白领和蓝领移民的城市争夺战

寒冷的冬天

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正文：

人生是场球赛，你得按照规则进行比赛。

——塞林格《麦田守望者》

不管你是肉食者，还是路边冻死骨，人类必须有底线。失去了蓝领服务的北京白领，你们还会好吗？

——博士高管汇

1

大都清理农民工，可能会有意想不到的经济后果

Beijing’s Heavy-Handed Solution to Urbanization

Beijing’s attempts to push out migrant workers will have economic consequences.

By John Pabon

40天的清理城市不安全建筑运动，让大都的820万永久农民工心理不平静。这些人可不是短暂在大都打工，他们相当部分在这里工作生活十几年了！

这项运动要清理四千万平米的违章建筑，这是2008年以来大都最大的美化城市行动。三九严寒，凛冬将至！人心也变凉。

Citing a deadly November 18 fire in one of Beijing’s many shantytowns, city officials are implementing a 40-day cleanup campaign to rid the city of unsafe structures. Most of these serve as homes to the 8.2 million permanent migrant workers living in the capital. The campaign aims to clear 40 million square meters of illegal housing in what will be the biggest facelift since the 2008 Olympics. The force and timing of the campaign, though, is leaving thousands of migrants without homes at the onset of a frigid winter. Universal backlash on social media, from intellectual groups, and international rights organizations came quickly.

虽然定位于让大都更安全更宜居，这些运动是要限制自由的城市化。尽管有很多措施限制人口流向大都会，但由于全国铁路网的改善，交通便利让成千上万农民工流向东部大都市变得不能太简单 。

人才从农村和内地流向东部发达城市，可以促进区域间经济发展。但大都市的的基础设施、社会服务和资源也会变得紧张。

大都一方面需要引进高技术的白领，一方面却要限制蓝领流入，这是非常微妙的平衡！

While positioned as a way to make the capital safer, these moves are the latest in attempts to rein in unfettered urbanization. Even with measures in place to curb moves to urban centers, improvements in national rail service and transportation are making it easier than ever for millions of migrants to flock to China’s eastern megacities. This drains rural and provincial areas of talent that could contribute to regional development while straining scarce urban infrastructure, social services, and resources. Beijing must now carefully encourage more rural-to-urban white-collar migration while evening out patterns for blue-collar migrant workers. Playing with this delicate balance may have unintended consequences.

2

Out of Sight; Out of Mind

他们卑微如尘土，你离不开但视而不见

大家都离不开农民工，但从来被主流社会漠视。他们在厨房工作，在杂乱的建筑工地，在夜幕掩盖下的小作坊，在为写字楼松的中产阶层送外卖。

被排挤到大城市郊区，他们生活在远离本地户籍人的社会。在市中心，他们踩着三轮车拉客，捡垃圾，或者跟朋友聚餐，都距离本地人远远地。没有人乐于去看他们做什么，也不想关心他们说什么。

Migrant workers are an integral, but often unseen, piece of the China narrative. They work in kitchens, behind the walls of construction sites, and under the cover of darkness to produce, build, and deliver the goods China’s growing middle class have come to rely on. Relegated to the outskirts of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, they operate in a world far removed from that of non-migrant residents. Making an appearance downtown, whether on the back of a three-wheeled truck, collecting recyclables, or out for a meal with friends, is often met with disdain from locals. Migrant workers are neither meant to be seen nor heard.

中国整个劳动人口中，40%的都是农民工。但政策和社会结构却并不有利于他们。

中国的户籍制度限制了他们的很多权利，非法雇佣和不安全的工作条件也恶化了他们的权利。对于有家庭的农民工，情况更糟。

不过也不尽是留守儿童，现在有21%的远离家乡打工的农民工都是携带妻子儿女。

自从2005年，居住在大城市的农民工孩子增加了41%。但他们无缘城市正规教育，只能被迫就读没有执照的农民工子弟学校。在北京，甚至有3.5%的农民工孩子无法上学！

Although they make up nearly 40 percent of China’s workforce, this otherness is exacerbated by policy and social structures protecting the status quo. China’s household registration system severely limits migrant entitlements, while illegal employment practices and unsafe labor conditions further impede their rights. For workers with families, the situation is even more tenuous. Contrary to the image of children left behind in villages by parents moving to cities, 21 percent of long-distance migrants move as a family unit. Since 2005, there has been a 41 percent increase in the number of migrant children living in China’s urban centers. Unable to access the urban education system, children are typically forced into unlicensed migrant schools. In Beijing, 3.5 percent of migrant children do not go to school at all.

这给整个社会带来心理冲击。根据健康与人权杂志，非常多的城市移民经历了无助、孤独和沮丧。有道基金的联络人说，今天的中国流动人口不同于过去，尤其是孩子，比如上海这个地方，农民工孩子中86.3%的没有上海本地朋友，超过20%的孩子很压抑。

世界卫生组织说，流动人口中的自杀率是全国平均水平的三倍。

All of this impacts psychosocial well-being. According to The Health and Human Rights Journal, high numbers of urban migrants experienced feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and depression. Bud Pratt, of the You Dao Foundation, said that “today’s migrant population in China is different than any in the past.” In particular, “kids that have grown up in places like Shanghai, and for all intents and purposes are Shanghai people, aren’t offered the same opportunities and are ostracized from local society.” An astonishing 86.3 percent of urban migrant children said they had no local network of friends, with over 20 percent reporting depression. The World Health Organization notes suicide rates among this population are three times the national average.

3

A Fading Dream

逐渐暗淡的梦想

对于生活在北上广深的农民工，城市的光环开始黯淡。不仅仅因为享受到更少的社会基础设施和生活质量，还因为梦想的幻灭。

飞涨的生活成本，越来越不好找的工作，让大城市的吸引力开始降低。中国劳动通讯说，农民工的工资通常是大城市平均工资的一般。

随着中国经济减速，金字塔低端的人群工资增长停滞了。

全球城市商业联盟说，北京是全世界租金负担最重的城市。农民工的工作机会，从收入较高的制造业转移到更低的服务业。从2011年，服务业的工作岗位增加了14%

For migrants working in places like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, the gleam of the city is starting to fade. This goes beyond just the gaps in social infrastructure and quality of life. Skyrocketing living costs and a dwindling supply of jobs is increasing the attractiveness of smaller provincial-level cities. The China Labor Bulletin reports migrant wages are often half the overall average in China’s major cities. With China’s economic slowdown, wage increases for the bottom of the pyramid are stagnating. Meanwhile, average rental prices in Beijing sit at 1.2 times average salaries. The Global Cities Business Alliance notes Beijing is the world’s least affordable rental housing market. Migrant jobs are also moving from the higher paying manufacturing sector to the service sector. Since 2011, offerings in the service sector jumped 14 percent. This translates to paychecks that don’t go as far as they used to.

结果，农民工开始离开工作的大城市，也不再回来。国家统计局的数据说，自从2008年经济危机，农民工的人数只有微弱增长。

尽管中央政府并没追踪返乡农名工的数量，但贵州省的数据表明，返乡农名工比十年前增加了一倍。

大都最近的清理行动，更加速了去城市化趋势。

As a response, migrant workers are beginning to leave China’s cities and not return. National statistics show the weakest increase in migrant worker numbers since the Great Recession. While the national government does not track the number of returnees, provinces like Guizhou have seen twice as many today as a decade ago. Beijing’s recent moves are fueling these de-urbanization trends.

4

A Greater Wall

远在几千里之外的南加州，类似的国家行为在上演

来自墨西哥和拉美的移民工人构成了美国加州的很大部分服务业。但数十年来，政府层面采用各种方式想把这些流动人口送回边境，迫使他们离开美国。

现在川普政府也要打击非法移民。

就如中国一样，农名工给城市发展做出了贡献，他们干的都是又脏又累的本地人不愿意干的活。

很多美国人担心，非法移民抢走了美国中下层的工作。但事实上，美国人压根不屑于干这些活。如果没有非法移民填补这些角色，整个城市的低端产业可能会崩溃！

Thousands of miles away in my own southern California hometown, a similar scenario is playing out. Here, migrant labor from Mexico and Latin America makes up a substantial part of the service economy. Yet for decades lawmakers have toyed with ways to send these populations back across the border. This rhetoric is now entering the national conversation as part of the Trump administration’s stance on illegal immigration. As in China, these often-ostracized elements of society contribute in ways citizens overlook. While many worry illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from hard-working Americans, in reality, these are the jobs no American would likely ever want. Without laborers to fill these roles, entire primary industries risk collapse.

大都的清理运动，短期内可能立竿见影。但大都市的吸引力很难抹杀。

你把整个低技能劳动力赶走，其他产业不可能不被影响。因此一个大都市其实离不开低端产业和人口。

Back across the Pacific, walling migrants off from Beijing may clean things up in the short term. To be clear, the lure of China’s megacities will be a difficult thing to tame. The likelihood of draining an entire city of its unskilled labor, therefore, is not realistic. As in the United States, industry and labor are intimately intertwined. In the case of China’s capital, 21.7 million strong and counting, decoupling this same relationship may have longer-term, negative economic implications extending well beyond just 40 days.

5

你只要看看农民工给大都市带来的三大便利，

就知道他们多么重要！

今年上半年，中国线上送餐市场增长了41.6% 

今天有三个亿的中国人使用手机订餐，食物被直接送到他们家里、办公室、甚至动车。这需要三百万外卖小哥辛苦劳作。

阿里巴巴的双十一，成交量一千多亿。这需要两百万快递员穿梭于城市的大街小巷。

从我上海的公寓走出去，我常常被建筑工地的隆隆声弄醒。24小时都有建筑工在默默劳作，不知道哪天你就看到金碧辉煌的摩天大厦拔地而起。他们在茫茫的夜色里，装点了你彩虹色的梦。

而建筑业吸纳了20%的农民工

All it takes to understand this point is a glance at three of the modern conveniences supporting China’s middle class.

• During the first half of the year, China’s online food delivery market swelled by 41.6 percent. Today, 300 million Chinese use mobile applications to have food brought directly to their homes, offices, and even on board high-speed trains. The nearly 3 million delivery people racing through the streets of major cities to meet demand are largely migrant workers.

• Alibaba’s Single’s Day, the world’s largest shopping event, brought in over $26 billion in sales this past November. Getting billions of little boxes to their intended destinations takes a fleet of over 2 million couriers across a number of different parcel delivery companies. Kuai di, or fast delivery, couriers are as ubiquitous on China’s streets as noodle stands. As with food delivery, these couriers come from unskilled migrant populations.

• Just across the street from my Shanghai apartment, I’m often woken up by the 24-hour construction on what will soon become one of the city’s tallest buildings. The sleek mega structures housing China’s restaurants and shops would be nothing without throngs of migrant workers toiling day and night to build them. The construction industry employs about 20 percent of China’s migrant worker population. Market estimates point to a continued boom in urban construction, which rebounded in November.

这三大产业吸纳了6500万劳动者，其中绝大部分是农名工。

所以你把农民工都撵走了，可不仅仅是影响本地人生活质量这么简单。

中国得以屹立于世界竞争舞台的优势，就在于：技术、物流和大城市狂飙猛进。

如果大城市失去了基础产业劳动者的服务，人们在这里生活会越来越不方便，成本也会提升。那大城市的竞争力也会削弱！

These three industries alone account for nearly 65 million workers across the country. Not all, but the vast majority, are migrants. A realization of Beijing’s cleanup plan would mean the potential collapse of sectors China needs to stay globally dominant – technology, logistics, and urban development. So, we’re not just looking at a little inconvenience to city dwellers. The implications are far-reaching and could negatively impact China’s competitiveness on the world stage.

对决策者的行动，你说东说西很容易。但实际情况会非常复杂，盘根错节。

每个行为，都会有他对应的后果。兵来将挡水来土掩，福兮祸之所倚。

一些社会或者私人部门已经展开了救助，去给那些流离失所的农民工提供工作或住所的援助。京东也为他的快递小哥提供临时公寓。

他们明白，不管多少清理行动去美化大都宽阔的街道，国家的发展和人民的幸福离不开这些农民工。

There’s nothing to envy of the job required by China’s policymakers. While it’s easy to rush to judgment about their approach, the situation is highly nuanced and complex. As in physics, however, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. China’s social and private sectors are rushing in to fill the void left by policy. Aid groups are offering lists of jobs and flat mates, while e-commerce giant JD.com is providing temporary housing to its delivery workers. They understand no matter how many cleanup campaigns blow down Beijing’s wide avenues, these “low-end populations,” as they are not so affectionately termed, are a necessity in today’s global society.

John Pabon is the founder of Fulcrum Sustainability Consulting. His previous work includes posts with the United Nations, McKinsey, A.C. Nielsen, and as a consultant with BSR, the world’s largest sustainability-focused business network. 

——END——

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