Chen Min seems to have no connection to a migrant worker: she wears light make-up, dons professional dress and speaks fluent mandarin. And as far as current popular pop music and net games go, Chen is as familiar with them as any youngsters who have grown up in the city.
Chen Min is from the Anhui Province countryside. She is now 23 years old. After graduation from high school she left, together with some other hometown girls, for the big city. For two years now she has been living in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where she works as a waitress in a restaurant.
"I hoped that I could change my fate by attending school, but I failed the university entrance exams," Chen said. But she has continued to study while earning her living as a waitress. Currently she is enrolled in a course on restaurant management.
"They don't want to be temporary city visitors any more," Zhen Yueqiao, a teacher from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, commented when asked about the new generation migrant workers like Chen Min.
Not long ago, Zhen Yueqiao and two other teaching colleagues from her university: Chen Wei and Ge Liezhong, conducted a survey on migrant workers in Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou and Jiaxing. The results of their survey indicate that great changes have appeared among migrant workers.
Work, not only for money
Fang Qin has changed her jobs several times in the last four years. At first, she worked in a clothes factory in Wenzhou. She described the job as "tiresome and dirty, low wages despite working overtime everyday." Then she "was fired by the boss". Later, she worked in a textile factory, a food-processing factory, and she also worked as a salesclerk in a department store.
The first generation of migrant workers were willing to do any job that they could find, even hauling heavy sacks in port cities. But the new, younger generation tends to seek work in order to gain skills and develop a successful future.
"Making a living and earning money is not the main target of the new generation now. Most of them leave their homes in the countryside to change their lifestyle, to gain better development opportunities," Zhen Yueqiao said. Most of the new generation graduated from junior or even senior middle school, and some are vocational school graduates. They are deeply influenced by TV culture and they tend to emphasize their own personal development when making money. "They are willing to achieve their goal of staying in the city through their own efforts."
The survey revealed that the new generation of migrant workers care not only about wages, but also about work times, work environments, training opportunities, social security and so on. Compared with the older generation, they have a stronger desire to receive additional education and they pay closer attention to their future development.
"I came here mainly to study, I want to learn how to fix computers," Xiao Wang said. He is 25 years old, decently dressed and from the countryside around Lishui, Zhejiang Province. "Staying at home in the countryside is boring, besides, only a few youngsters stay at home now. Everyone wants to go to work outside," Xiao Wang said. He is now working in an electronics market.
According to the survey, 69.5 percent of the new generation of migrant workers has participated in some kind of training, a figure 11 percent higher than that of the older generation. As for their training goals, 63.7 percent of the older generation wants to get jobs through learning skills, while 84.4 percent of the new generation wants to improve their skills, with 78.5 percent wanting to broaden their horizon. In terms of their training expenses, 29 percent of the older generation is reluctant to pay for their training. In contrast the ratio is only 23.3 percent in the new generation.
"The new generation pays more attention to current social demand and the ability to develop themselves," Zhen Yueqiao noted.
The survey also disclosed that the new generation would bravely fight for their legal rights if their personal interests were violated but the older generation remains willing to submit to humiliation.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua September 18, 2007)
