Urban Poor in China: A Case Study of Changsha

Since the late 1970s, many state-owned enterprise employees have been laid off and more and more rural people have migrated to urban areas. In this massive laying-off and migration process, many laid-off workers and migrants have become urban poor. Using data collected from a survey on 1641 relatively low-income households in Changsha in January 2007, this paper compares migrant workers with their city counterpart regarding income, employment, education, and social support. Based on qualitative and regression analysis, we found that worker’s age, Hukou status, education, enterprise ownership, and contract length are significantly affecting the annual income. There exists a big gap in the coverage of social security between urban and migrant workers. This paper provides some policy recommendations.Urban poor; Hukou; Laid-off workers; Migrant workers; Income determinants; Social insurance