Research On The Living Conditions Of The Street Corner Craftsmen

Street corner craftsmen usually set their repairing stalls at the outside street corners. They areengaged in repairing bicycles、shoes、cases, cutting keys, changing locks, mending, fitting zips andother work. They rely on their workmanship to earn their living. Playing an importantlycomplementary role in the service system of the city, street corner craftsmen provide convenientservice for the surrounding residents and pedestrians. Craftsmen are mainly made up of laid-offworkers, the external unemployed and retirees. As a group, street corner craftsmen are similar to eachother in many aspects of living conditions, but when it comes to the interior, they also have muchdifference. Taking the example of craftsmen in Nanjing, this study is mainly based on questionnaireinvestigation and systematic interview, and it also combines itself with the non-participantobservation and literature analysis. From the perspective of micro、medium and macro levels, theresearch displays the living conditions of the craftsmen comprehensively and systematically.Firstly, this thesis describes the general situation, including repairing categories and stall location,of the street corner craftsmen in Nanjing. In the meanwhile, this article aims at setting basicunderstanding about the craftmen group by depicting and analyzing their demographic features, suchas gender, age, race, household register, native place, time of arriving in Nanjing, language,educational background and so on.Next, it comes to the core of this research that is portraying the living conditions of the craftsmenin the micro perspective. Craftmen’s living conditions contain three aspects: living status, workingsituations, and perceptions. Living status includes the marital status, family scale, dwelling conditions,social security, leisure time and amateur hobbies of the craftsmen. Working situations refer to workingtime, managing length, learning methods, stall arrangement, operating modes and revenue of thecraftsmen. Perceptions are the job satisfaction, working difficulties, living satisfaction, livingproblems, life plans and hopes of them.As to the medium level, this research chiefly explores the relationship between street cornercraftsmen and other social groups around them.“Other groups” consist of customers, fellows,neighbors or surrounding organizations and city management officers. Specifically, the interactiverelationship between craftmen and those groups can be summarized in four types: the relation ofcrafemen to customers is more likely to the primary group; the competitive relation of craftmen andtheir fellows is mixed with symbiosis; basing on the lasting exchange, craftmen and neighbors orsurrounding organizations set a fairly stable reciprocal relationship; craftmen and officers has gonethrough a long-term gameplaying, with the shift of administration idea, their conflicting relation has turned into a normative one.As to the macro level, chapter five principally presents the social change effects on the streetcorner craftsmen. First, this section reviews the repairing industry and the living conditions ofcraftsmen in the traditional society. Then, it put its perspective to the present time to explore theoverall industry environment and various repairing categories’ status. Whereafter, this part explainsthe transformation of the repairing industy caused by certain social factors. Among diverse socialmodification causes, urbanization and economic circumstance innovation are crucial. For instance,city renewing altered the location of repairing stalls, what was wores, it shrinked the space that can beused as repairing stalls. Instead, social mobility and economic system reform led the increase ofpractitioners. However, the improvement of the productivity and the disappearance of the traditionalconsumption concept resulted in the sharp decrease of the repairing requirements, which did a greatthreat to the living of the craftsmen.