"Numerical Chaos" or "Administrative Needs": Interpreting Definitions of China's non-hukou Migrants
2013/08/20
研討會日期 : 2013-08-20
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Yan Wei
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Yan Wei received her Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2007. She is currently Professor of Public Management at Xi’an University of Finance and Economics. Her research fields are fertility and marriage analysis, gender discrimination, and rural-urban migration.
演講摘要 : The sheer size of non-hukou migrants, as a special category of urban population, is the vantage point for understanding China’s post-reform socioeconomic dynamics driven by migration and urbanization. Estimates of the aggregate total of this population are wide ranging from the variety of source material at between 150 and 260 million. Most China-studies specialists underscore various estimates as an outcome of different non-hukou migrant definitions that provide incompatible and inconsistent foundation on which to base further investigation. Nonetheless, critics are rarely aware of the statistical criteria how this category of migrants is defined in different published tabulations and what are the underlying issues in definitional complexities. This paper focuses on an in-depth understanding of the definitional complexities of non-hukou migrants, which are not readily apparent in making meaningful sense on numerical data. We provide the documentation of specifics of statistical variables used by various bureaucracies to define non-hukou migrants. We also explore the interrelation between the political economy of migration and changes in the administration of non-hukou migrants, which lead to definitional complexities. Our analysis suggests two levels of understanding. We argue that, on the surface, a substantial part of the numerical difference is statistical artifact of different definitions. Moving beyond a statistical point of view, the interpretation of various non-hukou migrant definitions has to be conceptualized within the political economy of migration in transitional China that necessitates the persistence as well as changes in migrant control.
