas in China has undoubtedly become a migrant workers input province. The number of migrant workers in Zhejiang has kept increasing during these years. In some cities of Zhejiang, the migrant population is even larger than the local resident population. Large educational disparities disadvantage the large majority of migrant workers in competing with migrants, although they belong to the elite group in the rural area. Due to the unreasonable system design and the rejection of the city society, most of the migrant workers have strong will to stay in the city, but only a few of them can fully integrate into the city society. In addition, the new generation migrant workers, who were born after the year1980, have already become the mainstream group of the migrant workers. Compared with the old generation, they have different life habit and value orientation. For this reason, their process of the social integration will also show some new characteristics and new problems. Such a large group of people cannot integrate into the city will cause a series of social problems, even undermine social harmony. Therefore, how to help the migrant workers integrate into the city more effectively is becoming a problem which must be solved.Human capital, especially education, plays an important role in the process of the social integration. From the viewpoint of human capital theory, education can not only influence the economic income of the migrant workers then further influence the social integration, but also influence the social integration directly by affect the quality of the individual. It means that the influence from education to social integration is not a single path, also for the will to stay in the city. Based on this, this paper takes the education as a breakthrough point to discuss the migrant workers social integration problem. This research focus on the following three basic hypotheses:(1) There is a significant difference between social integration and will to stay in the city.(2) There is a significant influence from education to social integration but there is not a significant influence from education to the will to stay in the city.(3) There is a significant influence from education to social integration for the new generation migrant workers, but not for the old one.The institute data is based on the research by LEEP of Zhejiang University, and the total effective sample is2565. The research mainly uses the logistic model to study the influence from education to social integration and the influence from education to the will to stay in the city. And there is a further research to study the significant influence from education to social integration for the new generation migrant workers and the old one. This research concludes the following conclusions:(1) Social integration and the will to stay in the city is not the same. Most of the migrant workers (85.91%) have strong will to stay in the city, but only a few (14.15%) can fully integrate into the city society. Education plays a positive role in the process of migrant workers’ social integration, but there is not a significant influence from education to the will to stay in the city. For the new generation migrant workers, there is a significant influence from education to social integration. However, for the old one, the influence never exists.According to the conclusions of the empirical study, the paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions:Firstly, the government should increase the investment of migrant workers’ skills training and support the young generation migrant workers’ education, especially those who were born after the year1990. In addition, the government should also increase the income level of the old generation reasonably and improve the social security coverage of them. Secondly, the city public should guide citizens to understand and accept the migrant workers more actively, especially the new generation migrant workers. Finally, the migrant workers should cultivate the sense of lifelong learning and response to the unfair treatment more rational.