How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China

by Rachel Murphy

Overview

This study examines the changing effects of labor migration on the countryside of post-Mao China. Most of the changes are occurring because the migrants send money home and return to their villages for visits or to resettle. The return flows of money, people and information affects rural inequalities, rural spending patterns, agriculture, family relationships, the position of women, and the interactions between villagers and officials. Importantly, some returned migrants even create businesses at home. The book is based on in-depth fieldwork in the Chinese countryside, and it draws comparisons with migration and rural development in other countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521809016
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/19/2002
Series:	Cambridge Modern China Series
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.98(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Values, goals and resources; 2. China, Jiangxi and the fieldwork counties; 3. Resource redistribution and inequality; 4. Migration, remittances and goals; 5. Recruiting returnees to build enterprises and towns; 6. The enterprises and the entrepreneurs; 7. Entrepreneurs, socio-economic change, and interactions with the state; 8. Returning home with heavy hearts and empty pockets; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"Murphy's approach to these and other issues is nuanced, drawing out the contradictions...All of this ethnographic detail provides rich ground for scholars seeking insights into social processes in rural China, and it is this audience that will find the book most appealing." Journal of Asian Business

"Perhaps most critically, [Murphy] demonstrates, in almost Schumpeterian fashion, the various ways in which market reforms have made it possible for returning migrants, having acquired new skills or enhanced old skills, to act as entrepeneurial catalysts for the economic and cultural transformation of rural China. Recommended." Choice

From the Publisher