The lifestyles and living standards of these migrant workers, or 民工 (“min gong”), speak to the social welfare and ultimately stagnant and even possibly backwards behavior of China’s social policies. The major factors influencing the negative standard of living of migrant workers are housing, economic development, psychological effects, and youth education (Wong, Li, Song). Many researchers claim that marginalization of migrant workers are the result of three main reasons: the Chinese Hukou system, the decentralization of the government, and the obscure role of trade unions, the last two relating back to the first.

The Hukou system was developed in the 1950s as a residency system to monitor the urban and rural populations. Its main goal was to prevent a mass migration of the large rural population from the farmlands to the cities in order to ensure some structural stability during the mass famine of the Great Leap Forward. However, even today, the entitlements of a Chinese citizen largely depend on which form of residency card is received. Those with rural Hukou get far fewer benefits and cannot obtain government services in China’s cities. For example, rural Hukou holders do not have the same access to healthcare as urban Hukou holders; they have limitations on housing rights; their choices for occupation are slim to none—most of which are laborious jobs that urban residents are unwilling to do. Lastly, the children of these migrant workers are not allowed to enroll in city schools. 

Secondly, China's central government has a tendency to decentralize control over economic development and social welfare. While there are benefits to a decentralized government, there are significant issues for China specifically. For instance, local governments often have different interpretations of the laws and stipulations of the government. Furthermore, many local governments tend to disregard such policies when they have the potential to jeopardize local interests. It becomes difficult for the central government to enforce its laws upon the multitude of local governments because even with its detailed regulations, it severely lacks the resources necessary for enforcement. This ultimately creates a political, economic, and social situation that allows many local governments to enforce policies they believe beneficial, which are often inconsiderate or harmful to migrant workers (Wong, Li, Song). For example, while the central government has urged local governments to provide education for migrant children, few local governments have taken action to do so. This is due to two main reasons: 1) the government lacks to resources to do so and 2) local residents are generally against migrant children in urban schools because it takes away vacancies and opportunities from urban children who have a “right” to education based on their Hukou. 

Lastly, foreign-invested enterprises and trade unions play an obscure role in China. Since the 1980s, China has issued a series of laws to regulate labor relations in foreign-invested enterprises in China including setting up labor arbitration and inspecting factories regularly. Despite these efforts, many rights and interests of migrant workers are still not being upheld. This is largely due to the fact that many migrant workers do not belong to or are unaware of the existence of trade unions; these unions are irrespective of their employment, gender, nationality, race, religious beliefs, and education (Wong, Li, Song). However, once a trade union has been set up, the trade union representative usually becomes what is known as the Chinese manager of the enterprise. This puts the Chinese manager in a precarious situation, having to balance the interests of both the enterprise and the workers. Connecting back to the previous two arguments, firstly, migrant workers lack the legal documents to live in the city, work in the city, and ultimately receive legal sources of income in the city. Secondly, local governments and local people are most interested in pursuing economic growth and prosperity for their respective areas. What this means is that trade unions are ultimately more inclined to maintain a good relationship with foreign investors and sacrifice the rights and interests of the migrant workers. 

While there have been talks of changes in the Hukou policy in recent years, the Hukou system has remained largely the same--resulting in the marginalization of migrants and migrant labor. Because residency status of an individual’s Hukou is solely dependent on his or her parents’ Hukou status, migrants ultimately beget migrants, meaning the dividing line between migrant culture and migrant “youth culture” is essentially one and the same.

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(1) This is by no means a comprehensive explanation of the Chinese Hukou system. It is meant to serve as an introduction to the Hukou in order to better understand the landscape of Chinese labor, which ultimately factors into gold farming labor.