Problems for migrants

　　农民工的困扰

　　“Don’t complain about things that you can’t change”

　　“不要抱怨你不能改变的事情”

　　After a generation of migration, barriers to social mobility remain.

　　整整一代人迁徙之后，社会流动的障碍仍然存在。

　　THE greatest wave of voluntary migration in human history transformed China’s cities, and the global economy, in a single generation. It has also created a huge task for those cities, by raising the expectations of the next generation of migrants from the countryside, and of second-generation migrant children. They have grown up in cities in which neither the jobs nor the education offered them have improved much.This matters because the next generation of migrants has already arrived in staggering numbers. Shanghai’s migrant population almost trebled between 2000 and 2010, to 9m of the municipality’s 23m people. Nearly 60% of Shanghai’s 7.5m or so 20-to-34-year-olds are migrants.

　　人类史上规模的自愿迁徙波在一代人之间，改变了中国城市，改变了世界经济，同时也为那些被改变的城带来巨大的负担。因为他们提高了来自农村的下一代农民工的期望，提高了农民工子女们（新生代农民工）的期望。农民工的孩子成长在城市，而城市给他们提供的工作或者教育却丝毫没有改进。改进与否关系重大，因为下一代农民工数量激增。2000年至2012年间，上海农民工数量增长了近两倍，市区2300万人中的900万人是农民工。上海20到34岁之间大约共有750万人，近60%都是农民工。

　　Many have ended up in the same jobs and dormitory beds as their parents did. A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics found that 44% of young migrants worked in manufacturing and another 10% in construction. This and another recent survey suggest that young migrants are dissatisfied with their lot and, despite large pay rises for factory work in recent years, with their salaries, too. Those who grew up partly in the cities with their parents have expectations of a comfortable life that are more difficult to satisfy. Their ambitions frustrated, many do something their parents did not: they leave one job, and find another. And then leave again.

　　很多年轻的农民工干着父辈们干过的活儿，睡着父辈们睡过的集体床铺。国家统计局一项调查显示，44%的年轻农民工在制造业工作，另10%则在建筑工地。这项调差和另一项近期调查表明，尽管近年来工厂工作大幅加薪，工人工资也大幅增长，年轻的农民工们仍然不满意自己的处境。在城市里跟随父母一起长大的年轻人们向往的舒适生活就更难实现了。他们的美好愿望受到挫折，其中很多人做出一些父辈人不会做出来的事：他们辞掉一份工作，找到另一份；然后再辞掉。

The Centre for Child-Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility, a partner in Beijing of Save the Children Sweden, conducted a survey of young textile workers in five provinces in 2011. A majority had changed jobs at least twice since starting work in the previous two or three years. Nearly half worried about the monotony of their work and despaired of their career prospects. Only 8.6% reported being “comfortable” at work. One worker told researchers: “We have become robots, and I don’t want to be a robot who only works with machines.”

　　北京的一家瑞典拯救儿童机构的合伙人——儿童权利和企业社会责任中心在2011年对全国五个省的纺织工人做过一项调查。在开始工作的两年或三年时间里，大部分人至少换过两次工作。近一半人厌烦工作的千篇一律，对自己的职业前景感到失望。只有8.6%的人称工作“舒适”。一位工人告诉调查者：“我们都成机器人了，可我不想当只能跟机器工作的机器人。”

　　Tied to the land牢牢地束缚到土地上

　　One obstacle to a better job is their parents. In China’s system of household registration (known as hukou), children born to rurally registered parents count as rural, even if their parents have migrated to the city, and regardless of where they themselves were born. In 2010 Shanghai was home to 390,000 children under the age of six who were officially classified as “migrants”.

　　找不到好工作的一个原因来源于他们父母。在中国的户籍登记制度（户口）里，父母是农村户口的，孩子也被看成农村户口，即便父母早已迁往城里，孩子出生在城市。2010年，上海有39万六岁以下的儿童被官方认定为“移民”。

　　They are fated to grow up on a separate path from children of Shanghainese parents. Migrant children are eligible to attend local primary and middle schools, but barred from Shanghai’s high schools. They receive better schooling and social benefits than their parents did, and some pursue different types of work (see next story), but their status and their education are still more likely to lead to an assembly line than a university classroom.

　　他们注定要走一条跟土生土长上海人孩子不一样的路。农民工子女可以进当地小学初中，不过不能进上海的高中。他们比他们的父母接受更好的教育和社会福利，有一些人能追求不同类型的工作，但是他们的身份和所受教育更有利于他们进流水线而不是大学课堂。

　　For years reformers have called for changes in the hukou system. Children with a rural hukou want to lead a better life than their parents did. Many have never worked on the farm, but the system denies them a fair chance to move up the ladder.

　　好多年以来，改革者一直呼吁改革户口制度。有农村户口的孩子想过上比父母好的生活，他们其中很多人没有下过地，但是受制度限制，他们没有公平的机会往上爬。

　　This is unlikely to change soon. First, China’s factories still need large numbers of migrants, and the system now in place ensures that many of them will seek work there. Second, Chinese cities have welcomed migrants without a coherent plan to educate them. Shanghai had 170,000 students enrolled in high school in 2010, but there were 570,000 migrant children aged 15 to 19 living in the city who were unable to attend those schools. “The Shanghai government needs to provide its educational resources to the locals first,” says Xu Benliang, deputy director of the Shanghai Charity Education and Training Centre, which teaches young migrants how to get on in life. Mr Xu says the centre tries to tell migrants: “Don’t complain about things that you can’t change.”

　　这种状况不大可能短期内得到改善。首先，中国的工厂仍大量需要农民工，这套制度目前能够保证大部分农民工在城里找工作；第二，中国的城市欢迎农民工，却没有配套的教育计划。2010年，上海高中录取17万学生，而57万15到19岁之间居住在上海的农民工子女不能进上海的高中上学。上海慈善教育培训中心副主任徐本良说，“上海政府要首先给本地人提供教育资源。”而该中心教育农民工如何出人头地。徐先生声称，该中心试图告诉农民工兄弟们，“不要抱怨你不能改变的事情”“不能改变事情时，就不能抱怨”

　　One educational option that is left to the brightest young migrants is vocational school, where students are taught a trade. At a suburban campus of the Shanghai Vocational School of Technology and Business, half the students are migrants and half are local Shanghainese (five years ago, only one student in seven was a migrant). Because the locals tend to be those who failed to secure the prized slots in formal Shanghai high schools, the migrant students here are the stars.

　　留给最聪明的年轻农民工们的一条出路，就是进职业学校，在那里学技术。上海商业职业技术学院的一所郊外校区里，一半的学生是农民工，一半是上海本地人（五年前，7个人里才有1个是农民工）。因为当地学生一般是那些混不上正式的上海高中的，农民工学生在这里就是明星。

　　Zhang Xiaohan is 16. She moved to Shanghai five years ago from Henan province in central China in order to be with her migrant parents. Her father is a furniture salesman and her mother works in a shop. She studies computing. Ms Zhang would prefer a diploma from a Shanghai high school and the better chance at a university education that would bring, but she admits, “I need to accept reality. I need to adapt.”

　　赵小涵16岁，5年前跟父母从中部的河南省来到上海。她的父亲卖家具，母亲在一家店里打工。她学的是计算机。赵小涵更想有一张上海高中的文凭，和大学教育带来的更好的机会，不过她承认，“我得接受现实，我要适应现实。”