Migration in China in the 1990s and Beyond: Trends, Geography, and Policies
Kam Wing Chan, Professor of Geography, University of Washington
Thursday, April 27, 2006
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
4357 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Migrant labor has become an integral part of China’s success story of economic growth in the last quarter century. China would not have become the “world’s factory” had it not been for the plentiful supply of cheap labor from the countryside to its coastal export-processing industrial cities. The plight of migrant labor is also a major concern among many researchers, labor activists, and politicians, especially in the West. This essay tackles the problems of measuring internal migration and studies the trends and geography of internal migration and “rural migrant labor” using the data available in recent years, including the 2000 census. The last part of the talk considers some major policy issues in relation to internal migration in the country: recent reforms of the hukou system and whether or not China will abolish the system soon; and the paradox of rising migration and disparities in recent years.
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Kam Wing Chan is a Professor in Geography and Chinese Studies at the University of Washington. He received a M.Sc. from the University of Hong Kong and PhD from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Cities with Invisible Walls: Reinterpreting Urbanization in Post-1949 China and numerous articles on urbanization, migration, the urban labor market, the household registration system, and urban finance. In the last ten years he has also served as a consultant to international organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, International Labor Office, World Bank, and United Nations on various policy issues related to urbanization and migration. His website is at: http://faculty.washington.edu/kwchan/
For more information please contact
Richard Gunde
Tel: 310 825-8683
gunde@ucla.edu
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies
