Ryan Pyle Blog: A Rural Population of 400 million

Hello.

I live in a mega city; the name of that city is Shanghai. I love my massive city, which is said to be currently bursting at the seams with a population of roughly 20 million people. Whiles the crowds can be intense, I somehow manage to thrive off the energy of the masses. But what will the next 30 years hold?

Whenever I complete a trip in to rural China I am always amazed at how little is there, about how few opportunities exist. While roads and bridges are constantly being build and infrastructure spending is at an all-time high, there are still round 900 million rural residents in China who do very little other than farm, manage a market stall or are involved in basic irregular business. Many of these folks often hold ambitions of moving to the big cities of China, for a chance at a better life, earning a higher wage and having their children attend better schools. So an obvious question looms, how many people can China’s cities really hold?

Can Shanghai really be a functional city with 30 or 40 million residents? Can Beijing’s ill-prepared roads and highway system really handle another one or two million cars? The numbers, once crunched are staggering; and a little scary.

A few weeks back the China Daily, of all sources, ran a story that made me physically shudder. The government of China has predicted that China’s rural population could fall to just 400 million people from its current 900 million. The last 30 years provide most of the proof for this trend of urbanization; you see some 400 million people have moved from the countryside to the cities over the last three decades. So the prediction is that by 2040 there will be another 400 or 500 million people living in China’s cities; that’s an unbelievable figure.

Right or wrong, I am a believer. I strongly believe that China’s urban population will double rapidly increase in the next two or three decades; one only has to visit rural Anhui, Hebei, Henan and Shandong to see how few options exist for those who have chosen to stay closer to home during this current economic boom. As China, over the next 3-5 years eases restrictions on migrant workers and urban registration you could see a flood of people move to the cities, crowding in for better health care and educational services. At the moment the restrictive and complicated Hukou “home registration” system links people to their place of birth, which is often different than where they currently live; and many social benefits can only be claimed in your “home registration” area. This has not restricted the most daring of China’s migrant labor class, but my guess is that once these restrictions are lifted for good, and there is talk of this happening – there will be a biblical flood of people in to urban centers to take advantage of higher living, and service, standards.

So how many of that 500 million will end up in cities like Shanghai? How much more traffic will I have to fight through on my grocery shopping trips? How much longer could the line up get at the bank? My guess is not too many. While 500 million is a large number, my estimate is that Shanghai might double its urban population and become a mega city of 40 million residents. From what I can see at the moment, the creation of suburbs and transportation infrastructure to move people in and out of the city center has hit overdrive. The government is in a real rush to put these pieces in place before Shanghai just becomes a hot and crowded mess.

The real winners in this mass migration, however, will be second tier cities like Hefei, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Kunming, Guiyang, Nanning, Xi’an, Dalian, Harbin and other notable provincial capitals. They will, under decent guidance, become more livable and offer better services as their population rises; at least that’s the great hope. Fingers crossed that actually happens or the resulting civil unrest could be a large destabilizing factor to the economy and general political stability. Either way, mass migrations or not, it’ll be an exciting process to watch unfold. I’m very glad I bought my ticket early; I’ve got a front row seat.
The China Daily story is posted below in its original form.

China Daily story LINK:
Copy write: China Daily
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Rural population could drop to 400m
February 25, 2010

The country's rural population may drop to 400 million from the current 900 million in the next three decades because of rising urbanization, a senior official has forecast.

The rural population currently stands at 720 million, the latest population figures have shown. But the number does not include the 180 million rural residents who have left their hometowns to live in cities for more than half a year, Han Jun, a senior official at the State Council Development Research Center, was quoted as saying by Beijing News.

In the past 30 years, the urban population has increased by 400 million to hit 600 million. Of these people, 27 percent now live in cities but are not permanent residents.

"Currently, one in four residents in the cities come from the rural population. The current movement of labor from rural to urban areas is expected to continue in the future," Han said.

The country has about 240 million migrant workers, with about half of them born after 1980 and 40 million of them born in the 1990s, the latest official statistics show.

"Young migrant workers are reluctant to go back to the countryside and are eager to be new residents in cities," Han said.

A major policy document released last month addressed the young as "a new generation of migrant workers" for the first time and made it clear that the government is "striving for substantial reform of the household registration system" to help them to register in cities where they can then receive more social benefits.

"Hundreds of millions of farmers are now working for the development of cities and contribute a great deal to tax revenues where they live. However, they cannot enjoy the public services offered in cities. It is not fair," said Zhang Hulin, a professor with the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC.

New-generation migrant workers mostly live in cities and work as security guards, waiters, construction and decoration laborers, and deliverymen.

"More and more citizens have felt the importance of migrant workers to their daily life. But low wages have also made many migrant workers unwilling to stay and work, especially in big cities," Zhang told China Daily yesterday.

So far, 13 provinces and cities such as Hebei and Liaoning have already piloted a unified household registration in rural and urban areas. But many say the reform falls short of offering benefits in education, housing and social security to the new population, Han said.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Work Conditions Getting Worse

Hello.

Much fuss was made last year when China unveiled a series of labor laws that seemed to better protect the average worker. Now an URBAN debate continues to rage on whether the labors laws just protect the unproductive or whether they are really useful, and timely.

But what about the migrant workers? Are they protected under the labor law and have their lives improved? Well, the labor law, see article, seemed to be focused in the right places but no one was expecting a financial crisis - which led to a demand crisis - which led to a Chinese export crisis - which led to a Dongguan crisis - which led to most employers throwing the new labor law out the window. What a series of chain reactions!

LINK: New York Times: Despite Law, Job Conditions Worsen in China

David Barboza for the New York Times writes an interesting feature on the plight of one family, in one factory and how that relates to the industry at large. I photographed the portrait of the family in question under very tense conditions just a few steps away from the factory where their son had been killed.

Having spent so much time in China, I've seen my fair share of factory floors and I had been under the impression that things were improving. Over the years working conditions have improved, even if wages and living conditions haven't. But workers still work too many hours, too much overtime and in poorly lit conditions - which leds to exhaustion and avoidable accidents, sometimes fatal.

My intention for this blog is to raise awareness that the financial crisis is causing cut backs not just in the US and Europe but also on the factory floors of southern China; and those cutbacks have led to more dangerous working conditions the for the most exposed portion of China's population - it's migrant workers. Please do read the article, it's a good one; I am very glad I was able to be a part of it.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Farmers, their Incomes and their Labels

Hello,

I recently read an article in the Chinese media indicating that rural incomes are set to fall this year for the first time since 1984. My post today deals with some of the difficulties I have with the article and some of the labels used by the reporting journalist. Please take a look at the ARTICLE LINK.

The article, as you can see from the link, opens with the statement that the income of "farmers" will grow by just 6% this year because of a drop in agricultural prices and rising unemployment. It follows by saying that farmers earned an average of US$680 last year, remember that is an AVERAGE - meaning there are just as many below that line than above.

The difficulty I have with the way this article opens is that the piece makes no effort to discuss "real income" which takes in to account inflation; the kind of rapid inflation that has paralyzed rural communities for most of this decade; only easing during the recent financial crisis due to generous government subsides. Without subsides, and including inflation, China's modernization which has supposedly lifted half a billion people from abject poverty is actually putting a lot of those same people back to the bottom of the pyramid due to inflation and increasing costs.

Inflation is a dirty word in China and although reported on widely it's often in relation to urban dwellers. Little is written or discussed about farmers who scrap by month to month and then suddenly face a 40% price increase in pork, the main meat staple in China; or maize, or fertilizer or petrol for their tractors or motorcycles. I can tell you from experience the situation is bleak. The situation gets even bleaker when we bring Health Care in to the fold, but I'll leave that for another blog.

I'm not an economist but I read somewhere that inflation in 2008 topped out around 14%, so if farmers salaries increaded in 2008 by 10% then there is a net 4% loss of real income due to inflation. And if 2009 incomes are set to rise 6% against 4% inflation (don't bet on it with the massive government stimulus package) then they'll barely be back at 2007 numbers, but from 2000 to 2008 inflation in China has been incredible because of rapid urban growth mainly. If rural incomes are set to grow at 6% what happens if inflation balloons again to double digits?

When ask how to boost rural incomes, Li Zhou, the Deputy director of the CASS Institute of Rural Development said that "It is difficult to boost the rural market when farmers cannot get rich quickly." That may sound like a common statement but there are a very painfully obvious signs here. First is that he talks about the rural population of China as a market, and not as a people scrapping by to make a living. Might the only interest of the urban elite to view the rural folks as markets to sell them fridges? How about empowering them with educational and economic opportunities that give them, and their children, more choice in life, might that be an option? The second is that getting rich quickly is all anyone seems to care about anymore, and because the rural population of China can't seem to do this they are cast aside at the expense of urban growth. Painful truths are rarely revealed in a government media full of smoke and mirrors.

To continue on, the article mentions a random note that farmers earn nearly 40% o their incomes from jobs in the city. But if you live and work in the city aren't you considered an urban migrant, or "someone who lives in the city"; not "farmer who works in the city"? China loves labeling people and for the unlucky, once you are a farmer you are always a farmer; even if you live in the city and work in a factory, or as a scooter delivery man for a pizza restaurant. This stigma and labeling severely crushes social mobility in China and contributes to a lot of discrimination and misunderstanding between the rural and urban residents.

I think it's safe to say that by definition you can't be a farmer and work in the city, yet the article makes no distinction in trying to explain the issue. This kind of thinking furthermore contributes to the social safety net crisis in China where by rural migrants in the city are treated as second class citizens not only by locals who look down on them, but by government institutions; meaning they aren't available for healthcare subsides, education for their children or old age pension. In order to receive such benefits rural migrants would have to return back to their rural homeland, at their own costs, where there are no jobs and little opportunity. To their credit the Chinese government is moving towards abolishing this distinction between rural and urban identity cards, but the process is too slow for too many.

One hilarious example is a fixer and assistant that I frequently work with in Shanghai. She is from northeastern China and moved to Shanghai because she wanted to work in the media industry. Her ID card indicates she is from a small town in Northeastern China so if she wants to open a bank account, an online investment trading account, or claim hospital insurance she needs to do all of his in her home "county" or "district", even though she's lived in Shanghai for almost 8 years. While she is far from being a farmer, hopefully this example gives you a glimpse at how even well educated, English speaking, media professionals have difficulties; imagine life for a relatively uneducated farmer looking for a manual labor job or low income earning office work. Mission impossible.

If you think I'm just a bitter foreigner living in China, then far enough. But my hope is that this example just sheds light on what the government distinguishes as journalism; being the non-threatening version. Are there great journalists in China? Absolutely. But their hands are tied. One told me recently that he had prepared a legal document indicating that his family had officially "disowned him", so that if there were government repercussions for stories he worked on only he himself could be reprimanded, saving his family from any further vindication. Imagine living and working under those conditions.

I wish I had more time to comment on news stories like this, I read them every day and think about working up a quick blog note, but then it becomes a long blog note and my "to do list" just gets longer and longer.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: University Unemployment

Hello,

University unemployment across China is a scary thing. Let me explain why in this space. (Picture above, a migrant worker walks through a job market in Dongguan, China)

Graduation has past, and the prospects of finding employment for China's 6.1 million graduates (a number that will increase to 7m next year) is bleak. How bleak is it? Well for starters engineers are applying for jobs at coffee shops and a large amount of students are taking up an offer by the government to work three years in the countryside in a local government position, in turn the government pays off your University fees. After spending a lot of money, time and energy moving to the cities to complete their education, many from this years crop of students are headed back to rural China. But can they be happy with that? Is there a choice?

This downturn in China is severe, don't be mistaken. While the GDP figures might be massaged to look impressive things within the borders are no where near as robust as they were in 2007 and the first half of 2008. But is that such a bad thing? My wife runs a small business in China and in 2007 she was furious at how she would spend her time and energy training new graduates only to have them jump to other companies every 4-6 months, that was possible then as the cities were booming, and people were always in demand. These days are different, she hasn't had an employee leave in over a year now. My reason for bringing this up is that for the last 2 decades no one has seen a bad year, or even a bad month in many cases. Jobs were plentiful and salary increases were regular. Now things have changed. The employed are doing everything they can to keep their jobs and everyone knows people who are looking for work; and looking forward this, I feel, is a healthy experience and it will create an employment pool that respects their jobs, their employers and the economic environment much more than before. When China does emerge from this downturn there are a lot of people, including myself, that believe the country will emerge much stronger than it was before.

Now without looking too far ahead, what about the ranks of the unemployed now? Without being a overly negative about the situation the government is responding well to a crisis which, in their eyes, could lead to civil unrest at some stage. Campuses have occasionally, in the past, been places where emotions run high; be it during the Tiananmen days of the late 80s, to the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in the late 90s, or the Anti-Japanese protests that swept the country in 2005. And government officials know and understand this. That's why they are offering some graduates up to USD7,300 in loans to help them start their own businesses, which could see a mini-boom in entrepreneurial activity in the coming years; but that is optimistic.

After watching so many university graduates before them become soaked up by China's rapidly growing, and increasingly dynamic economy; this years group can't feel but left out in the cold. Where will their fancy titles, name cards, cars, and apartments come from? How will they join the ranks of China's mass consumers if they can't pull in an income?

This is, as a photographer, something that I would like to keenly document. However actually photographing inside a job market is often frowned up as a foreign photographer and I've been kicked out of many before. But those shots you see of thousands of students pushing and shoving through the entrance of a job fair do really occur, and the scene at the job markets will most likely become more intense in the coming months as more and more graduates fight for fewer and fewer resources.

The big question remains as to what the unemployed might do? Will they choose to under-employ themselves in the countryside? Will they begin looking at ways in which their government is failing them and demand change? Only time will tell, I know I'll be watching.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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