The Role of Rural Migrants in the Chinese Urban Economy

Abstract

China’s GDP is growing at more than triple the rate of those of European countries during the Industrial Revolution. This growth is associated with a massive rural urban migration, which has fuelled export industries in the cities. This chapter addresses some of the most pressing policy questions surrounding the economic role of these migrants: How important is the role rural-urban migrants have played in the process of China’s economic growth in the past decades? When will cities exhaust the supply of unskilled migrant workers? And how does the discrimination that the migrants face affect their economic role in the cities?