Homelessness in China

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Homelessness in China is a social issue. In 2011, there were approximately 2.41 million homeless adults and 179,000 homeless children living in the country, 0.18% of the country population. [1] However, owing to government policies and housing schemes, China has managed, to some extent, to tackle the problem.

Contents

Causes

In 2015, it was reported that there are more than 3 million people who are homeless in China but recently this number has fallen significantly. [2] Housing in China is highly regulated by the Hukou system. This gives rise to a large number of migrant workers, numbering at 290.77 million in 2019. [3] These migrant workers have rural Hukou, but they move to the cities in order to find better jobs, though due to their rural Hukou they are entitled to fewer privileges than those with urban Hukou[ citation needed ]. According to Huili et al., [4] these migrant workers "live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions" and are always at risk of displacement to make way for new real estate developments. In 2017, the government responded to a deadly fire in a crowded building in Beijing by cracking down on dense illegal shared accommodations and evicting the residents, leaving many migrant laborers homeless. [5] This comes in the context of larger attempts by the government to limit the population increase in Beijing, often targeting migrant laborers. [6] However, according to official government statistics, [3] migrant workers in China have an average of 20.4 square metres (220 sq ft) of living space per capita, and the vast majority of migrant workers have basic living facilities such as heating, bathing, refrigerators, and washing machines.

Several natural disasters have led to homelessness in China. The 2000 Yunnan earthquake left 92,479 homeless and destroyed over 41,000 homes. [7]

Homelessness among people with mental health problems is 'much less common' in China than in high-income countries, due to stronger family ties, but is increasing due to migration within families and as a result of the one-child policy. A study in Xiangtan found at least 2439 schizophrenic people that have been homeless on a total population of 2.8 million. It was found that "homelessness was more common in individuals from rural communities (where social support services are limited), among those who wander away from their communities (i.e., those not from Xiangtan municipality), and among those with limited education (who are less able to mobilize social supports). Homelessness was also associated with greater age; [the cause] may be that older patients have ‘burned their bridges’ with relatives and, thus, end up on the streets." [8]

During the Cultural Revolution a large part of child welfare homes were closed down, leaving their inhabitants homeless. By the late 1990s, many new homes were set up to accommodate abandoned children. In 1999, the Ministry of Civil Affairs estimated the number of abandoned children in welfare homes to be 66,000. [9]

Efforts to assist the homeless

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China had approximately 2,000 shelters and 20,000 social workers to aid approximately 3 million homeless people in 2014. [10]

From 2017 to 2019, the government of Guangdong Province assisted 5,388 homeless people in reuniting with relatives elsewhere in China. The Guangdong government assisted more than 150,000 people over a three-year period. [11]

In 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced several actions of the Central Committee in response to homelessness, including increasing support services and reuniting homeless people with their families. [12] In Wuhan, the situation for homeless people was particularly bad, as the lockdown made it impossible for homeless migrants to return to other parts of the country. The Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau set up 69 shelters in the city to house 4,843 people. [13]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of China</span>

China is the second most-populous country in the world and Asia with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, only surpassed by India. Historically, China has always been one of the nation-states with the most population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guangdong</span> Southern province of China

Guangdong, previously romanized as Kwangtung or Canton, is a coastal province in South China, on the north shore of the South China Sea. The provincial capital is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.84 million across a total area of about 179,800 km2 (69,400 sq mi), Guangdong is China's most populous province and its 15th-largest by area, as well as the third-most populous country subdivision in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunan</span> Province in Central China

Hunan is an inland province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, and Guizhou and Chongqing to the northwest. Its capital and largest city is Changsha, which abuts the Xiang River. Hengyang, Zhuzhou, and Yueyang are among its most populous urban cities.

Custody and repatriation was an administrative procedure, established in 1982 and abolished in 2003, by which the police in the People's Republic of China could detain people if they did not have a residence permit (hukou) or temporary living permit (zanzhuzheng), and return them to the place where they could legally live or work. At times the requirement included possession of a valid national identity card. The system was abolished in 2003 after the death of Sun Zhigang, a migrant worker who died from physical abuse while being detained under the C&R system in Guangzhou.

Hukou is a system of household registration used in mainland China. The system itself is more properly called huji, and has origins in ancient China; hukou is the registration of an individual in the system. A household registration record officially identifies a person as a permanent resident of an area and includes identifying information such as name, parents, spouse and date of birth. A hukou can also refer to a family register in many contexts since the household register is issued per family, and usually includes the births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and moves, of all members in the family.

Social issues in China are wide-ranging, and are a combined result of Chinese economic reforms set in place in the late 1970s, the nation's political and cultural history, and an immense population. Due to the significant number of social problems that have existed throughout the country, China's government has faced difficulty in trying to remedy the issues. Many of these issues are exposed by the Chinese media, while subjects that may contain politically sensitive issues may be censored. Some academics hold that China's fragile social balance, combined with a bubble economy makes China a very unstable country, while others argue China's societal trends have created a balance to sustain itself.

The Sun Zhigang incident refers to the 2003 death of the migrant worker Sun Zhigang in Guangzhou, as a result of physical abuse he suffered while being detained under China's custody and repatriation (C&R) system. The case received massive attention in the media and on the Internet in China, resulting in the abolition of the C&R system by the national government.

The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (OCAO) is an external name of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party. Prior to 2018, OCAO was an administrative office under the State Council of the People's Republic of China responsible for liaising with and influencing overseas Chinese as part of its united front efforts. Due to the 2018 party and government reform in China, OCAO was merged into the UFWD, with its functions being taken up by the department. Under the arrangement "one institution with two names", UFWD reserves the name "Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council", generally used when dealing in public statements and dealing with the outside world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urbanization in China</span> Overview of urbanization in China

Urbanization in China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening policy. By the end of 2023, China had an urbanization rate of 66.2% and is expected to reach 75-80% by 2035.

Internal migration in the People's Republic of China is one of the most extensive in the world according to the International Labour Organization. This is because migrants in China are commonly members of a floating population, which refers primarily to migrants in China without local household registration status through the Chinese Hukou system. In general, rural-urban migrants are most excluded from local educational resources, citywide social welfare programs and many jobs because of their lack of hukou status. Migrant workers are not necessarily rural workers; they can simply be people living in urban areas with rural household registration.

Social welfare in China has undergone various changes throughout history. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security is responsible for the social welfare system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houjie</span> Town in Guangdong, Peoples Republic of China

Houjie is a town under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Dongguan, Guangdong, China. The town spans an area of 125.7 square kilometres (48.5 sq mi), has a registered hukou population of 95,055 as of 2008, and a permanent population of 550,807 as of 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homelessness</span> Lacking stable, safe, functional housing

Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, living in boarding houses with no security of tenure, and people who leave their homes because of civil conflict and are refugees within their country.

Regional discrimination in China or regionalism is overt prejudice against people based on their places of origin, ethnicity, sub-ethnicity, language, dialect, or their current provincial zones. China's sheer size and population renders much demographic understanding tied to locality, and there is often little life movement outside of a citizen's province of birth. Historically, internal migration has been tightly controlled, and many barriers to free movement exist today. Treatment of ethnic minorities and Han Chinese regional groups can hinge on preferential assumptions based on places of upbringing, and is often most pronounced towards those born external to urban zones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labor relations in China</span>

As the economy of China has rapidly developed, issues of labor relations have evolved. Prior to this reform, Chinese citizens were only allowed to work where they originated from. Since 1978, when China began labor force reforms, the overwhelming majority of the labor force were either working at State owned enterprises or as farm workers in the rural countryside. However, over time China began to reform and by the late 90's many had moved from the countryside into the cities in hopes of higher paying jobs and more opportunities. The only connection between the countryside and the city soon became that there was a huge floating population connecting them. Independent unions are illegal in China with only the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) permitted to operate. China has been the largest exporter of goods in the world since 2009. Not only that, in 2013 China became the largest trading nation in the world. As China moved away from their planned economy and more towards a market economy the government has brought on many reforms. The aim of this shift in economies was to match the international standards set by the World Trade Organization and other economic entities. The ACFTU that was established to protect the interests of national and local trade unions failed to represent the workers, leading to the 2010 crackdowns. However, these strikes were centered around foreign companies.

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In China, "left-behind children", also called "stay-at-home children", are children who remain in rural regions of the country while their parents leave to work in urban areas. In many cases, these children are taken care of by their extended families, usually by grandparents or family friends, who remain in the rural regions.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mingong</span> Migrant workers in China

Mingong are migrant workers in the People's Republic of China, who, starting in the last decades of the 20th century, have been travelling from the countryside to the cities to work. It is a recent phase of migration in China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Migrant School</span> Type of school for migrant students in China

Migrant Schools are educational institutions established to serve the children of rural migrant workers in urban areas. Migrant Schools emerged due to the hukou system preventing migrant children from easily accessing public education. In recent years, restrictions on hukou-based admissions have been relaxed, but not without maintaining severe barriers to education for migrant children.

As of 2020, Shenzhen had a total permanent population of 17,560,000, with 5,874,000 (33.4%) of them hukou holders. As Shenzhen is a young city, senior citizens above 60 years old took up only 5.36 percent of the city's total population. Despite this, the life expectancy in Shenzhen is 81.25 in 2018, ranking among the top twenty cities in China. The male to female ratio in Shenzhen is 130 to 100, making the city having the highest sex disparity in comparison to other cities in Guangdong. Shenzhen also has a high birth rate compared to other Chinese cities with 21.7 babies for every 10,000 of its 13.44 million population in 2019. Based on the population of its total administrative area, Shenzhen is the fifth most populous city proper in China. Shenzhen is part of the Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region, the world's largest urban area according to the World Bank, and has a population of 78 million according to the 2020 Census.

References

  1. ↑ Hammond, Jenny. "Homelessness in China". GB Times. Archived from the original on 29 August 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  2. ↑ "Gov't Reaches Out to NGOs to Help Handle Its Problem with Homeless - Caixin Global". www.caixinglobal.com. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  3. 1 2 "2019年农民工监测调查报告". www.stats.gov.cn. National Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  4. ↑ He, Huili; Su, Zhihao; Zhao, Jianjun; Pang, Yihui; Wang, Zhihe (16 April 2020). "Homelessness and the Universal Family in China". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 79 (2): 453–474. doi:10.1111/ajes.12324. ISSN   1536-7150. S2CID   218851018 . Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  5. ↑ Pinghui, Zhuang (25 November 2017). "Beijing's migrant workers forced out in deadly fire's aftermath". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  6. ↑ Pinghui, Zhuang (3 October 2017). "Beijing's population set to fall as migrant workers forced out". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  7. ↑ "Today In Earthquake History: January 14". USGS. 2008-07-16. Retrieved 2008-11-05.
  8. ↑ Jinliang, C. H. E. N., et al. "Comparisons of family environment between homeless and non-homeless individuals with schizophrenia in Xiangtan, Hunan." Shanghai archives of psychiatry 27.3 (2015): 175.
  9. ↑ Meng, Liu, and Zhu Kai. "Orphan care in China." Social Work & Society 7.1 (2009): 43-57.
  10. ↑ Menglu, Sheng. "China Can't Help Its Homeless Alone". Slate. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  11. ↑ "广东深入开展长期滞留流浪乞讨人员寻亲送返专项行动 两年共帮助5388名滞留流浪乞讨人员成功寻亲". Department of Civil Affairs of Guangdong Province. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  12. ↑ "全国生活无着的流浪乞讨人员救助管理服务质量大提升专项行动动员部署电视电话会议在京召开_部门政务_中国政府网". Government of China. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  13. ↑ Lei, Li (19 March 2020). "Homeless at higher risk during coronavirus outbreak - Chinadaily.com.cn". www.chinadaily.com.cn. China Daily. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
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