Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:4581Hits:25702849Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID171718
Title ProperExternal migrants under mainland China's informal welfare regime
Other Title Informationrisk shifts, resource environments, and the urban employees' social insurance
LanguageENG
AuthorMuller, Armin
Summary / Abstract (Note)Social insurance in mainland China long catered to populations that were assumed to remain in one place permanently. In recent decades, however, internal and transnational labour migration has been on the rise. Building on existing research about internal migrants' social security, this study asks how different groups of external labour migrants cope with the social risk shifts induced by mobility. It focuses on documented migrants from UN member countries; from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao; and on undocumented migrants. It employs the resource environment approach, which integrates a transnational perspective and acknowledges informal sources of security. Focusing on healthcare, the study argues that informal practices affect the majority of external migrants irrespective of nationality or migration status, protecting expatriates from double coverage, causing low-income migrants to fall through the gaps, but also enabling access to healthcare for undocumented migrants. Despite mandatory participation, effective migrant coverage of the Urban Employees' Social Insurance (UESI) remains low. The system is highly decentralized with incomplete internal and external portability, and cities have considerable leeway over their own migration and welfare regimes. Migrants from more socio-economically developed areas tend to have a greater reliance on public services and security from the sending areas, or on high-end private alternatives. Conversely, as the example of Nigerian traders illustrates, undocumented migrants piece together their protective arrangements from individual networks and community institutions. Religious organizations from the Global South also reach out transnationally and provide informal protections to migrant communities. This study employs a mix of ethnographic fieldwork, document analysis, and descriptive statistics.
`In' analytical NotePacific Affairs Vol. 93, No.2; Jun 2020: p.281-303
Journal SourcePacific Affairs Vol: 93 No 2
Key WordsMigration ;  Taiwan ;  China ;  Social Insurance ;  Foreign Citizens


 
 
Media / Other Links  Full Text