44 China The EconomistFebruary 22nd 2020
“F
amily is happiness,” reads the motto over the front door of a
village house in the north-west of Sichuan province. From
the mahjong table beneath a velvet dust-cloth, to the child-sized
chair facing a television flanked by pink plastic speakers, all is
ready for a family reunion. The home’s owners, grandparents in
their 50s, have had six weeks to clean and tidy, their longest break
in years from lives of toil in Beijing. Alas, the couple did not choose
this extended holiday, nor the loss of pay it involves. In common
with many of China’s 173m long-distance migrant workers, their
jobs have been halted by the new coronavirus. Worse, during this
subdued lunar new year they have not seen their only child, a 32-
year-old chef. Curbs on travel have left him stuck in the next-door
province of Shaanxi with his wife and eight-year-old son.
In medical terms, covid-19 has largely spared this corner of Si-
chuan. As The Economistwent to press there were 22 confirmed
cases and no deaths in the nearest large city, Mianyang, and in the
villages that surround it, with their fir trees and duck ponds and
fields of yellow rapeseed. Still, quarantine restrictions have shut
down bus services. Villages are closed behind checkpoints guard-
ed by local officials and volunteers in masks and red armbands,
wielding digital thermometers and disinfectant sprays.
China is a country of half-idled factories, of office towers emp-
tied of white-collar staff, and restaurants without diners. Chaguan
this week travelled to Sichuan, 1,700km south-west of Beijing, to
meet a few of the blue-collar workers who are suffering the conse-
quences. He found people who are at once more resilient and more
vulnerable than their peers in the rich world. Migrants hunkered
down in home villages talk of picking free vegetables, or bartering
with neighbours. Less happily, meat prices are high. Pork prices
have soared since herds were devastated by African swine fever, an
animal pandemic that reached China in 2018. None of those who
spoke to Chaguan questioned strict government controls, for the
virus scares them. Neither they nor their village are named here.
These are jumpy times in which Communist Party leaders have de-
manded that news reports should be filled with “positive energy”.
Chaguan chatted with workers on plastic stools outside a three-
storey home built in 2008 at a cost of about 120,000 yuan ($17,130).
It sits on land owned by a 54-year-old grandfather who works inBeijing as a casual painter and decorator. He is paid 3,000 yuan in a
good month. His wife, also 54, cleans an insurance company’s of-
fices, earning about two-thirds of that. Their combined earnings
make them middle-income workers in China, but they watch every
yuan. They rent a room in a shared apartment for a little over 1,000
yuan a month. They make packed lunches and take buses to work.
The wife explains that, with underground train tickets starting at
three yuan, “If I take the metro I won’t have any money left.” They
have lived in Beijing since 2004 but have barely explored the city,
apart from a visit to the Great Wall and another to see Mao Zedong
in his mausoleum.
Each morning now, they check for a smartphone message from
the cleaning firm that employs the wife, telling her to return to
Beijing. As out-of-town arrivals to the capital they will have to
spend two weeks in self-isolation, or face legal penalties. Loneli-
ness does not worry them. “Quarantine isn’t that different from
what we usually do, we just stay put,” shrugs the husband. Money
is more of a concern, for he will earn nothing while isolated. In a
good month the couple save just over 1,000 yuan after rent and liv-
ing expenses. For years, their savings went towards building their
house, which they will leave to their son. Now they regularly send
money to help fund their grandson’s studies in Mianyang. “We
have to. That’s how it is in the countryside,” says the wife.
Chinese savings rates are high by world standards—even the
poor routinely save 20% of their disposable income. In contrast, a
study in 2017 by America’s Federal Reserve found that 44% of
Americans lack the savings to pay an unexpected $400 bill. China’s
skimpy pensions and health insurance, notably in rural areas, ex-
plain much of that thrift. Westerners are helped with lots of costs,
says a young man visiting the village from Mianyang. “Chinese
people, we’re on our own,” he laughs. Life under lockdown is
cheaper here than usual because social visits are banned. Every
three households have been given a ticket, allowing one person to
buy supplies for them all from the local market. For now, the
grandparents who normally work in Beijing are spending savings.
They could survive another half a year, they think, but no more.Needed but seldom heeded
A sense of powerlessness can hurt as much as dwindling funds. A
visit to Mianyang’s almost-deserted railway station found a mid-
dle-aged couple heading, unhappily, back to Zhejiang province,
where infection rates are rather high. They both work in Jiaxing,
near Shanghai, at a factory that makes linings for much-needed
face-masks, and so have been ordered to return. They do not know
if they will be paid for the two-week quarantine that awaits them,
which they have heard will be monitored via the gpsfunction on
their phones. They do not even know whether their landlord will
let them back into the room that they rent from him. Reports
abound of migrants being denied entry to residential compounds,
as local officials and property managers impose harsh rules, some
of their own invention. If they are barred from their home the fac-
tory has offered dormitory beds, says the wife. “There is no option.
We have to go back,” sighs the husband.
In truth, China’s economy needs migrant labour just as much as
those workers need their pay. Hard, solitary lives explain why the
average age of such workers is now over 40. The young often prefer
to work nearer home. Though covid-19 would test any country, the
epidemic is casting fresh light on a Chinese society divided by cru-
el inequalities of wealth, political clout and urban versus rural
class. This is a crisis with many sorts of victim. 7Chaguan Putting faces to the numbers
With much of China still on virus lockdown, how are migrant workers surviving without pay?