The Research On Migrant Workers’ Satisfaction Of Life

Nearly 300 million migrant workers is the unique consequence of Chinese social transformation, which leads to massive research.However,food and clothing, thoughts and feelings, worry and satisfaction, willingness and hope,which are of great importance to migrant workers,don’t get enough attention.This thesis aims to describe the daily life of migrant workers.We mainly focus on the quality life of migrant workers,including their life satisfaction,mental health and social feedback behaviors.Based on the descriptive analysis of the quality life of migrant workers,we discussed the effects of social structure and cognitive factors,as well as the regulating effects of the cognitive factors.We finally constructed a new model named "Structure-Cognitive" which can help us to better understand the quality life of migrant workers.And our data which was obtained from seven cities in Yangtze River delta firmly support this new model.The database covers lots of information with respect to the shop conditions and the living conditions of migrant workers,as well as their specific field of life satisfaction, mental health, and donation.Using Stata and Amos,the main conclusions of this paper are as followed.Migrant workers are confronted with many social structural predicaments in the cities,such as low social status,poor labor rights,crude living conditions,lack of social support,low income,a lot of economic pressure,and monotonous amateur life.They do believe that family status in their hometown is higher than individual status in the destination and immigration improved their living standards.However,their life satisfation is under the average level.The most satisfied is family life.The less satisfied are housing conditions,economic conditons and community environment.Risk of mental health of migrant workers is not worse than that of other social groups, but in the middle level.And their interpersonal adaptation earn the highest scores,followed by healthy body feeling and psychological health feeling.The mental balance feeling earns the lowest scores.The good intention of migrant workers is so strong.However,their actual donation level is low.Besides,the frequency and the amount of money of migrant workers’donation is lower. Factory is the first channel through which migrant worker paticipate in the donation.Social structure factors have significant influence on the quality of life of migrant workers.The level of the life satisfaction of migrant workers is lower than urban workers.The probability of the donation of migrant workers is lower than urban workers.But the level of mental health of migrant workers is higher than urban workers.The level of life satifaction and mental health of migrant workers is lower than local workers.The level of quality of life of migrant workers in Zhejiang province is lower than Shanghai and Jiangsu province.The level of life satifaction of migrant workers in private enterprise is lower than state-owned enterprise,but the level of mental health of migrant workers in private enterprise is higher than state-owned enterprise.The higher the social status,the better the quality of life of migrant workers.The better the labor rights,the better the quality of life of migrant workers.The more comfortable the housing conditions,the better the quality of life of migrant workers.The more social support,the better the mental health.The more social support,the more probability of donation.The variables of enterprise types,social status,labor rights status,housing conditions,and social support can serve as the intervening variable of household registration status,which has both direct and indirect effects on the quality life of migrant workers.The variables of social status,labor rights status,housing conditions,and social support can serve as the intervening variable of destination,which has both direct and indirect effects on the quality life of migrant workers.The variables of labor rights and social support can serve as the intervening variable of enterprise types,which has both direct and indirect effects on the quality life of migrant workers.The variables of labor rights status,housing conditions,and social support can serve as the intervening variable of social status,which has both direct and indirect effects on the quality life of migrant workers.That is to say,labor rights status, housing conditions and social support are the direct factors that affect the quality of life of migrant workers.new generation are out of the traditional relationships.The new generation are affected more by the positive evaluation of immigration, which means that the new generation have more expectation on migration.Different from the old generation,who migrate mainly for survival,the new generation migrate for greater development.The reference group of two generations are not the same.Living in "rural tunnel" or in "urban tunnel" will both affect the new generation’s life satisfaction,even choosing the hometown as the reference group has greater influence.But only the older generation’s choosing the hometown as the reference group would affect their life satifaction.However, only choosing local residents as a reference group could influence their mental health, no matter for the older or the new.This result has something to do with mental health as a kind of emotional experience, which is vulnerable affected by instant specific situation. Obviously, migrant workers living in the city space compared with that of the urban residents can disturb their mood more.Choosing home as a reference group has significant influence on donation to the older,but choosing local residents as a reference group has significant impact on donation to the new.In general, it is too simple to make the decision that the older living in the "rural tunnel" and the new living in the "urban tunnel".We have long been confused that the quality of life of the new who have been encountering more social structure predicaments should be better than the older.The key is that the new generation regards the immigration as an opportunity to achieve greater development and they tend to take the hometown as their reference group.In the end,we discuss how to measure the life of quality and the generalizability of the "Structure-Cognitive" model.