At 53, Guan Junling is too old to get hired at factories anymore. But for migrant workers like her, not working is not an option.
For decades, they have come from farming villages to find work in the cities. Toiling in sweatshops and building apartment complexes they could never afford to live in, they played a vital role in China’s transformation into an economic powerhouse.
As they grow older, the first generation of migrant workers is struggling to find jobs in a slowing economy. Many are financially strapped, so they have to keep looking.
“There is no such thing as a ‘retirement’ or ‘pensions’ for rural people. You can only rely on yourself and work,” Guan said. “When can you stop working? It’s really not until you have to lie in bed and you can’t do anything.”
She now relies on housecleaning gigs, working long days to squirrel away a little money in case of a health emergency. Migrant workers can get subsidized health care in their hometowns, but they have little or no coverage elsewhere. If Guan needs to go to hospital in Beijing, she has to pay out of pocket.
As China’s population ages, so are its migrant workers. About 85 million were over 50 in 2022, the latest year for which data is available, accounting for 29% of all migrant workers and up from 15% a decade earlier. With limited or no pensions and health insurance, they need to keep working.
This makes me question what it takes to be a super power. Between this and the leading cause of US bankruptcies being medical related, it’s almost as if super powers can only be super powers if they don’t give any of their citizens healthcare. It’s as if working their citizens to death is the only way for them to maintain their hedgemony.
High levels of growth can be had by extracting as much as possible out of the working population and then not supporting those that are discarded when they have been tapped dry. That is why imperial countries like the Romans, the US, and China can have massive growth at the expense of slaves and immigrant work.
The modern world setting expectations of taking care of the elderly means the US and China will probably decline faster than Rome once the general population pushes back on the exploitation again, then it will likely end up as a roller coaster of growth and decline.
I think there is a disconnect between classical superpowers and modern superpowers. Modern nations use the US and Chinese model of using people as a resource to build as fast as possible with minimal ethics. Classical superpowers, like European nations, use a slow growth and inclusive model that includes a lot of people but takes hundreds of years to establish.
Modern superpowers use capitalism. Classical use a more socially inclusive approach.
This is a whitewashing of history.
Is there a bad history community on Lemmy? If so, someone should crosspost this comment.
No, I think what they are trying to say is that European nation building runs further back so they have more socialized services or something like that. I have no idea.
Man just ignored the entire colonial and industrialization period, simple as that.
Uh, I’m gonna have to stop you. Which nations used an inclusive model?
Ah yes, let’s disregard centuries of occupation accompanied by brutal exploitation of the local population, dismantling and dismemberment of native social hierarchy and ‘population transfer’ for the benefit of the few white man and their collaborators. But hey, they built churches and trains and shit! Let’s conveniently forget how countries that barely got their independence had their chance at economical and political sovereignty hijacked from the same colonial masters now dressed in business suit.
Just go fuck yourself.
If only they had capitalism. /s
Do you think China runs a …capitalist economy? Last I checked, lack of pensions is not an issue in the US.
Edit: for all the triggered ml users: Socialist market economy
China is absolutely not a free capitalist country and I don’t know where you guys get this idea. Last I checked, the western capitalist economies do not have governments that set five year plans and funnel economic development into distinct economic sectors.
2nd Edit: I’m not saying China is a socialist country in the classic sense. I’m using terms used by contemporary economists in terms of how they classify china’s economy. While a big chunk of china’s economy is private the government still plays a pivotal role in planning certain aspects of the economy.
3rd edit: to everyone downvoting, please tell me with a straight face that the entire private sector in China runs completely free of all interference from any governmental actors? Or maybe provide a counter to the general consensus among current economists. Is there something you know that they don’t? 😐
4th edit: State Owned Enterprises in china own 22% of the labor force (as recently as 2010). In addition to state owned enterprises, also know as SOEs, the state dips its toes in hybrid business:
They often look and behave like private enterprises, but their ownership pattern may involve a considerable government stake. To complicate matters further, in the official statistics, they may be counted either in the state-owned or in the private sector, -Witt, 2010
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China is absolutely not a capitalist economy in the same manner most western nations are, and anyone disagreeing is just misinformed. China is a mixed socialist market economy with the government directing development towards certain sectors. Hence why they built a national high speed rail system that is largely unused and other similar projects. That being said, there is no reason they couldn’t implement a pension system.
Go check it out yourself dude. My experience is quite different to what is so often reported - such as your point about the high speed rail. The complaints the people using it make are valid (its very experience for example) but it is far from unused. Getting on the things are almost always a gladatorial survival experience, and there are people standing (or sitting on their bags) in the aisles. All anecdotal of course. I guess your point is to do with the absolute control the state (likes to think it) has, including with large vanity engineering projects, the zero rule of law, loose and unfair regulation if any, zero workers rights and so in. All things which give most shareholders of multinationals a huge case of genital envy. The place is beyond hyper consumeristic. None of our concepts or categories apply neatly, because the place , much like the world, is massive, complex, and diverse, with many challenges. If anything I think of it as authoritarian capitalism. True socialist concepts are long gone in actual practice there.
Thanks for sharing your experience. This jives a lot with what I’ve also heard. When I use the word “socialism” I’m not speaking from a leninist theory point but rather the way contemporary economists use to describe planned economies. I don’t think China is ‘socialist’ in the classical sense. I’m speaking strictly through economic theory and how the state operates through SOEs (state owned enterprises) and hybrid business partnerships between the state and the private sector. That’s all 🙂
Understood . Pretty fascinating as a (many times) visitor. But glad its somewhere I could leave for greener pastures. Many there wish they could do the same I’m sure.
China is the goal capitalists elsewhere try to achieve
401k! = pension.
Also with the rise in companies going to contractors instead of full time staff there’s a not even a guarantee you’ll get a 401k
Is social security not around any more?
Not a pension either
Oh? What is it? What should the first google results tell me?
That it’s an insurance program
It’s not adequate to live on that alone. Also it’s projected to not have enough money in the future.
Also people who have 401ks often find it hard to contribute a lot of money to it.
There are all kinds of issues with retirement in America already. You act like we are all living it up over here lol.
Would only run out of money because of limits to how much is taxed and the Republicans wanting to be able to raid it more
Oh wow. Did I ever claim SS was adequate? You guys here reaching trying to ascribe all kinds of things to me that I did not say. Have a discussion. Listen to other people.
china hasn’t been socialist since the 70s when the ruling party rejected it
I’m not calling it socialist in the classical sense. Yes, there was a big shift in 78 to open up the markets to western economies and privatize heavily. I’m only expressing myself according to the way contemporary economists classify china. The truth is the government still plays a pivotal role in directing certain aspects of the economy. That’s why they were able to build some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the last century. There are entire cities that were built up in days.
fair point!
So much for communism
Edit: lotta Chinese “communists” on here
Do you also think the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic or that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was a socialist party in support of workers? lol
No but China is run by the communist party. I would’ve thought an organization like that would have had a plan for ensuring everyone can retire. That is the point of my comment… these Chinese do not seem like true communists. But, no one likes to hear that on Lemmy because everyone licks the boots of Xi apparently.
That’s a lot to unpack/reply to. lol
All I’m saying is I don’t think you should use China as metric for communism. Again, that’d be like calling North Korea democratic simply because they named themselves that.
I’m not a communist, but I think I understand it enough to say China isn’t communist. And when I say China isn’t communist, I’m saying the policies their government implements are not founded in communist political ideology, which again means something and has been studied by people for a really long time.
I’m not using China as a metric for communism, I’m calling out that Chinese communism is not achieving the goals of what I think a communist country would be trying to achieve. I don’t think we disagree.
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