Towards Solidarity and Recognition? Changing Social Citizenship in China after a Decade of Social...

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/15685314-04301006

Asian Journal ofSocial Science 43 (2015) 103–124

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Towards Solidarity and Recognition?Changing Social Citizenship in China aftera Decade of Social Policy Development

Wen ZhuoyiThe Hong Kong Institute of Education

Abstract

According to the rhetoric of the post-war welfare state, citizens should have equalaccess to social benefits and protection based on human needs, rather than place ofresidence (Wincott, 2006). But under China’s socialist system and neoliberal reform,Chinese social citizenship has been eroded for various political and economic goals.Are there positive changes in Chinese social citizenship after a decade of social policydevelopment? By interviewing 24 migrant college graduates working in Guangzhouand Shenzhen, the current study confirms institutional progress in social policy forpeople’s social protection. But these post-neoliberal social programmes are far fromenough to help migrant graduates perform full social citizenship in urban regions. Bystudying social inclusion of educated but disadvantaged youth under neoliberal andpost-neoliberal reforms, the study contributes to a growing body of literature analysingsocial citizenship and social policy in China.

Keywords

neoliberalism – post-neoliberalism – social citizenship – social policy – China

Introduction

Under the market transition informed by neoliberalism, China turned its so-cialist planned economy into a socialist market economy, and became theworld’s largest economy in 2014, according to the InternationalMonetary Fund(2014). Meanwhile, China’s socialist welfare system was dismantled and dis-placed by marketised and privatised social welfare. Social policy was subor-dinated to economic goals (Wang, 2007) and was unable to provide sufficient

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Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 103–124

protection for citizens in education (Mok and Lo, 2007), housing (Lee and Zhu,2006), public health (China Youth Daily, 29 July 2005), especially those who areworking in the urban enterprises but without urban household registration.

In studying the peasant migrants’ contests over citizenship in urban China,Solinger (1999:1) pointed out, “citizenship does not come easily to those outsidethe political community whose arrival coincides with deepening and unaccus-tomed marketisation”. Moreover, several sub-types of social citizenship, suchas local citizenship (Smart and Smart, 2001), differential citizenship (Wu, 2010)and urban citizenship (Ren, 2012), were constructed to describe unequal andvariegated social statuses and living conditions in China when the socialiststate was disappearing in an accelerating market transition. All of these exist-ing studies challenge T.H. Marshall’s theoretical formulation of a positive andunilinear connection between the spread of economic liberalisation and thecitizenship-building (Solinger, 1999).

At the beginning of the 21st century, under the slogan of “building a har-monious society”, the Chinese government showed a major departure fromthe neoliberal social policy regime practiced in economic reform. The statewas brought back in the social policy sector. Central and local governmentshave initiated several new social programmes in the sectors of education, pub-lic housing and public health, with substantial public finance support. Mean-while, some new policy initiatives, such as government purchasing social ser-vices fromngos, were adhering to the neoliberal tenet of marketmechanisms.Thus, social policy development in the past a decade could be characterised aspost-neoliberalism. Does the social policy development bring positive impactson Chinese social citizenship? By explaining the institutional dynamics of thesocial security, the backbone of the Chinese social policy regime, existing stud-ies have illustrated that the efforts for harmonisation and social inclusion leadto a boundary shift of social citizenship: from the rural-urban to the local-outsider divide (Shi, 2012). Some rural populations working in urban areasmaybe given access to social insurance if they meet the eligibility criteria. A newform of equal social rights has emerged within a city or “welfare region” thatcould be termed “provincial citizenship” (Ngok, 2010; Ngok and Zhao, 2011).It seems that China is developing towards an inclusive citizenship based onthe notion of social rights, which will be followed by civic and political rights(Saich, 2012; Shi, 2012).

However, institutional progress in various social security schemes is diverse.In other social policy sectors, such as education, housing and public health,the advancement may be not so mature as in social security. Moreover, theboundary reconfiguration in social citizenship does not necessarily equate tothe expansion and consolidation of a comprehensive social citizenship. Do

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increasing social benefits and protection in post-neoliberal China really enableeach citizen to engage in different social relations and fulfill their civic obliga-tion and social responsibility? The way citizens experience decent citizenshipmight tell us something about how they experience the state’s social policy,corresponding to their needs and expectations (Salminen et al., 2012; Stack,2012).

Nowadays, social citizenship of educated youth is a crucial issue around theworld. Under neoliberalism, some of the educated youth are more frequentlyinvolved in non-guaranteed forms of employment, such as flexible work andcontract jobs. They are socially excluded and become the precariat, which istaken as a newdangerous class relating to social unrests andprotests (Standing,2001). China’s authoritarian state is facing a similar challenge. From the govern-mentality perspective, both education and work are essential for the politicalmission of the Chinese party-state (Hoffman, 2001; Kipnis, 2011). The expan-sion of higher education since the late 1990s has fulfilled the educational desireof rural youth. Many of them get a job in the export-oriented manufacturingindustry after graduation. Some of thesemigrant college graduates became thenew generation of working poor (Wen andNgok, 2011), or so called “ant people”(bbc, 2012) in China. Chinese sociologists warned that the shattered “middle-class dream” of lower-class educated youth could be translated into a threat tosocial stability (Yu, 2010).

The present study examines changing social citizenship for the educatedyouth in urban China, with a focus on the role of the transforming social policydevelopment in the past a decade. The discussion in the present paper is basedmainly on detailed analysis of in-depth interviews conducted from 2010 to 2011.Through convenience sampling, 24migrant college graduates from second-tiercolleges, who came from less developed areas and recently began workingin Guangzhou and Shenzhen, were interviewed. In so doing, the study aimsto contribute to a growing body of literature analysing social citizenship andsocial policy in transforming China.

Social Citizenship, Social Policy and (Post)Neoliberalism

The notion of citizenship is described as a membership with equal rights andobligations in a large and complex community. Different from the inequalityobserved in a class-based society, rights of citizenship entitle individuals toa specific standard of living or wellbeing guaranteed by the state (Evers andGuillemard, 2013). The status of citizenship endows residents of a nation withbeing able to make “universalistic claims” of social benefits “to a modicum of

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economic welfare and security” (Lister, 2007), while non-citizens are excluded(Leisering and Barrientos, 2013). It is a way of imagining connections betweenthe state and individuals by reinforcing a sense of affiliation to the larger polity(Lewis, 1998). Following Powell’s (2002:234) widespread understanding, a fulland decent social citizenship is not just about “having” things (e.g., receivingwelfare and social benefits), but about “doing” (Leisering and Barrientos, 2013).Each citizen shouldbe able to fully engage indifferent social relations and fulfilltheir civic obligations and social responsibilities on the basis of interaction andparticipation in social life (Dwyer, 2010). Thus, the present study puts forwardmaterial resources and social relations in the community as two key dimensionsof social citizenship.

Social citizenship has provided the ethical foundations for the modern wel-fare state. Thewelfare state helps each person fully engage in societywith equalrights and obligations with regards to social policies and programmes, includ-ing health, education, care services, and so on. Social policy refers to the state’sactions on “the distribution of resources, status and power between differentgroups in society” (Walker, 1984:31), and may promote, maintain or damagepeople’s social conditions and life chances (Jones, 1990:3–4). It embodies theprinciples of solidarity, interdependence and recognition that social relationsare based on (Evers and Guillemard, 2013). The material resources side of cit-izenship can be found in the post-war consensus on the welfare state andrelevant social policies. The welfare state utilises social policy to fight againstthe social problems of the five “giant evils”: squalor, ignorance, want, idlenessand disease. Through publicly subsidised in-kind services (e.g., education andwelfare services) and cash benefits (e.g., social assistance and pension), socialpolicy redistributes social resources amongmembers, especially for thedecom-modificationof public services in the capitalist society. As a result, citizens haveequal access to social resources according to human needs. They do not have toface the uncertainties and social risks imposed by market competition alone.The redistribution and decommodification rely on, and strengthen, the notionof social solidarity (Shogo, 2007).

The social relations side of citizenship is in the social regulation form ofthe welfare state (Shogo, 2007). Social benefits and resource redistributionconcerning collective consumption are still far from enough to solve emerg-ing social problems such as the depressed social status of the elderly, immi-grants and youth. These disadvantaged social groups have long been excludedfrom mainstream social life. Thus, the concept and function of social pol-icy extend from resource redistribution to social relation redistribution (e.g.,power and social status). It recognises individual differences in gender, raceand health, and tries to reconfigure social relations and protect the rights of



the minority in our society by establishing social regulations (Shogo, 2007).Anti-discrimination ordinance and regulations on labour protection are typ-ical cases of social regulation.

To sumup, in amodernwelfare state, social policy handles essential resourceredistribution and reconfigures structural social relations to serve specific goals(Ferge, 1978). In turn, transformationof social structure causes changes in redis-tribution (Grichting, 1984). These social policies help every citizen activelyengage in various social relations and perform their duties of citizenship with-out any barriers.

As an ethical consideration and the state’s corresponding action, social citi-zenship and social policy are always influencedby structural and socio-politicalorientations. Neoliberalism has become an important ideological force sinceit gained political visibility by the end of the 1970s. There are several politi-cal and economic beliefs of neoliberalism. Among them, neoliberals criticisethe traditional welfare state and the rights of citizenship based on three mainprinciples of free market, minimal state intervention, and personal responsi-bility. First of all, based on classical economics, neoliberals suggest that thefree market is able to produce a natural order in society. Through the volun-tary exchange of goods and services, themarket is an indispensablemechanismfor efficiently allocating resources and promoting individual freedoms (Turner,2008). Secondly, neoliberalism argues that state provision not only compressesthe rightful space for the market, but also undermines the functions of familyand community. For neoliberals, the state’s inefficient collective consumptiondecreases economic productivity. Thus, the scope and roles of state shouldfocuson securing laws and rules that safeguard themarket andproviding essen-tial public goods (Turner, 2008).

The final principle is personal responsibility and self-reliance. Neoliberalismsuggests that individuals are free to choose goods and services from themarketand must be responsible for the consequences of their choices (Prechel andHarms, 2007). The welfare state’s emphasis on rights, rather than personalresponsibilities and obligations, is thought to be amistaken idea by neoliberals,as it creates welfare dependency and erodes individual freedom (Turner, 2008).Social benefits should only go to those most in need, rather than because of anentitlement of citizenship.

All of these beliefs were captured in the welfare reforms that took place intheWestern societies in the 20th century, such as the United Kingdom and theUnited States. Social policies moved toward the privatisation and marketisa-tion of social welfare through service contracting, as well as the flexibilisationof social provision in terms of benefits in cash, vouchers and tax credits, whichallow individuals (as service customers, rather than citizens) to make private

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arrangements for health, education and care service (Gilbert, 2013). Accord-ing to T.H. Marshall (1950), social right was a defining element of citizenship,though it had to be balanced by obligations requiring citizens to behavewith “alively sense of responsibility toward the welfare of the community”. Neoliberal-ism’s emerging emphasis on personal responsibility (to make contributions tosociety and be self-reliant as quickly as possible) and the tightening of eligibil-ity requirements for social benefits (e.g., means-test and shortened duration ofpayment) has swung the normative foundation (Gilbert, 2013). The “universal-istic claims” of social benefits have increasingly become selective and targetedin advanced capitalist Western countries.

Going beyond neoliberalism, post-neoliberalism can be understood on theother hand as a suggestion to call for a “new form of social contract betweenthe state and people” (Wylde, 2011). It also requires the state to play a moredynamic role in the pursuit of growth, business interests and social stability(Riggirozzi, 2010). It is a set of political aspirations centred on reclaiming theauthority of the state to oversee the construction of a new social consensus thatis sensitive to the challenges of poverty and citizenship. Thus, it leads to a seriesof socio-economic policies that seek to enhance state’s capacity to managemarkets, ensure growth and respond to social needs (Grugel and Riggirozzi,2012; Riggirozzi, 2010).

Socialist Legacy: Rural-Urban Divide and Differential Citizenshipin China

In socialist China under Mao’s governance, China had a state-led, dual wel-fare system based on the public ownership of the means of production andthe household registration system (hukou) (Ngok, 2013). Under the householdregistration system, Chinese people were divided into two categories (assignedor hereditary via mother): (a) agricultural (rural), and (b) non-agricultural(urban) status. People with different household registration statuses were enti-tled to different social benefits (Liu, 2007). Before the 1990s, most of the cityresidents, through their work units (danweis), enjoyed partially universal andessential social benefits, including housing, medical care, pension, education,aswell as employment. In rural areas, before the economic reform, thepeasantswere not entitled to most of these benefits and had to earn their own living,as few basic social goods were provided collectively through their communes(Chan et al., 2008; Leung and Nann, 1995; Wong, 1998). The welfare coveragewas on the basis of employment within the workplace establishment, ratherthan on citizenship (Gu, 2001).



Moreover, according to the socialist principles of collectivism and equality,the state monopolised the social and economic activities through communesin rural areas and work units in cities. Individuals were under the rigid controlof a personal dossier (dang’an), an archival system that records the “perfor-mance and attitudes” of citizens, held by the local personnel bureaus. Thesedossiers were consulted bywork unit officials as theymade decisions about themajor life events of those under their control. Urban residents were assignedjobs by the state. Thereafter, permission from the work unit was required formarriage, childbirth and transferring the dossier (i.e., changing workplace).An employee cannot transfer to another work unit without his dossier. Peoplehardly changed their jobs following their own interests and inclinations.

Thus, people’s identities and relevant socio-political rights,whichwere char-acterised by the rural-urban divide, were assigned and controlled by the state(Yan, 2010:98). Household registration, together with the personal dossier, hasbeen an important measure of the state’s efforts to maintain control of its peo-ple. They made geographical mobility almost impossible, as people who livedor worked outside their authorised domain, birthplace or workplace couldnot qualify for basic social entitlements (Chan and Li, 1999). In the minds ofmetropolitan officials and residents, sojourning peasant transients in the citieswere out of place (e.g., birthplace or workplace) and out of control (e.g., house-hold registration, personal dossier and acquaintanceship in social networks).Theywere aptly labelled as outsiders andunrootednoncitizens (Solinger, 1999).It was a differential citizenship shaped by the state-led, dualist socialist welfaresystem (Wu, 2010).

Uncertainties and Opportunities for Social Citizenship underNeoliberal Economic Reform

The socialist party-state’s legitimacy based on communist ideology had de-clined increasingly in the post-Mao era. The Chinese Communist Party had toswitch to economic performance-based legitimacy for the Party’s continuedrule. Economic reform gave up the traditional socialist planned economy withthe beliefs of collectivism and equality and introduced themarket mechanismto stimulate peasants’ and workers incentives. Enhancing competitiveness ofstate-owned enterprises in a market-orientated economy was the main targetof economic reform in the cities.

In order to achieve this target, the government tried to loosen the tightemployment and wage system practiced in state-owned enterprises, and toremove much of their role in social provision. The most significant break with

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the old employment systemwas the introduction of labor contracts and unem-ployment insurance. This broke the previous socialist promise of full employ-ment to workers. As a result of the contract-based employment policy, Chineseworkers had to cope with the risk of unemployment by their contribution tounemployment insurance (Chan et al., 2008).

Under the slogan of “socialisation of social welfare”, various tools of mar-ketisation, such as fee charging, the provision of value-added and self-financedservices, and contracting out, were applied in the social policy sector to reducestate’s welfare burden and increase efficiency. For instance, in the area of basiceducation, from 1995 to 2000, government budgetary funds met less than 55per cent of the total costs of all public schools (Wong, 2009). Public schoolshad to widen revenue source by charging miscellaneous fees, requesting par-ents to pay extra money for school buildings and maintenance, and runningmore commissioned extra-curricular activities for students. A similar situationtook place in the health sector. During the 1990s, only ten per cent of the over-all financial turnover of public hospitals came from the government (WorldBank, 2002). In order to generate more income, hospitals and doctors havelooked tomake profits from sellingmedicine andmedical examinations. Thesereforms made China had a higher extent of marketisation and commodifica-tion of social welfare than many oecd countries (Saich, 2012).

All of these socialisation initiatives embodied the neoliberal ideology, whichpromotes a retreat of the state from social provision and a fundamental pro-market shift in social policy orientation in China (Wong, 2004). The officialpolicy guideline of “efficiency first, equity second” reflected the dominate influ-ence of neoliberalism on China at that time. People’s living conditions wereincreasingly determined by one’s income and purchasing power in the mar-ket. The economic reform and the marketisation of social policy have broughtabout uncertainties, aswell as opportunities, for large numbers of people, espe-cially those educated youth in rural China.

From Rural to Urban: Expansion of Higher Education andCareer Choices

Because of the economic disparity and differential citizenship between ruraland urban areas, urban households or just living in cities often mean betterlife chances. Thus, many Chinese rural youth preferred and tried to moveto and stay in cities. However, due to the educational inequality betweenrural and urban areas again, not many rural youth could go to colleges afterfierce competition in the annual college entrance examination before the late



1990s. Thus, as mentioned, it was extremely difficult for an ordinary ruralyouth to cross the boundaries of the rural-urban divide and job category setby the household registration system, personal dossier and a job assignmentsystem in the socialist era. As a result, the best option for rural youth was towork in the cities as migrant workers without basic social, civic and politicalrights.

The rigid boundary blurred under the market transition. In order to “boostdomestic demand, stimulate consumption, promote economic growth, andrelieve employment pressure”, the Chinese government launched the massifi-cation and marketisation of higher education in 1999. Higher education policywas utilised by the state to serve economic goals. The expansion of highereducation offered more opportunities for Chinese rural youth to attend col-leges anduniversities after fierce competitionwith urban youth in the entranceexamination. When rural students enrolled in colleges, for the sake of pop-ulation administration, they would be required to transfer their rural house-hold registration to the collective registration of their colleges. Meanwhile,their dossiers would be handed over from their mother highschools to the col-leges as well. Since most of Chinese institutes of higher education are locatedin urban regions, the enrollment provides an opportunity for Chinese ruralyouth to cross the rural-urban boundary legally and enjoy equal public ser-vices.

But some of the rural youth and their families had to seize this opportu-nity in the cost of debts and loans. Because China’s private universities wereless developed, the massification of higher education was mainly through theexpansion of enrolment in public universities. A shortage of central and localgovernments’ public investment translated into rising tuition fees. Moreover,some prestigious universities were permitted to recruit students who couldpaymore by setting two categories of enrollment scores. Students with slightlylower scores still had the chance to be admitted if they were willing to pay ahigher tuition fee in the future three or four years.

Most informants in the present study graduated from second-tier universi-ties in China. In other words, they may not be able to get the minimum enroll-ment mark to attend universities and received a bachelor’s degree without thepolicy of expansion of higher education. And they had to pay a higher tuitionfee than their counterparts at elite universities since their second-tier universi-ties received much less subsidies from public finance. Meanwhile, the public’sconfidence in the degree awarded by second-tier universities is not so high asthose of elite universities.

The government introduced student loans to assist poor students to paythe rising tuition fees under the marketisation of higher education. But the

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effectiveness of this important initiative was doubtful due to the complexadministrative arrangement and stigma effects (Chan, 2012). In the in-depthinterviews, some informants frompoor families told that they preferred to seekhelp from relatives and friends, rather than from government’s student loans.But, even worse, on some occasions, this policy initiative would turn to anunexpected barrier for migrant college students. An informant told us, sincehe could not repay the loan before graduation, his certificate had been held bythe college as a pledge. This has caused a greatmany inconveniences for his jobhunting. He complained that: “I am a college graduate. I could have gotten mycertificate. Due to the loan, I haven’t received it yet. But I am a formal graduate.It is a loophole in education policy” (i10). The experience informed him of theimportance of public policy on people’s lives—this will be discussed furtherbelow.

After three or four years’ study, migrant students would be awarded a bach-elor’s degree and enter into the labour market. In the Mao’s era, the smallnumber of college graduates made them become social elites in society. Theirjobs were assigned by the state in various state-owned enterprises and publicorganisations. However, the socialist promise of full employment has been bro-ken up in socialist market economy. More importantly, the number of annualcollege graduates was increasingly larger than newpositions in the labourmar-ket. Thus, since late 1990s, the state has phased out direct assignments of jobfor fresh college graduates in favour of mutual choice in job fairs (Hoffman,2001). Since then, fresh college graduates could choose to do whatever jobsin the labour market they wanted. If they get a job after graduation, they cantransfer their household registration to the local community and become localresidents. Later, given increasing employment pressure, the state loosened con-trol further. Even if they can’t get a job immediately, they may request theirmother colleges or local authorised officers to hold their household registrationand dossiers for a period of time (about one to two years). Correspondingly, thepersonal dossier system has lost some of its control functions (Hoffman, 2001),especially when the graduates started their own businesses or got employed byprivate businesses.

All of these showed a slight loosening of the previously rigid system underthe market transition. Accordingly, the life and career of migrant college grad-uates became more flexible. They got more freedom to experience and tomake decisions in the first few years after graduation. On the basis of their jobhunting experience, some informants told that, currently, they feel no hurryto transfer their household registration as a local resident. For migrant col-lege graduates, nowadays, the importance of household registration was moreclosely related to their future marriage and family life. The relevant admin-



istrative procedures are so complex that they don’t bother to start beforesettling down. One female informant indicated that: “It [household registra-tion transfer] depends on to whom I will marry and where I will live. WhenI need to buy residential property, I may consider this issue [when claim-ing housing provident fund]” (i5). In this case, though social benefits remainattached to household registration, the registration system is no longer a bigbarrier.

Individual Ability vs. Social Connections: From College Graduate toAdvancedMigrantWorker?

We can safely draw a conclusion from the previous section that the citizen-ship of migrant college graduates is much less determined by the socialistgovernancemodel. The new generation of college graduates, as Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) pointed out, are no longer being tied to working collectivelyin a factory or on the land. They have disconnected, at least partially, from theold institutional constraints. One informant working for a private equity firmtold us: “we are in a complex financial market where life and death issues are atstake. People solely value your ability. No-one is interested in all this mess [e.g.,major and household registration]” (i6). This statement also confirmed Beckand Beck-Gernsheim's (2002) argument that, nowadays people are placed inthe market where their income and job security are linked to their ability andperformance, and pay a market price for all services they receive (Beck andBeck-Gernsheim, 2002). Under competition in the labour market, how do theyperceive their social status?

Firstly, as a freshman in society, interviewedmigrant college graduates had atendency to compare their current social status and identitywith their relativesand acquaintances of their hometown, especially those who aremigrant work-ers. Interestingly, no matter what kinds of jobs they were doing, most of themconsidered themselves superior to migrant workers. This sense of better statusderived from “better work environment and work content [as an office clerk]”(i11) and living conditions (e.g., “not living in crowdeddormitories”). Aside fromthese, some informants were also optimistic about future prospects. An infor-mant has two brothers who haveworked in a factory since they graduated fromjunior middle school. In the informant’s opinion, he would get a better careerthan his brothers. “Or else I shall go work with them in the factory at that time”(i8), he said.

In addition tomigrant workers, managers and supervisors who leadmigrantcollege graduates in daily work were the other group for comparison. Some of

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the informants were filled with envy at their managers’ incomes and lifestyles.Thus, regarding the social status,mostmigrant college graduates located them-selves at the middle and lower end of the social ladder between professionalmanagers and migrant manual labourers. From rural poverty to working poorin urban cities, to some extent, migrant college graduates have experienced acertain degree of upward social mobility after receiving three or four years ofhigher education. Meanwhile, the working life as a clerk and an office assis-tant has not offered them a clear identity at the new stage of life yet. Some ofinformants just used the term “white collar” to define themselves.

“White collar” does not promise a bright future for everyone. Some infor-mants expressed concerns about career prospects as well. In the informants’opinions, a bachelor’s degree could be helpful to get a job, but doesn’t providemany advantages for future careers. Alternatively, individual ability was men-tioned by many informants frequently:

My employer values individual working ability […] We have to com-pete for a job. If you are capable, you will be promoted annually. Oth-erwise, your career is stagnant year after year. It depends on your abil-ity.

interview 3

The statement suggested amerit systemwas taking shape in the labourmarket.However, this was just a single dimension of the full story.

Nowadays, hundreds of thousands of fresh college graduates actively takepart in civil service examinations to compete for government jobs at differ-ent levels. Interestingly, most of our informants hold an indifferent attitudetowards these public examinations. In contrast to the keyword “ability” for jobhunting in the labour market, they repeatedly mentioned social and politi-cal connections (guanxi) when talking about getting a job in the public sec-tor.

I think I have nothing to lose after graduation. You have to fight foryourself if your family is unable to provide strong support. Some familiescan offer favourable conditions for their children and help them get jobs.Without these, I just have to rely on myself. It’s so tough.

interview 11

It was evident that most of migrant graduates from second-tier universitiesdon’t possess these significant family resources and connections that set themup for good jobs after graduation.



As students at colleges and universities, they can get equal access to publicservice and social welfare (e.g., medical insurance for college students) fromthe state, no matter what tiers their colleges are; people usually regard themas the social elites in their birth cohort in Chinese society. However, once theytransit from school to work, serious disparity emerges. From the informants’point of view, they had to earn their own lives on the basis of individual ability.They often lived segregated lives in urban villages characterised by some com-bination of overcrowding, tenuous dwelling structures, and deficient accessto adequate public infrastructures, just for a lower cost of living. But some-times, these spaces and poor populations were replaced by malls, skyscrapersand office spaces under government’s strategy of “urban transformation andrenewal” in order to rebuild the mega-cities (e.g., the displacement of TangJialing village in Beijing in 2010). In most cases, migrant graduates were with-out the civic and political rights to resist the state’s powerful actions. Eco-nomic reform may provide more opportunities for them to earn their livesand increase their income. But marketisation by itself cannot promote inclu-sion and citizenship for outsiders while prior institutions retain some power(Solinger 1999:10).

Going Beyond Neoliberalism: Changing Social Citizenship underPost-Neoliberal Reform

By the late 1990s, state’s unilateral focus on economic growth and the neglect ofbasic needs of ordinary people had led to a serious socio-economic imbalanceand much social unrest in China. People have demanded instant solutionsto the various social problems and anxieties associated with daily life in theworld’s largest economy.

The Crisis of Neoliberalism and Social Policy Development in thePast Decade

The public health crisis of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003 arousedstrong appeal to strike a balance between economic growth and social devel-opment. Political leadership succession opened a policy window for a socialpolicy paradigm shift (Ngok, 2009; Wang, 2007). China’s new generation ofpolitical leadership recognised that social development would not be achievedby the trickle-down effect alone, as neoliberalism suggests. They formulateda new set of ideas about Chinese development, such as a “scientific approach

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to development” and “putting people first” in place of “efficiency first, equitysecond”. Under the slogan of “building a harmonious society”, different fromneoliberalism, the state was brought back into the social policy domain. Rev-enue increases generated by previous rapid economic growth provided strongfinancial capacity to honour the government’s welfare commitments as well(Ngok, 2009).

First of all, there has been a rapid expansion of social security for rural resi-dents, who had been excluded from the urban-biased welfare regime in Chinafor years. For instance, in 2003, the New Agricultural Cooperative Medical Sys-tem began to recover a maximum of 65% of any medical charge incurred eachyear by the insuredpeasant andhis family. Under the scheme, a personal healthinsurance account is set up for the insured peasant, with the funding comingfrom a voluntary contribution from the peasant, a subsidy from the govern-ment, and assistance from rural collectives (Ngok, 2013).

Second, social policy for migrant workers has been included in the munici-pal government’s policy agenda. Policy reforms changed the conservative atti-tude of “economic acceptance, but social rejection” that accepted the migrantworkers as a source of cheap labour but overlooked their human needs forvarious social goods. For example, the urban social insurance schemes, whichhad been designated exclusively for urban workers in the formal sectors, havebeen extended gradually to includemigrant workers who have established sta-ble labour relations with urban enterprises (Ngok, 2013). By providing proof ofemployment contract and contributions to social insurance, more and moremigrant workers and their families are accepted by mega-cities as urban resi-dents to receive public services.

Finally, a number of new social care programmes have been launched forpeople in need in communities. The financing and delivery mechanism ofthese social programmes has gone beyond the former occupation-based socialinsurance model. One of the most significant achievements was the institu-tionalisation of a professional social work and social care system, which were“non-existent” in China between 1952 and 1982 (Leung et al., 2012). By “purchas-ing services”, the government intended to support the development of socialservice ngos and the social work profession tomeet citizens’ increasing needsfor social care under themarket economy. Different from the socialist traditionof state’s direct provision, the roles of the state in these new social programmesare as purchaser, regulator and enabler. This illustrates that, given the unful-filled promises of neoliberalism, a form of hybrid regime with neoliberal (e.g.,marketisation of social welfare) and conservative (e.g., social insurance) prac-tices for social goals has emerged in China’s social policy sector (Ringen andNgok, 2013).



Social Benefits and Inclusive Protection

Social insurance is the backbone of China’s social policy system. Since theneoliberal economic reform, Chinese government has incrementally set upa social insurance system to maintain socialist values. Currently, there arefive social insurances (retirement, medical, unemployment, occupational andmaternity) and one trust fund (housing provident funds) for urban workers.Previous problems of this social security system were low coverage and lackof comprehensive protection. In addition, because of household registration,the system was fragmented, and the benefit was not portable. Once a personleft his/her place of household registration, he/she was an individual with nosocial protection. To build a unitary and universal social insurance system wasone of the social policy goals in the past a decade (Ngok, 2013).

Existing studies confirmedprogress towards this goal. Anoutsidermay claimlocal social benefits if they have lived and worked in the local community andpaid tax and social insurance for a centain years. It illustrated a boundaryshift of social citizenship: from the rural-urban to the local-outsider divide(Ngok and Zhao, 2011; Shi, 2012). Current empirical study reveals that, mostinformants employed by local factories and companies have been included invarious social security and insurance schemes in the urban regions. It matchedofficial intentions and actions to expand the social protection system. Butnot everyone took these social protections seriously. Quite a number of ourinformants expressed that, compared with salary and working content, socialbenefits were the last concern in job hunting. And, in daily life, one of theinformants indicated that, “I didn’t re-apply for themedical insurance cardafterI lost my wallet some days earlier” (i1). And another informant told us he hadnever claimed his medical insurance. The reasons were twofold: first, he washealthy; and second, sometimes he forgot to bring the medical insurance card(i3).

Their experiences suggest that, at this life stage, the implication of thefinancial assistance scheme for migrant college graduations was limited. Forthe younger generation, currently, the national pension scheme and othersocial security benefits mean contribution, rather than sharing.

In fact, social benefits focus on collective consumption, but are seldomconcernedabout thedeeper state of equality in societal, political andeconomicrelations (Walker and Wong, 2009). Thus, resource redistribution of socialpolicy is not enough to cultivate a deep sense of belonging and identity oflocal citizens. The next section turns to discuss in-kind social services andvoluntary activities,which foster trust and reciprocity underpinning thedecentcitizen.

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Insufficient Social Relations and Individualisation of SocialProblems

Theoretically speaking, the practice of a comprehensive social citizenshipshould enable each citizen to engage in different social relations and fulfill theircivic obligation and social responsibility (Dwyer, 2010). In contrast to previousdiscrimination against immigrants in urban areas, theChinese government hastaken steps to shape a unifying identity of a citizen and citizenship. For exam-ple, some local governments, such as the municipal government of Dongguanin Guangdong province, proposed to use the term of “new citizen” in place of“migrantworker” to show local people’s respect. However, an intangible separa-tion remains in the local communities. Informants in current study seldom feltlocal community caring for them. Nor did they engage in social and voluntaryactivities.

First of all, migrant college graduates may not be the target group of theseactivities held by the official grassroots organisationon in the local communi-ties.

q: Did they host some activities in the community?a: No. Even if they do, it will be directed at indigenous residents, not for

us [as immigrants].interview 2

Moreover, they may ignore these activities as the contents and arrangementswere not appealing to and convenient for them. As some informants com-plained, they have to work overtime and have no leisure time to do the thingsthey are interested in, not to mention voluntary activities. In addition, workoverload made them unable to have sufficient vacation leave. As a result, themigrant college graduates’ connection with their hometown has been broken.

Home is just like a hotel. You stay for ten days (during the lunar new year)and then leave to the city […] How can you say it is your home […] youcan’t say Guangzhou (as a host city) is your home either.

interview 10

Though migrant college graduates have been included in the local social pro-tection system, they still can’t share the same sense of contribution and reci-procity, the key elements of decent citizenship, with indigenous people. Thus,the status of citizenship in terms of social relation has not been expanded andconsolidated.



Moreover, this insufficient social relations also manifested itself in the indi-vidualisation of social problems. From the informants’ point of view, differ-ences in gender, household registration or even college rankings were not bar-riers for them. They did not feel at a disadvantaged position in job hunting anddaily working life as long as they did not plan to get a job in the public sector.Informants tended to attribute their success or failure to themselves and familybackgrounds. They blamed social issues, such as unemployment and poverty,all on their inadequate ability or scarce social connections, rather than inequal-ity in the social structure and institutions.

Similarly, when being asked how to climb higher on the social ladder inthe future, most of the informants considered a self-enhancement approachfirst, such as working harder and gaining more experience. The tendency ofself-attribution and the individualisation of social issues showed their “correct”self-positioning in the labor market and “successful” adaptation to the socialstructure. People solely focus on earning their own lives but without publicmindedness (Yan, 2009). Within a neoliberal context, this often means thatunemployment and working poor are seen as young people’s own inabilities,rather than part of structural political-economic neglect. Only those sufferingfrom a public policy, like the informant that has not received the graduationcertificate due to the overdue student loan, may aware of the importance ofpublic policy for people’s livelihoods.

Concluding Discussion: Towards Solidarity and Recognition?New Citizens Under Post-Neoliberalism

Since 2002, with greater fiscal capacity generated from the booming economy,China’s new leaders turned their attention to social policies aiming at copingwith the negative unintended consequences of the neoliberal economic poli-cies of the 1990s (Yang and Zhao, 2014). The most significant social policiesinclude social benefits as a rural cooperativemedical system and free nine-yearcompulsory education, and social regulation of LabourContract Law.More andmore socially disadvantaged social groups, such as rural population, migrantsand workers, are eligible for increasing social benefits under different socialprogrammes (Gaoet al., 2013).Moreover, in response to the 2008 financial crisis,China has carried out a large stimulus package through government spendingon infrastructure, social welfare, rural development, sustainable developmentand education, and has tried to change the previous export-led model towardsan inward-consumption model by providing better social protection for Chi-nese citizens (Haan, 2010).

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Government’s attitudes towards the poor and discourses of citizenship areconsidered to be the biggest difference between neoliberalism and post-neo-liberalism (Grugel and Riggirozzi, 2012). The above changes in policies andinstitutions suggested amajor departure from the neoliberal economic growthapproach in China. First of all, China’s government has made the notions of“efficiency” and “equity” share equal priorities in public policies. The govern-ment’s attitudes towards socially disadvantaged social groups became moreinclusive in terms of lower eligibility criteria and higher degrees of benefit.The decade-long expansion of social policy, while selective, has providedmoreresponsive human services for citizens. The orientation of various policy ini-tiatives was towards a social welfare system based on the notion of inclusivesocial citizenship (Saich, 2012).

In addition, the inclusive policy changes have been well supported by gov-ernment budgetary funds as well. Public finance is an important policy instru-ment in implementing policy. To identify the actual purposes and goals ofpolicies, we can look into which items receive the most of investment frompublic finance (Wang, 2004). Roughly speaking, 38% of the stimulus pack-age response to the 2008 financial crisis has been invested in social devel-opment (Haan, 2010). State’s substantial and increasing involvement in socialprogramme financing can easily be characterised as amove beyond neo-libera-lism.

In recent years, there has been a heated debate over the life and citizenshipof educated youth in neo-liberal China. China’s youth were experiencing a pro-cess of individualisation through neoliberal reform. The individualisation ofChinese society was managed by an authoritarian state and without a welfaresystem. It resulted in many uncivil individuals who were doing harm to oneanother, and causing social problems like poisoned food and extortion (Yan,2009). Moreover, Hoffman (2001) argued that, with the identity of college grad-uates, migrant graduates assumed that “their educational credential would beimmediately convertible into other forms of capital”. Higher education bredhigher expectations, whichwere supported by a tradition of Confucian scholar-officials, the previous socialist guarantee of employment, and contemporarypolicies of “variegated citizenship”. Their expectations were high, but disap-pointments were common. The frustrationmaymake college graduates to be asource of social unrest and political transformation. In contrast, Wright (2012)revealed that the economic liberalisation and growth did notmake theChinesecollege-educated youth press for liberal political change.

In the meantime, social policy development and government spending hadhelped China’s authoritarian state to maintain economic growth and perfor-mance based legitimacy (Yang and Zhao, 2014). Theoretically, social policy is



able to rebuild social norms of solidarity and recognition among individualsregardless of differences in biological, sexual characteristics, skin colour, physi-cal propensities and abilities (Dean, 2007).What did this post-neoliberal socialpolicy development bring to Chinese citizens, especially to the rising genera-tion of college-educated youth?

From in-depth interviews with migrant college graduates, the current studyfinds that institutional constraints on rural people’s migration, such as thehousehold registration system, personal dossier and state-assigned job place-ments, have been phased out. The rural youth could have more freedom andchances to get a job in cities. The empirical findings of this current study are,hence, slightly different fromHoffman’s conclusion.Despite thehigher cost butlower credibility of their college education,migrant graduateshad settleddownin mega-cities. From their point of view, though they may be part of a group ofworking poor in the urban areas, they have still experienced a certain degree ofupward social mobility in terms of working content and working condition. Inthis sense, informantswere beneficiaries of the expansions of higher educationas well as an export-oriented industry under neoliberal economic reform. Onlyone informant (i10) missed the “good old days” for college graduates under thesocialist employment guarantee system.

While there were institutional progress in both social security and socialservices, the remedial social benefits have not be unable to assist the migranteducated youth to break through immediately. Although the informants of thisstudy are not entirely excluded by the local social protection system, it remainsdifficult for them to sense the advantages of solidarity and reciprocity throughtheir contributions to the system.

Participation in volunteering is another way to demonstrate decent citi-zenship. However, overtime work is a barrier for migrant college graudates toengage in these social activities.Work-life imbalance is common for them sincemost of them are working in labour intensive industries. Active and devel-opmental social policies, rather than remedial ones, could perhaps be morehelpful for building up the social citizenship of these educated youth. However,these developmental and promoting social citizenship parts are still missingfrom the Chinese experiments of post-neoliberalism.

Overall, migrant college graduates did every effort to contest for their ownrights and to earn a better life in mega-cities. Their personal experiences ofhigher education, jobhunting and integration into the community have shapedtheir emphasis on personal striving and individual ability, rather than socialsolidarity and cohesion. On the other hand, they tended to individualise thesocial issues, such as poverty and inequality, on their or other people’s insuffi-cient abilities. The boundary of citizenship has shifted but has not expanded

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and consolidated among migrant college graduates as a unifying identity, assuggested by Marshall (1950).

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