Migrant Workers - Are They Really Happy?

I chose an article on migrant workers. I was shocked to see the lives of the migrant workers in China and how they are treated. Before enrolling in this course, I did not know much about China and had never heard of a migrant population in China. The article I found is entitled “Migrant workers need a life of fulfillment”. This article states that most migrants are happy with their life despite missing many basic necessitites. I believe that people can find happiness even in despair. However, it seems impossible that there is true happiness in the migrant workers and I see happiness as an impossibility of happening in China due to the migration rules.

I have worked in labor law for over twenty years and never have I been so shocked about labor working conditions as I have with the migrant work force in China. I see so many similarities of migrant workers in the US and the migrant workers in China. I do believe that the US should take a look at the Chinese migrant issue and develop a fair immigration policy in the US. The migrant workers in the US should never be comparable to the Chinese migrant worker. The US can do better. I will follow the Chinese migrant issue with hopes of improvement for their lives.

-Tom

Migrant workers need a life of fulfillment
By Chong Zi (China Daily)Updated: 2008-03-24 07:13

Economists and psychologists - and the rest of us - have long wondered if more money would make us happier.

Whether the affluent are happier as a whole than their less well-to-do counterparts is becoming an increasingly hot topic for debate. In recent years, much has been written regarding the "science of happiness". We are told that money does not buy us happiness.

Such an assumption was verified again when I came across a survey on migrant workers.

They live in the basements of high-rise residential buildings, in temporary sheds on construction sites, and dilapidated houses on the outskirts of big cities. They are found working on a sort of treadmill in factories, starting their own businesses like selling vegetables, or in the case of women, as maids.

The hard work and living conditions have not scared them away from East China's boomtowns. On the contrary, they said they were pleased with the way it was.

This was part of the survey's conclusions.

The www.39.net and Southern Weekly interviewed 3,889 migrant workers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen from November 2007 to January this year. They published a white paper early this month on the physical and mental health of the migrant workers.

More than 80 percent of the respondents said their living conditions in cities were acceptable, and a majority of them accepted the quality of their life. More than 70 percent of the farmers-turned workers were happy, 22 percent anxious, and only 3 percent on "knife's-edge".

The white paper presented us with quite a rosy picture of the migrant workers, in striking contrast to other reports. A report on migrant workers by the Research Office of the State Council, and a report on the living conditions of migrant workers in cities by the National Bureau of Statistics, gave an insight into the not-so-optimistic situation of these people around the country.

The white paper might have left urban white-collar workers with a sense of inferiority. More than half of netizens surfing the www.39.net claimed to have psychological problems.

Happiness, which has no physical attributes (even if some neuroscientists claim they can see it in the brain), is a feeling, not a thing. This may account for the fuzziness and disagreement that occurs when definitions are made.

Deciding to become happier entails making a choice about which perspective you take and acknowledging that the choice is in your hands.

According to the white paper, the farmers-turned workers, if not all, were happy with their life in cities.

Were they?

As Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert points out in his best-seller Stumbling on Happiness, "all claims of happiness are claims from someone's point of view".
In this sense, we have no reason to doubt the migrant workers' claims of being content. But the white paper with a generalized conclusion and irresponsible suggestions is misleading. It said that the general habit of having a regular physical check-up did not pertain to 83 percent of the migrant workers.

The picture of the farmers-turned workers' being content with their status and life in the cities also seems hard to believe.

So many changes have taken place among this group of people. For Li Tao, who set up a non-governmental organization in Beijing three years ago to help the farmers-turned workers, these changes are amazing.

In 1996 he opened a free training program for migrant workers who could not read and write. Now he is teaching young farmers-turned workers New Concept English.

A large group of rural laborers are now dreaming different dreams in the cities.

The farmers-turned workers above the age of 40 were well-prepared psychologically before they headed for the cities. They were prepared to put up with any difficulties because they had suffered hardships in their hometowns. The second generation of migrant workers, however, do not take hardship as part of their life. They change jobs all the time. They left their rural hometowns to ride the growth wave of the boomtowns in East and South China.
Hometowns are the final destination for the first generation of migrant workers when they think they have raised enough money.

The second generation wants to stay in the cities for good. But they are confused as to which city they should move to. The country's residence registration system has kept them outside most of the social security umbrella. Pension funds, managed by local authorities, and which cannot be transferred, have covered none of the farmers-turned workers.

When the country opened itself to the outside world, our cities' doors were also opened to rural folk. We have so many names for them such as migrant workers, farmers-turned workers, and floating people. Whatever their names, one thing they have in common: the road ahead is not so clear for them.

They find it difficult to be a real part of the cities where they reside. Also, they have no say in the affairs of these cities.

"They have placed their time, energy, skills and fate at the disposal of their urban folks. These individuals, are viewed by their urban counterparts merely as laborers, their rights and interests have practically been ignored," Li said.

In addition to hard work, migrant workers are regularly stigmatized by city dwellers who blame them for everything from crowded buses to street crimes.

The white paper of the www.39.net and Southern Weekly has made a hasty generalization of migrant workers. It has painted an inaccurate picture of them and this could send the wrong message to the decision-makers.

The number of migrant workers -120 million - is steadily rising, prompting the country's legislature and government to consider improving their welfare conditions, healthcare and education rights. They had three representatives at this year's National People's Congress that concluded last Tuesday. The new labor law that took effect on January 1 this year is supposed to give better protection for employees, especially the farmers-turned workers.
While white-collar urban people suffer frequent bouts of self-reproach, most of the farmers-turned workers, according to the white paper, are said to be pleased with their life in the cities.
If money does not buy happiness, what does? Grandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money. Or as some psychologists put it, when basic needs are met differences in wellbeing are less frequently due to income and more to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work. Other researchers add fulfillment, a sense that life has a meaning.

If migrant workers are still working hard to meet their basic needs, then how come most of them are happy with life? It is a question not answered by www.39.net and Southern Weekly.
(China Daily 03/24/2008 page4)