Understanding The Housing Issue Of The Rural Migrants In Shanghai

The thirty years of economic reforms and subsequent agricultural reforms resulted to real improvements in the lives of the peasant farmers. The household responsibility system introduced during the reforms not only increased agricultural output but also increased the income of the peasants. As the economic reforms shifted from agriculture in the rural areas to industry in the urban areas, the shift in state spending followed. This, coupled with the widening gap between the rural and urban incomes due in part to this shift in state spending, pulled the peasant farmers out of their farms and into the cities. Since then, the number of peasant farmers engaging in non-agricultural activities in the cities had increased exponentially. Due to a combination of factors including historical charm, job opportunities and location, Shanghai had been a favorite migration destination of these peasant farmers since the 1990s.The peasant farmers turned rural migrants who come to Shanghai find themselves homeless because, quite practically, their homes are in the rural areas. Housing, then, becomes a very real issue for these rural migrants. Using a comprehensive review of secondary materials, this paper studies the housing issue of the rural migrants in Shanghai. It shows that the housing issue of rural migrants is two-fold - housing stock or housing shortages and the poor living conditions. It answers the question - why the housing issue of rural migrants in Shanghai persist despite the economic gains had after the reforms. It supposes that the first issue of housing shortage persists due to the farmers' lack of bargaining power in the housing issue. To support this, it uses the theory of liminality to first establish the liminal status of the rural migrants. It then shows how this liminal status impacts the following stakeholders as regards housing policy for rural migrants-1. the local government who treat the liminal rural migrants as externalities to their housing plans2. the private real estate developers who treat the liminal rural migrants as outside of their target audience3. the local residents who treat the liminal rural migrants as different and not deserving of urban benefits such as housingIt analyzes the behavior of the above stakeholders when dealing with the liminal migrant workers. Based on their behavior, this paper concludes that the migrant workers' lack of bargaining power perpetuate their housing issues in Shanghai. Furthermore, besides the stakeholders already enumerated, the rural migrants themselves, by engaging in circular migration, contribute to their loss of bargaining power and in the process, their own housing issue.Due to their lack of bargaining power and liminality, a rental market has emerged for the rural migrants in Shanghai. However, systems are currently not in place for the said rental market The paper supposes that the lack of the regularization of the rental market is at the core of the second housing issue of poor living conditions. Because of the absence of a formal rental market, the rural migrants often make do with the poor housing conditions they are in. While the rural migrants have yet to transition from being liminal entities to being urban citizens, and from being tenants to home owners, the rental market should be formalized so as to solve their housing issues.