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1. Soft Welfare vs. Hard Welfare:
Factors in Migrants’ Subjective Well-Being (SWB)
in Urban China and Social Policy Implications
Yuan REN (FUDAN UNIVERSITY)
with Weixing ZHANG
EMAIL: yren@fudan.edu.cn
- Global Vantage Point Lecture Series, Trinity
College, Nov.10, 2015

2. Stages of China’s Urbanization
Sources: China National Human Development Report 2013

3. Hukou-based and Chinese Urbanization
• Hukou system, inheritted from plan society, refers to a
typically migration control institution, and hukou-based
differentiate welfare provision institution.
• There are two kinds of migrants dues to the constrains
of hukou policy, hukou migrants and non-hukou
migrants.
• Non-hukou migrants are the main component of Chinese
internal migrants.
• Around 80% of all non-hukou floating population are
actually living in cities permanent (more than half a year)
and having a stable job. They actually should be
regarded as permanent migrants.
• Hukou-based urbanization makes two kind of
urbanization degree, de facto urbanization, and de jure
urbanization

4. de facto Urbanization and de jure Urbanization

5. 28 mil. 99mil 257mil.
165mil.625 mil.
Villages
145mil.
Towns Cities
2 mil. 21 mil. 109 mil.
Floating Population (Towns+Cities/ Villages)
33 mil. 35 mil. 61 mil.
Non-agricultural
Population
Agricultural
Population
Hukou
Increasing Social Segregation among
Populations in Urban China
Data Source: 2010 Chinese Census

6. Inequity in Objective Welfare
• Because of hukou-based welfare exclusions,
migrants show significant disadvantages in
various social welfare and public services
provisions, including education, health and
medical services, social security, public housing,
employment opportunities, and provisions of
occupational training, etc.. (Wu and Wang 2002,
Li 2003, Wang 2006, Zheng 2008, Zuo 2010, Ren
2012)
• Those institutional exclusions in objective welfare
lead to a series social problems during Chinese
urbanization, e.g. institutional and social
exclusion, left-behind children/wives, unstable
labor provision, and obstacles of new middle
classes, etc.

7. Table 7 Comparison of social security between migrants and locals（%）
migrants Local People
Urban Pension Schemes 38.60% 84.60%
Urban Employee's Medical
Insurance Scheme
40.00% 75.70%
Urban Residents' Medical Insurance
Scheme
4.40% 22.10%
private medical insurance 5.90% 10.90%
Injury Insurance 28.80% 37.10%
Unemployment Insurance 25.30% 59.30%
Meternity Insurance 9.50% 27.30%
Public Housing Fund 12.30% 47.70%
Differences in Objective Welfare (1)
Social Security Schemes
Source: Ren et al (2014)

8. Table 7 Comparison of occupation and employment
between migrants and locals（%）
migrants Local People
Proportion of White Collars 27% 45.30%
Labor proportion in Manufacture sector 39.90% 22.90%
Labor proportion in services sector 58.40% 76.50%
Job-seeking through governmental
service sand public information
approaches
17.50% 39.40%
Job-seeking from friends and social
network
27.50% 20.60%
Proportion to having labor contracts
with entrepreneurs
16.60% 74.90%
Proportion of people got public
employment training services
10.50% 16.50%
Differences in Objective Welfare (2)
Occupation and Employment
Source: Ren et al (2014)

9. migrants Local People
Proportion of people having self-
owned housing
14.10% 68.80%
Proportion of people living in
renting housing
84.90% 24.10%
Proportion of people living in
public housing
1% 7.10%
Most neighbors are migrants 39.40% 6.20%
Most People are Local Natives 32.70% 72%
Have frequent social interact with
local people
20.50% 67.10%
Often Participate community
cultural and social activities
9.10% 20.70%
Proportion to participate
neighborhood election
6% 77.40%
Differences in Objective Welfare (3)
Residence and Social Life
Source: Ren et al (2014)

10. migrants Local People
Monthly income per capita (CNY) 4274.6 3598.24
Hourly income per capita (CNY) 22.73 25.01
Household monthly income (CNY) 11895 9244
Household monthly expenses
(CNY)
6118 4632
Monthly expenses in house Rent
(CNY)
979 181
Monthly expenses in food (CNY) 1337 1763
Monthly expenses in education
（CNY）
1087 946
Yearly expenses in eldly care (CNY) 31623 23977
Differences in Objective Welfare (4)
Income and Consumption
Source: Ren et al (2014)

11. Migrants Subjective Well-Being equally Important
• It is important to improve migrants objective well-
being (or hard welfare), which is mainly based on
institutional welfare and public services provisions.
Meanwhile, we also need to consider to Improve
migrants subjective well-being (or soft welfare).
• Through analyzing factors associate with immigrants'
Subjective Well-Being, this study discusses how to
improve migrants’ soft welfare during Chinese
urbanization process.

12. In 2010, the worst year for workplace suicides
at Foxconn with a total of 14 deaths, its
employee count was a reported 930,000 people

13. • Subjective Well-Being（SWB） includes people's life satisfaction，life
quality, feelings and happiness.（Bradburn 1969；Waterman 1992）
• SWB is mutually influenced by people‘s well-being acquisition and people’s
anticipation. and is influenced by people‘s compare with each other their
well-being acquisitions.
• Factors on people’s subjective well-being includes demographic factors like
age，sex and education， and also include other factors like income，
environment，health，religion，job nature、social relations and even
external environment. ( Zhao 2012）
• There are researches about different population groups’ subjective well-
being including college students，peasants，teachers，the elderly, and
migrants’ subjective well-being studies will be beneficial to understand
urbanization and people’s life.
• The main researches on migrants well-being is focused on their income,
health and pension, employment contract and so on objective well-being,
and still further researches should be done on migrants subjective well-
being.
Subjective Well- Being

14. Data Source
• The dynamic monitoring survey of the migrants in 2012
• Sampling population：migrants in Shanghai
• respondents：people under the age of 15-59 from other province who live
in shanghai for over one month . 14993 effective Samples in total.
• Sampling method： multistage stratified survey. Make survey in all districts
and counties in Shanghai. Make randomly sample of street as the first level
，select neighborhood committees /villages as the second level，and
randomly select respondent based on residents list acquired from
neighborhood committees/ villages.
• Sample allocation：the survey covered all 17districts in Shanghai. Among
them, there are 2000 interviews from Pudong New Area discttrict，1000
from Minhang and 800 from the others.
• Weight the cases based on the migrants’ size in every districts in 2012.

15. • Most migrants have higher satisfactory of their life and feel
happy.
• 10.8% Migrants feels very happy in the city, and 46.3%
feel happy, those who evaluates unhappy and very
unhappy has the proportion of 1.6% and 0.3%.
Migrants Enjoy more Happiness

16. High Income, and Happier
SWB

17. Higher Educated might not mean happier
Table 13 Education and subjective well-being
Education
Degree
Illieracy
Primary
School
Middle
School
High
School
Technical
secondar
y school
College
Univerist
y
post
Graduate
SWE 67.23 67.58 66.05 67.39 62.94 66.6 67.16 66.4

18. • Married people’s subjective well-being index is much
higher than the single，the divorced or the widowed.
• The remarried of migrants occupy the highest SWB
score of 69.01.
• The first marriage takes second score of 67.66.
• The unmarried get the lowest score of 61.89.
Marriage means peoples’s Well-being

19. The young generations of migrants feels much more
unhappiness.
Subjective Well Being

20. The higher the occupational status，the higher the
well-being will be for migrants
Table 14 Occupation and well-being
Occupation SWB Occupation SWB
Head of Government,
Enterprise Leaders
70.97 Security Guard 63.62
Professional and
technical personnel
64.93 Decorate personnel 66.77
clerk, and staff 69.69 business service 66.16
merchant, business
people
70.83 agricultural person 65.45
vendor 69.27 manufacture 63.55
Catering service
personnel
65.71
Transportation
personnel
68.57
Domestic service
personnel
66.61 construction 67.39
cleaning staff 66.44 others 63.03

21. Correlation between some influences and migrants’
SWB in correlation analysis
sex (with refer to male) 0.046**
education -0.007
age 0.101**
occupation ( with refer to blue collars) 0.046**
hukou (with refer to agricultural hukou) 0.036**
marriage (with refer to married) -0.128**
housing property (with refer to self-owned housing) -0.106**
urban medical insurance 0.018*
urban pension insurance 0.012
social participation 0.118**
social interaction -0.043**
feeling discrimination -0.282**
monthly income 0.121**
income increase compare to before migration 0.042**
income increase compare to just arrived the city 0.036**
family living together 0.179**
how many jobs after arrived -0.028**

22. • FAMILY LIFE AND MIGRANTS’ SWB (include peoples’ houshold
migration, marriage, housing conditions, inhabitation form,
ownership of housing)
• SOCIAL LIFE AND MIGRATNS’ SWB (include migrants social
participation, cultural discrimination, social network especially
local social network)
• EMPLOYMENT/ BUSINESS AND MIGRATNS’ SWB (include
personal income, income growth rate compare to the first job in the
city, job stability, enterprises’ welfare and etc.)
• INSTUTTIONAL ARRANGEMENT AND MIGRANTS’ SWB (include
whether they could get health insurance, pension, whether be able
to acquire local hukou, and so on.)
Hypotheses on Migrants SWB

23. Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Sex (refer to male) 1.780*** (0.287) 0.867* (0.393)
Birth age (refer to born in 1950s)
Born in 1960s -0.097 (0.871) 0.344 (1.247)
Born in 1970s -0.865 (0.834) -0.398(1.216)
Born in 1980s - 3.255***(0.826) -1.953(1.240)
Born in 1990s -5.970***(0.971) 0.533(1.578)
Hukou （refer to agricultural hukou) 1.410***(0.343) -1.376**(0.517)
Marriage (refer to married)
unmarried -1.787**(0.696) -1.525*(0.798)
widow -0.911(1.327) -1.101(1.260)
Living pattern (refer to live with family
members)
Live with friends -1.911(1.27) -1.656(1.326)
Live him/herself -4.067***(0.731) -4.059*** (0.747)
Live with others -5.497***(0.731) -5.349***(0.732)
Housing property (refer to self-owned
housing)
rent -2.568***(0.662) -2.753***(0.732)
Working unit provided housing -2.497**(0.884) -2.710**(0.897)
Working place -3.761**(1.418) -4.040**(1.429)
Modelling on Immigrants Subjective Well-Being (1)
note: sig *<0.05, **<0.01, ***<0.001

24. Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Social Participation 0.400*(0.1580 0.410*(0.158))
Social Interaction (refer to very littel social
interaction)
Interact with local people often 2.626**(0.811)) 2.780***(0.8110
Interact with hometown friends often 1.601*(0.650) 1.583*(0.652)
Interact with other domestic migrants -0.521(0.775) -0.429(0.775)
Feeling discrimination -3.871***(0.174) -3.842***(0.174)
Monthly income 0.000**(0.000) 0.000**(0.000)
income increase compare to before migration 0.030*(0.016) 0.023(0.0160
income increase compare to before migration -0.001(0.017) -0.002(0.017)
occupation ( with refer to blue collars)
Business services 1.600***(0.448) 1.542***(0.452)
white collars (Professional and technical
personnel, clerk, merchant, business people)
0.026(0.616) 0.710(0.634)
Head of Government, Enterprise Leaders 0.872(2.101) 1.364(2.110)
Job stability -0.696***(0.146) -0.698***(0.1460
Social Insurance -0.357(0.4200 -0.587(0.423)
constant 67.319***(0.8
09)
75.810***(1.065) 76.445***(1.562)
Modelling on Immigrants Subjective Well-Being (cont,)
note: sig *<0.05, **<0.01, ***<0.001

25. • Migrants family life, housing and marriage have significant
impacts on migrants’ SWB.
• In the respect of social life and social participation，social capital
and cultural discrimination have a significant impact on migrants’
well-being. The more the social participation，the higher SWB.
Increasing social capital will benefit the improvement of migrants’
SWB. Cultural discrimination means that urban residents hold
prejudice and rejection to migrants，which leaves a stereotype
of migrants，and it will impact migrants’ negative social
psychological feeling as a consequence.
• In the respect of employment and economic factors, increasing
income, stable work and a good working conditions can promote
migrants’ SWB.
• Institution including Social security systems seems not significant
in this model, while it shows positive directions.
Findings

26. Improving migrants’ overall well-being
during urbanization
• One important task for the good urbanization or for the people-
centered urbanization is that, increase those large amount of
migrants’ welfare and happiness.
• Welfare institutions reform is the key to improve the objective
well-being of migrant groups. Meanwhile, It is also important to
enhanced the SWB of migrants. We also notice that objective
and subjective well-being benefits are mutually influenced.
• Objective well-being construction should be based on hukou
reform, welfare reform and citizenry of migrants, it could be
achieved mainly through strengthening legislation for citizens’
social rights and related institutional reforms.
• Besides hukou reform, Subjective well-being construction are
influence by more comprehensive processes including social
mechanism's building, cultural changes and family-community -
enterprises-based social schemes.

27. Family-Community-Enterprises-based
Social Schemes and social policies
for Improving Migrants SWB
MIGRANTS’
SWB
MIGRANTS’
HOUSEHOLD
AND FAMILY LIFE
SUPPORT
MIGRANTS’
SOCIAL AND
COMMUNITY
SUPPORT
ENTERPRISES
DEVELOPMENT AND
ENTERPRIESES
RESPONSIBILITIES

28. Migrants’ Household and Family Life support
schemes and Social Policies
• Discuss family migrations’ policies to protect the social rights and
well-being of those married-in migrants, usually female, and to
encourage those left-behind woman and left behind children to
migrate together with their couple and with their parents.
• Most migrants are young people, to help them have more
opportunities to marry is a kind of important well-being. Social
works on improving the chances of marriage, coordinating
marriage conflicts are equally necessary for migrants’ life.
• The urban sector should support the housing provision for
migrants, but not exclude them from public housing schemes. To
support more migrants living in self-owned or self-rented
housing unit, but not push them living in collective working
places, will be beneficial for their family livelihood.

29. Migrants' Social and Community Support
Schemes and Social Policies
• to encourage migrants more participation in social
organizations and community activities;
• to encourage and formalize migrants to organize their own
social organizations to protect their benefits, to achieve self-
services and self-management;
• to encourage migrants to form a good neighborhood relations
in the community, to encourage more migrants-local mixed
and interactive community development to help migrants
getting familiar with urban life.
• to decrease various kind of social discrimination.

30. Enterprises Welfare and Social Responsiblities
Schems and Social Policies
• Enterprises should also have responsibilities on migrants well-being, but
not just enjoy the low labor cost benefits as previous.
• To support and encourage migrants affiliated within labor union and the
communist party, to protect their labor rights and benefits on lowest
wage, working hours, training and promotion, obtaining stable work
through labor contract, improving work conditions, and so on.
• To convert the enterprises culture from Fordism-style enterprises
management to more humanistic concerns, increase migrants role in
policy making and innovation in enterprises, and increase migrants’
leisure time and work conditions.
• To provide equal development opportunities for migrants for their
business innovation, to encourage small and median sized enterprises
development, and even protect and help those street vendors. A
successful urban development should support immigrants gradually
promote to new white collars, new middle-classes.

31. Conclusion
• Although urbanization is a process of improving
people’s well-being in human history，in most time,
it also means a process of severe social conflicts and
well-being detriments during social transformation.
• Constructions of welfare institutions are crucial to
advancing people’s well-being during urbanization
and to achieving people-centered development,
especially ensure migrants objective welfare. While a
more synthetic social-family mechanism should be
develop for migrants’ subjective wellbeing and social
integration.
• Migrants’ well-being, but not only migrants’
employment, should be put on the key position
during Chinese urbanization.
• A better urbanization, a better life.

32. Implications on urbanization in Global South
Shallow Urbanization
• unequal treatment, unequal welfare provision based on
various institutional exclusions
• Residential segregation
• Increasing divisions of society
• Migrants are lack of integration within urban community,
• Informal employment and poor work conditions
• Lack of citizenship right and lack of urban identity
• broken family life
• Feeling depressed, excluded and discriminated
• This objective and subjective combined and mutual
influenced process, makes a kind of shallow urbanization,
becomes a threat to people’s well-being improvement.

33. Returning Back to the Track of
Good Urbanization
• An globalization-pressed urbanization in global south
• Development path constrains urbanization in global
south (hukou and apartheid)
• Institutional factors with urbanization
• Necessity of strengthening social integration and social
solidarity facing the challenges of globalization
• Necessities of emphasis of people-center urbanization
but not simply emphasizing economic growth,
employment and urban landscape changes.
• Necessity of institutional reforms, and social mechanism
construction (democracy and society-building) for better
urban development and well-being improvement.