중국 도농 불평등구조와 농민공의 변화

Abstract

Chinese ‘nongmingong’ are not typical rural immigrant labor that generally appear during industralization and urbanization process, but are peasant-labor with Chinese characteristics that appeared during the socialist modernization in China. The nongmingong’s contradictory identity is a product of the rural-urban structure of inequalities established by institutional and non-institutional conditions surrounding the nongmingong. China’s rural-urban structure of inequalities is forged and works not only horizontally in the spatial dimension of rural and urban areas but also vertically in the collective dimension of urban-hukou owners and rural-hukou owners. China’s rural-urban structure of inequalities is the source of floating nongmingong population. In the early stage of reform and opening, the nongmingong entered the urban areas simply to earn their living. On the other hand, the new generation nongmingong, who were born in or after 80s and grew up in the reform and opening era, want more than just making money and try to settle in the urban areas for self-realization and pursuit of ideals. Thus the nongmingong problem, of which the new generation has become the majority now, not only has the economic aspect but also the social and political ones. The new generation nongmingong do not passively endure the social structure of inequalities nor seek compromises. Being more active and adventurous than the old generation,they seek a change. The new generation nongmingong try to find a role that would help them improve their conditions, or move from the area to look for an environment with more appropriate conditions for them.