Legal Protection of the Right to Old-Age Insurance for Migrant Workers from Rural Areas in China

Abstract

By the end of 2009, more than 149 million migrant workers from rural areas worked in cities and towns in China.1 Most of their jobs fall into the so-called 3 Ds category, which means “dirty, dangerous and demeaning” employment. Their wages are very low and many have no pension scheme. According to a survey conducted by the Legal Aid Programme for Migrant Workers at Nanjing University in the summer of 2009, only 39.3 per cent of migrant workers in the Yangtze delta region possessed any kind of pension, and about 31.5 per cent had no social insurance at all.2 However, the first generation of migrant workers, those who began to work in cities in the early 1980s, are approaching or have reached the compulsory retirement age, which is 60 for male workers and 50 for female workers. If these workers continue to live in cities after their retirement, their right to pensions becomes a serious social problem, an issue that has drawn significant attention in the media.3