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This paper takes an interdisciplinary perspective to focus on the role played by the rural-urban dual system in China's urbanization and migration. We explain its establishment in China in the 1950s and its genealogy in the industrialization strategy adopted in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the reform era, the system has been refashioned to suit a new set of demands of the state industrialization strategy to cater for the global economy. We analyze the mechanisms of the dual system, and how it has helped generate low-cost migrant labor for urban employers and siphon off revenues for urban governments by expropriating rural land. We also argue that there are fundamental differences between the dual system and the common "dualism," based on the Lewis dual-sector model, as observed in many developing countries. The plight of children of migrants is used to illustrate the main points made in the paper. Our research challenges the prevailing perspectives in Chinese geography and urban studies, many of which are based on market-driven neoclassical economics or global neoliberalism, often ignoring China's historical and institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children - including those of migrants - are China's future. Children of migrants now make up close to 40% of all children in China. This paper analyzes the recent trends from 2000 to 2016 and the major aspects of the children of migrants by distilling data from multiple large national surveys and assessing the very small rural left-behind children (LBC) population figures published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2016. The paper also develops a method to estimate the LBC population generated by migrants in each provincial destination between 2010 and 2015, linking up different but related populations (adult migrants, migrant children, and LBC) in the origins and destinations. This broader "origin-destination" framework allows us to pinpoint clearly a major driver of LBC and hence to identify provinces needing the most attention in national and provincial efforts to alleviate the problem of LBC. Abbreviations: MC: Migrant Children; LBC: Left-Behind Children; MPR: Migration Participation Rate: LBCG: Left-Behind Children Generated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's urbanization in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is a crucial process in transforming the country. Taking advantage of the de facto counts of city population in the last four censuses since 1982, this paper examines the city-size distribution and growth pattern of large cities in China in recent three decades. Combined with earlier data and work on the Mao era, the paper also presents some long-term trends and helps answer an important question: was China successful in controlling the growth of large cities? In addition, the paper analyzes the main features of China's urbanization policy in relation to the political economy and development strategy, and concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this study to the latest urbanization policy and the household registration system or hukou reforms in large cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the impact of the global financial crisis on rural migrant labour in China, with a focus on unemployment. It illustrates the interaction of global and China-specific processes in the context of the worldwide recession. The essay first summarizes China's unique socio-economic system and the mechanisms that have created a system of ‘rural migrant labour’ and ‘super-cheapened’ it to help make China the ‘world's factory’. The main part of the essay examines the unemployment situation for migrants in late 2008 and the first half of 2009, and the dislocations and problems migrant labourers are facing. The China story is complex but interesting, not only for its rather complicated lexicon and statistics that often confuse outside observers, but also for its distinctive system of exploiting the rural population and internal migrant labour. This system makes the impact of the global crisis on migrant labourers, which are at the bottom of the global supply chain, all the more apparent. The last part of this essay analyses recent governmental fiscal-stimulus policies and measures as well as their impact on rural migrant labour, making some broader observations and linking the crisis to China's model of development. Résumé Ce texte examine l’impact de la crise financière mondiale sur la main-d’œuvre migrante rurale chinoise en s’intéressant notamment au chômage. Il illustre l’interaction des processus planétaires et nationaux dans le cadre de la récession mondiale. Une synthèse présente d’abord le régime socio-économique unique du pays, ainsi que les mécanismes qui ont créé un système de ‘main-d’œuvre migrante rurale’ tout en ‘hyper-dépréciant’ ces travailleurs afin de faire de la Chine ‘l’usine du monde’. L’étude centrale porte sur le chômage des migrants entre la fin 2008 et le premier semestre 2009, ainsi que sur les bouleversements et problèmes que rencontrent les ouvriers migrants. L’histoire chinoise est complexe mais intéressante, non seulement à cause d’un vocabulaire et de statistiques compliqués qui déroutent souvent les observateurs extérieurs, mais aussi par son système spécifique d’exploitation de la population rurale et de la main-d’œuvre migrante. Ce système renforce d’autant plus l’impact de la crise mondiale sur les ouvriers migrants, lesquels se trouvent tout en bas de la chaîne d’approvisionnement mondial. En revenant sur les récentes politiques et mesures d’incitation fiscale du gouvernement et sur leurs conséquences pour la main-d’œuvre migrante rurale, la dernière partie élargit le champ des observations et relie la crise au modèle de développement chinois. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on economic growth strategy and urbanization policies in China. Urbanization in the early stage of industrialization is, in essence, the spatial manifestation of the economic structural transformation, characterized by a massive shift of labor and other inputs away from agricultural to non-agricultural activities in the production structure. China's rapid industrial growth has not been accompanied by comparable levels of urbanization, which remains low even by third world standards. The article outlines the major principles governing urbanization in the early stages of socialist industrialization and demonstrates that China has been consistent in attempting to maximize industrial growth while minimizing urbanization, through measures such as control of urban-rural population and labor mobility, fuller use of urban workers, the suppression of services and personal consumption, and the promotion of rural industrialization. The heavy emphasis on rapid industrial output expansion inevitably generates high growth of industrial employment, especially during the early years of extensive growth. This creates a strong tendency to agglomeration and urbanization. At the same time, under the SGS, the wide gaps in wages, consumption or economic opportunity between the industrial and agricultural sectors are maintained. There are immense incentives for peasants to out-migrate from rural areas because state policies towards agriculture, including the collectivization and compulsory delivery of agricultural goods, are mostly unfavorable to the farm sector and therefore create a strong push for migration.