ABSTRACT
Introduction Internal migration in China has been increasing dramatically for the past few decades, and becoming an important social phenomenon in China. The volume of intercounty migrants increased from 35.3 million in 1990, to approximately 79 million in 2000, and 170.6 million in 2010 (Fan 2008; Liang et al. 2014; PCO 2012). Among these migrants, over half migrated due to the reasons of manual labor or doing business (Liang et al. 2014). Given the large volume of workrelated internal migrants, however, little is known about the structural composition within this group. For the past few decades, migrant workers in China have been perceived as young workers with factory uniforms who work extended hours in assembly lines, or those working in construction fields by the side of skyscrapers in a metropolis. The typical image of internal migrants in China, however, is about to change. The most recent decade has witnessed a rise of migrant entrepreneurs from rural areas, who were participating primarily in small-business service sectors in the urban areas. According to the China 2005 One Percent Sample Survey (NBS China 2006), by 2005 about 24 percent of internal migrants were self-employed. This chapter aims to investigate this group in terms of their entry, their market payoffs, and their stratification. Specifically, I ask three questions regarding this group: Who are they? How do they fare in urban areas? How are they stratified? All with a focus along the lines of human and political capital. The first two questions outline the patterns of migrant entrepreneurs in the context of rapid urbanization in China and engage in theoretical conversations with studies on immigrant entrepreneurs. The last question addresses the issue of social stratification as the marketization in China moves further. With the exponential development in urbanization and rural-urban migration in recent years, much is needed to understand such stratification for individuals crossing over the ruralurban line – the internal migrants. Much of the debate on social stratification in China so far has occurred within two separate realms that rarely reference each other – rural China or urban China, in which internal migrants were only mentioned to juxtapose with their rural farmer counterparts or their urban resident counterparts. I argue that the group of internal migrants itself warrants separate
examination, especially from the perspective that the migration process is also part of the life trajectory of the migrants. In other words, some of the key capital migrants obtained mainly in the rural area also plays into their later life economic attainment in the urban area. This study examines how the capital obtained in rural areas plays a role in determining the life chances of the migrants in urban areas. This chapter is important in at least three dimensions. First, as migrant labor is becoming more expansive in urban China, rural entrepreneurs in urban areas are at the same time becoming increasingly prevalent. This study is among the first to tap into this subgroup of internal migrants, and thus provides a basis for further policy changes. Second, examining the entry and market payoffs of the self-employed in the Chinese context tests theories of immigrant entrepreneurs that derived from other social contexts. In particular, with the employment of quantile regression, I am able to disaggregate all the internal migrants within certain earning groups, and for each earning category, to test the financial returns of the self-employed vis-à-vis the labor workers. This approach goes beyond the traditional method of using relative income (logged form) and absolute form for the purpose of capturing both the general trend and the high-end outliers. It also allows for a more refined understanding of income groups at different levels. Last but not least, it sheds light on social stratification from the perspectives of internal migrants in contemporary China. Specifically, over a decade has passed since former-cadre or cadre status was found to have a boosting effect on the earnings of the self-employed in urban areas in later stages of reform (Wu 2006). Gaps remains as to (1) whether rural political capital plays a role in an urban setting, as shown in the migrant group; and (2) whether positioning power still has an effect in the market payoffs in the most recent years of China.
