China has dispatched more than six million census takers to tabulate its estimated population of more than 1.3 billion. This is the sixth census since the Communist revolution of 1949, but the first to acknowledge the fact that huge numbers of migrant workers flock to the country's urban centers in search of work. While that should come as no surprise given the developmental gap between the boom towns of eastern China and the rural interior, such labor flows are complicated by the fact that they are, strictly speaking, illegal under Chinese law.
China's 户口 system requires formal registration of one's household, which can effectively confine an individual to his or her province, even county, of birth. While enforcement is not nearly as strict as was the case from the 1970s to the 1990s, a laborer from Gansu Province, who made his or her way to Shanghai to work on a construction project, would still be excluded from most local government services. As a result, a remittance economy has developed where migrant workers live in crude, temporary housing and send a portion of their earnings to those family members who remain plugged into whatever social programs exist in their hometowns.
Their nebulous legal status leaves migrant workers vulnerable to abuse. For example, a migrant worker would have, at best, limited access to local courts in the event of a wage dispute. While the possibility of re-registering in a new locality exists, the administrative process is formidable, even for highly-skilled workers.
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