An Analysis On The Living Conditions Of The Junkmen In Urban Places Under The Perspective Of Social Exclusion

This paper describes the essential characteristics, work and living situation, socialsecurity and other basic conditions of the junkmen in Shijiazhuang city through questionnairesurvey. And by analysis, the junkmen’ living situation is grasped. It is found that there aremore male junkmen than females, the majority of whom have been married and barelyeducated. Their age is less concentrated and they are in good general health. Members of thisgroup come from same places, poor in material and spiritual life. They seldom change theirwork and have been marginalized by their living surroundings, and they have a limited socialnetwork.In the article, I analyzes the relationship between social exclusion and the junkmen livingsituation with social exclusion theory. It is found that social exclusion has a great influence onthis group’s situation; they are excluded by the society in the perspective of economy, politics,culture and social relations. This conclusion is got by interview with the junkmen. Ineconomic aspect, those people are excluded from the labor market, thus they have to do thework that the city dwellers unwilling to do; in political aspect, they could not express theiropinions on local laws, regulations or other affairs because of imperfection of the electoralsystem and the interests expression mechanism; in cultural aspect, those people could not getused to city life, frequently they are discriminated by the local people and the press; in aspectof social relations, the junkmen could only get little support from their main social networkbuilt by ties of blood, regional and business factors; in aspect of social security, those peoplehave to work hard to improve their living conditions, but at the same time, they are troubledby diseases, unemployment problem, injury,etc.This paper proposes some advice to wipe off social exclusion towards the junkmen andto improve their living situation according to the relationship between social exclusion andthose people’s living conditions, including the following aspects—reform of urban and ruralhousehold registration system; further perfection of interest expression mechanism;construction of better interaction between the junkmen and city dwellers; to improve thesocial security system; to enlarge the social support network.