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Chen Xiwen and Han Jun

I. General State of China’s Rural Labor Movement Since Reform and Opening up

Since the mid-1980s, swiftly emerging TVEs have absorbed a large amount of rural labor force. In 1996, employment by TVEs rose to 136 million people, or 100 million more than in 1978. Beginning from 1997, the overall economic environment for TVEs began undergoing tremendous changes and entered a transitional period of structural adjustment and system innovation. As a result, these enterprises’ ability to absorb rural labor force declined drastically. In 2000, TVEs employed a total of 128 million people, accounting for 27 percent of the entire rural labor force.

Inter-regional flow of rural labor force became active in the 1990s and has since become a main form of rural labor movement. The 1996 agricultural census indicated that 72.226 million rural people worked outside their native townships, 44.872 million outside their native counties and 23.635 million outside their native provinces. There have been no latest accurate data. But general estimates indicate that more than 53 million and 28 million rural people are working respectively outside their native counties and native provinces. In the three provinces of Jiangxi, Anhui and Guizhou and the city of Chongqing, those working outside respectively account for 65 percent, 63.8 percent, 58 percent and 56 percent of all labor force employed by non-farm industries. The percentages for the four provinces of Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan ranged between 40 percent and 46 percent. In terms of inter-county labor flow, most provinces and autonomous regions have more rural people working outside their native counties than in local TVEs. In the past 10 years, the impact of rural people working outside their native regions has surpassed that of those employed by local TVEs. From 1989 to 2000, the people employed by TVEs rose by 31.92 million, while the people employed outside their native regions increased by about 43 million. Surveys indicate that more than 80 percent of all the floating rural people have entered the urban areas, with the ratio between large and medium-sized cities, small cities and towns (including the county-level cities) and the rural areas being 4:4:2. Nationwide, the rural people employed outside their native places accounted for about 13 percent of the total rural labor force. The rate for some prefectures and counties in the central and western regions ranged from 20 percent to 30 percent. In recent years, while the farming-related net income of the rural people continued to decline, the average net income of the rural people nationwide could still manage a slow growth. One of the reasons was that the income of the farmers working outside their native places was growing.

II. Evolution of Employment Policy for Rural Labor Force

In the 1980s, the government policy concerning rural employment was to encourage people to flow locally, namely "leaving farm land instead of townships and entering factories instead of cities". Beginning from the mid-1980s, however, the state somewhat eased the restrictions on the movement of rural labor force. The No.1 document in 1984 of the central government allowed the farmers to take up industrial and commercial occupations in the urban areas with self-raised funds and self-supplied grain rations. In the 1990s, especially after Deng Xiaoping made statements during his south China inspection tour in the spring of 1992, the government policy on the employment of rural labor force underwent gradual changes. The basic difference is a shift from restricting the flow of farmers to gradually recognize, accept and encourage such a flow.

In 1993, the 3rd Plenary Session of the 14thCPC Central Committee issued the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic System. This document instructed that rural labor surplus should be encouraged and guided to gradually transfer to non-farm occupations and to flow in an orderly manner between regions. After that, the Ministry of Labor issued the Provisional Regulations on the Inter-provincial Flow and Employment of Rural Labor Force. That was the first departmental document of the state concerning the inter-regional flow and employment of rural labor force. According to the regulations, a system based on employment permission came into force to regulate the inter-regional flow and employment of rural labor force. In 1995, the general office of the CPC Central Committee issued the Instructions on Strengthening the Administration of Migrant Population. Under this document, a unified system of employment certificate and temporary residence permit for migrant population was introduced to ensure an organized and orderly flow of rural labor force.

The 3rd Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee once again expanded the scope of employment policy on rural labor force. The main points were to take the rural areas as the base to deepen and widen the scope of production, develop the secondary and tertiary industries and build small cities and towns. At the same time, rural labor force should be guided to flow in an orderly manner in keeping with the objective demands of the urban areas and the developed regions.

After 2000, the state’s employment policy on rural labor force underwent even more positive changes. The National People’s Congress approved the 10th Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, which advocated the integration of urban and rural labor markets. Under this document, the system of separating urban and rural areas should be abolished in order to gradually establish a new urban-rural relationship consistent with the system of market economy; the urban residence registration system should be reformed in order to form a mechanism conducive to the orderly flow of urban and rural people; the unreasonable restrictions on rural labor force seeking employment in the urban areas should be removed in order to guide the rural labor surplus to flow between the urban and rural areas and between regions in an orderly manner. The State Development and Planning Commission also drew up the Special Plan for the Priorities of Urbanization Development during the 10th Five-year Plan. This document specifically said that the monopoly and regional protectionism should be broken down, that except for a few mega cities, the employment system based on urban-rural separation should be reformed, and the restrictive employment policies in various regions that were specifically targeted at farmers and non-native people should be abolished.

At the end of March 2001, the State Council approved the publication of the Proposals of the Ministry of Public Security on Promoting the Reform of Residence Registration System in Small Cities and Towns. Under this document, permanent residence registration should be granted to those farmers and their direct relatives living with them in the urban areas of the county-level cities, the towns where the county governments are based and the administrative towns as long as they have legal permanent residences and stable occupations or sources of income. The document also stipulated that those settling down in small cities and towns should enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same obligations as the local residents do in areas such as schooling, army recruitment and employment. No discriminatory policies would be allowed, and it would be illegal to levy urban capacity expansion fee or other similar fees by taking advantage of reforming residence registration system.

The No. 2 document of the CPC Central Committee in 2002 further pointed out that the farmers entering the urban areas should be fairly treated, rationally guided, soundly controlled and well served. The document also requested various regions to earnestly remove the unreasonable restrictions and illegal levies on the farmers who enter the urban areas for work and to correct their crude behaviors in repatriating farmer workers. In addition, various labor intermediary organizations should be developed to gradually form a unified urban-rural labor market. The administration of labor contracts should be improved for the farmers working in the urban areas so as to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.

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