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Paper short abstract:

This paper unveils institutional challenges faced by Chinese migrant workers in China's unbalanced rural-urban social insurance system. It explores inequalities in domestic exploitation caused by insurance and a unique response from the workers that makes the policy more inclusive.

Paper long abstract:

Amidst China’s dynamic socio-economic landscape since the era of reform and opening up, the profound rural-urban disparity and its reverberations on labor migration have ascended to a position of paramount importance. Nongmingong, the Chinese migrant workers, confronts challenges propelled by social insurance discrepancies, rural-urban divides, and the household registration (Hukou) system. Employing a multifaceted approach encompassing historical retrospection, logistic analysis, and case studies, this study brings to light the nongmingong phenomenon. At its heart lies the evolution of China’s social insurance policies, steering the trajectories of nongmingong’s migration. Distinct contours of medical and pension insurance materialize, wherein medical insurance designed for rural residents curtails nongmingong’s mobility, while pension insurance effects exhibit nuanced gradients. Furthermore, this dissertation examines the government’s response in the face of nongmingong’s exit from cities, epitomized by the approach of Guangdong province. The study’s interpretive prism extends to encompass the nongmingong phenomenon through the lenses of the developmental state paradigm. The artificial dissonance in social insurance coverage surfaces as a form of inequality, with governmental reactions constituting a remedial response as nongmingong steps back from the urban labor stage.