Impacting On The Small Minority Migrant Workers To Farms Livelihood Models

Due to historical and natural reasons, ethnic groups of small population in China feature “three backward”: backward productivity, backward cultural development,backward living standards. In recent years, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, more and more rural population to work as migrant workers, among whom a large part is ethnic group.Since there is a difference between the geographical and economic position, or a difference of life background, a inconsistency between pressure from patterns of livelihood of rural population and migrant workers. Dongxiang, China’s typical minority group with a small population, is one of the main areas of poor habitat conditions are poor, limited livelihood resources, so there is a manifestation of a condition where the environment fails to support its population.Guided by the principles and methods of ethnology and sociology, the paper is based on exploring general characteristics and livelihood pattern of minorities with small population and selects three villages(Tianqiao village, Sanyuan village and Chenjia village) where Dongxiang minority lives in a relatively large population for door-to-door investigation and in-depth interview to analyzing the impact of working outside the villages on livelihood patterns. The main research conclusions are as follows:(1) Dongxiang is a typical ethnic groups with small population in China. It has its special ethnic cultural ecological position among the united and diverse system of Chinese nation. In Dongxiang’s long migration and formation process, it has been affected by specific historical period of geopolitical and geo-economic pattern, which leaves the minority at disadvantage in interest conflicts and fights over living spaces,and it was wedged in a quite adverse natural environment. Such an unfavorable environment causes a fragile and single livelihood pattern. In order to break the environmental limitations, Doxiang people is trying to making a living in other places.(2) Since the three sample village bridge( the top of the mountain village), three sources(hillside village) and Chen jia(valley village) location conditions, livelihood resources,(particularly water and soil resources) so different, varied pressureslivelihood, the merits of the habitat conditions and livelihood pressure and migrant workers exist obvious relevance. Change of family income is the common pursuit of migrant workers, this is the biggest “pull” of migrant workers, at the same time, “large population less arable land”, “farming income less” and “don’t want to farming”form the main “driver”of migrant workers, mapping out the original habitat and living conditions on the labor of intimidation.(3) From the relationship between migrant workers and living way:(1)With the profound influence of traditional culture and birth concept, Dongxiang remains the family structure form. The main family(immediate family) and the joint family occupies an leading position with a higher raising index. There is significant positive correlation between migrant labor and family size. The greater family stress is, the higher livelihood intimidation, the more the migrants.(2)Male migrant workers and young workers are dominant, which bring more heavy negative to fragile traditional agriculture(animal husbandry) livelihood patterns.(3)Migrant workers generally are in low levels of literacy, which restricts the ability of livelihoods and livelihood alternative mode selection. However low-end construction and services become a major industry selection. not only coincident Dongxiang traditional livelihood advantages, but also limit the the living way of development.(4)Unique ethnic and religious cultures(Islam), food culture(halal food), the national language(only language, no text) and the unique relationships(emphasis on “joint”), lead Dongxiang’s migrant workers often to go hand in hand, nearby workers. Path dependence and path single feature is very significant.(5)Since the pressure can not be sustained livelihood, long migrant workers become “normal”.(4) Migrant workers have changed the traditional pattern of livelihood from different aspects.(1)It Changed the traditional livelihood resources(land, labor, etc.)the configuration pattern.The larger the family, the less likely turn out arable land;With technical expertise of farmers prefer to transfer out of the arable land; the farther Working place, the longer the length of time workers, the larger possibility to transfer farmland. That The more family non-farm payrolls,the larger arable land scale is, the greater the chance of abandoned land is, suggests farmers living environment and quality of cultivated land resource has a profound effect on basic livelihood resourcesconfiguration. Migrant labor force decreased engaged in the labor force resources endowment of agricultural production. The smaller agricultural income is, the greater it is affected by the labor of migrant workers.(2)It changed the traditional livelihoods,eventually encourage farmers to speed up the adjustment of agricultural production structure, and the greater the pressure the greater the impact on the livelihood of traditional livelihoods. Such as migrant workers around the mountainside village and valley village farming tends to single, but the scale of planting mountainside village also decreased significantly; Livelihood resources worst hilltop village breeding size is the trend of expansion, mountainside village and valley village on the contrary.(3) It changed the living quality: migrant workers changed the structure of family income,migrant farmers in favor of reducing the Engel coefficient, and improve the quality of housing.