Summary
The annual Spring Festival in China also marks the annual exodus of migrant workers back to their homes. With an increasing number of migrant workers each year, this causes increasing strain on urban residents during the festival. Many of the migrants are paid minimum wage and so they have no reason to work overtime. There are however some that get paid a little more and they choose to stay during the holiday. Because their jobs are not only undesirable but also low paid, the migrants continue to live a double life and this causes a false sense of urbanization. Since the workers can't enjoy normal family life in the big cities, they are forced to lead a split life. Sadly, it is only during this time that permanent city residents realize how much migrant workers contribute to society.
Significance:
Leave it to a festival to cause a multitude of problems. A big one among these being that coal for heating homes has largely become unavailable. In the United States the governemnt has stepped in before to prevent that so that no one group could put a stranglehold on the country and I'm curious to see if China will feel the same need. So far the companies that are still working have responded with drastically raising prices in order to make up for being undermanned. It is only during these times that full time residents realize how much these "menial" workers contribute to civil society. The optimist would look at people flocking to the cities as great for urbanization. The problem there being that that's simply not true. Because of low wages, these workers can't afford to bring their families to the city and so urban society is not truly growing. And in the pockets where it is growing, it's not urbanization that is spreading but poverty. After all, if a migrant can barely pay his own housing, how is he expected to pay for his whole family if they are to come to the city?
In short, people are not coming to the cities for city life, they are coming to the cities so their families can continue to farm.
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