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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 GUANGZHOU 000082 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/CM, S/P, EEB, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2035 
TAGS: ELAB ECON PGOV CH
SUBJECT: Migrant Worker Generation Gap Underscores 
Changing Demographics 
 
REF: 09 GUANGZHOU 711 
 
GUANGZHOU 00000082  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
Classified by Economic and Political Section Chief Steve 
Lang for reason 1.4 (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary and comment: China's new generation of 
migrant workers has more education, less interest in 
rural life and a higher rate of criminality than the 
previous generation.  Younger workers favor jobs in the 
service sector over manufacturing and often do not plan 
to retire to the countryside in their old age.  An 
inability to assimilate into normal city life remains a 
problem, according to a variety of south China labor 
watchers.  The government predicts that the number of 
migrant workers in China will double by 2020, with almost 
all growth made up of young workers.  Shortsightedness 
and a distrust of government savings plans has made a new 
social security pension scheme unpopular with many 
migrants.  Demographic changes -- both quantitative and 
qualitative -- in China's migrant labor population will 
almost certainly present novel challenges to the 
country's leaders' quest for a harmonious society.  End 
summary and comment. 
 
Generation Gap 
-------------- 
 
¶2. (C) The "new generation" of migrant workers -- those 
born since 1990 or so -- is markedly different from its 
predecessors who left their villages during the early 
decades of China's reform and opening, according to 
Guangzhou University labor expert Xie Jianshe.  Xie said 
that new generation migrants tend to have more education 
than the previous generation; most have completed junior 
high school or even senior high school, a relative rarity 
among old generation workers.  The new generation also 
tends to lack agricultural experience and has little 
interest in subsistence farming. 
 
¶3. (C) Generational views of work and the future diverge 
as well.  Xie said that younger workers favor jobs in the 
service sector, while the stereotype of the older 
generation has traditionally involved manufacturing, a 
view echoed by our NGO contacts.  The new generation 
tends to change jobs more often than their elders, and 
young workers often intend to make their move to the city 
permanent, in contrast to the older migrants who 
ultimately plan to retire to the countryside, said Xie. 
 
¶4. (C) Old and young migrant workers have differing views 
on law and order, too.  Xie surveyed three Guangdong 
prisons and found that a "high percentage" of inmates are 
new generation migrant workers.  Xie speculated that a 
major factor in young migrants' criminality is their 
simultaneous emotional disconnection with their rural 
hometowns and an inability to be assimilated into cities. 
Regardless of the reasons, said Xie, it is clear that new 
generation migrant workers have a higher criminal rate 
than the old generation. 
 
¶5. (C) And the number of new generation migrant workers 
is predicted to grow dramatically over the next decade. 
Official estimates put China's migrant worker population 
at 250 million, 60% of which are new generation workers. 
Xie says the government predicts that by 2020 the number 
of Chinese migrant workers will double to 500 million and 
account for one-third of the country's population. 
Almost all this growth will come from the younger 
generation. 
 
¶6. (C) Development policies in Guangdong province will 
likely reduce the number of jobs for migrant workers in 
the province's major cities, said Xie.  Xie predicted 
that, when Guangzhou Steel Works and the Guangzhou 
Shipyard move from the city as part of an industrial 
upgrading program (reftel), the number of migrant workers 
in Guangzhou will decrease.  Other types of enterprises 
 
GUANGZHOU 00000082  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
will provide jobs to a reduced number of these workers, 
said Xie, but many will have to leave Guangzhou for work 
elsewhere. 
 
Widespread Distrust of New Social Security Scheme 
---------------------- -------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Many migrant workers prefer to have cash now 
instead of a pension later, according to Xie and a number 
of labor NGO contacts.  Xie called the spate of migrant 
workers canceling their social security accounts 
"myopic," but also judged the new regulations -- which 
cost workers approximately 100 yuan (about US$15.00) each 
month and prevent access to that money until retirement - 
- as inconvenient for workers used to counting only on 
themselves and their families for support in old age. 
Shenzhen Spring Breeze Labor Dispute Service Director 
Zhang Zhiru separately said that the new regulations are 
well intentioned but nonetheless inconvenient.  Though 
Zhang had heard media reports of workers canceling their 
accounts before the January 2010 deadline, he said he had 
not heard much complaining about the regulations since 
then. 
 
¶8. (C) Panyu Migrant Workers Documentation Center 
Director Zeng Feiyang commented that some workers were 
reluctant to participate in the social security program 
simply because they were worried that some new policy 
would be implemented in the future that would prevent 
them from receiving their pensions.  "They don't feel 
like their money is in safe hands," he said.  Separately, 
Zhuhai Center for Social Work Facilitators Project 
Coordinator Yang Daimo said that workers resent what they 
view to be a paternalistic policy limiting their 
financial options.  Yang noted that a number of 
individual workers hoping to start their own businesses 
in other parts of the country found the new regulations 
particularly inconvenient. 
 
Jury still Out on Train Ticket Policy 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) In an effort to better control the chaos that is 
millions of migrant workers returning home for the 
Chinese New Year holiday, Guangzhou officials during this 
year's exodus have required rail tickets to be issued in 
travelers' names.  One NGO contact said the policy was a 
"good practice" and had already helped prevent scalpers 
from cornering the market or illegally selling tickets. 
Nonetheless, another NGO contact said that migrant 
workers had found the process troublesome and 
unnecessarily complicated during an already stressful 
time of year. 
 
JACOBSEN