Four Paradigms in the Study of Chinese Migrant Workers:Migrants,Semi-Urban Residents,Workers,and Laborers

There are increasing studies of migrant workers as the increasing size of the migrant workers in China.The complexity of migrant worker study in China forced the researchers to study it from different angles or perspective focusing on a certain facet of migrant workers.However,the author puts these studies into 4 paradigms,migrants,urbanization,class-making,and labor-institutions and the migrant workers are treated as migrants,semi-residents,workers and laborers respectively.The four paradigms focus on different facets of migrant workers with different research perspectives and frameworks and set up some approaches to study migrant workers in a comprehensive perspective.Comparatively speaking the labor-institutions paradigm is not a mature paradigm yet,but it provides a possible research framework to study migrant workers comprehensively covering most of the factors such as institutions,policies,motivations,attitudes and behaviors,etc.Such comprehensive study can more objectively explain the increasing large size of migrant workers in the past decades in China and therefore benef it the studies of the migration,urbanization and class-making paradigm in China.