The growth of the blue-collar middle class tells people that under the concept of governing the country according to law, as long as equal opportunities are achieved, as long as workers are diligent in their work, study hard, and constantly increase their knowledge and skills, whether they are employed or start their own businesses, they will have gains. The smooth flow of vertical social circulation channels makes every diligent and enterprising worker have a future. This will be a great shift in the social climate, and one will remember that the future will come mainly from individual efforts, rather than relying on family origin, parents' lineage or ancestral legacies.
In an environment of scientific and technological progress and continuous updating of knowledge, if there are still people today who distinguish between "white-collar workers" who do some work and "blue-collar workers" who do other work, how long can this division continue? Maybe in a few years, no one will see people in the same way. At that time, is it still meaningful to say that this person is a "blue collar" and that the other person is a "white collar"? When people are working by the computer, can you tell the difference between who is "white collar" and who is "blue collar"? Maybe even the workers themselves can't tell the difference.
-- Li Yining, a famous economist and winner of the "Pioneer of Reform" medal
How to help the rise of the blue-collar middle class?
How should China's blue-collar army develop?
How long will the distinction between "white collar" and "blue collar" last?
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With the continuous advancement of China's new urbanization and the continuous improvement of industrialization, the service industry will develop in depth, the emerging positions nurtured by the service industry will continue to emerge, and the traditional and old positions will continue to be rejuvenated and vibrant. Under the new stage of economic development, China's blue-collar class has a broader definition of occupation, and it is no longer a factory worker and skilled worker in the traditional sense. With The chinese economy entering a new normal, economic development reform has also transitioned to a new stage, mainly manifested in the continuous rise in labor costs, the supply of high-skilled labor is seriously insufficient, and it is urgent to improve the technical level of blue-collar workers and optimize the educational structure of blue-collar workers. After more than 30 years of sustained and rapid development of reform and opening up, although China's total economic output has jumped to the second place in the world, it has paid too much attention to economic development, paid less attention to the blue-collar class, and lacked the sustainability of social equity and development. Overall, at this stage, China's blue-collar class has low incomes, discrimination, limited academic qualifications and insufficient skills, resulting in a binary labor market segmentation, and the road to the blue-collar class to the middle class is seriously blocked.
(1) Blue-collar workers have lower incomes
In general, the income of China's blue-collar workers is low, and their income is mainly wage income, mainly including piece wages, hourly wages, overtime wages, bonus allowances and subsidies. Since the 1990s, China's share of labor income (the proportion of labor income in national income) has continued to decline, up from 52.5% in 1995. 9% fell to 39% in 2009. 8%, a decline of 13 percentage points, mainly due to the low wage income of the lack of skilled labor among workers. Moreover, female blue-collar workers are lower than male blue-collar workers, and in terms of urban distribution, the pre-tax wages of female blue-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities (4276 yuan) are significantly higher than those in mid-western cities. Provincial capitals and municipalities are significantly higher. In terms of source areas, the blue-collar class is mainly from rural, urban and remote mountainous areas, and its parents have a low overall occupational level and income level, and basically enter the labor market after receiving primary or secondary education. In order to change their fate and obtain a better standard of living, the blue-collar class left their hometowns and mainly went to the coastal big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other coastal cities to work hard. As a foreign population, with the rapid development of the city, the blue-collar class group has more employment opportunities and a broader development platform, but because the blue-collar class group has not received systematic education, and the lack of systematic skills training, the blue-collar class has a very low income in the city, engaged in ordinary posts, the work is very unstable, the rights and interests cannot be guaranteed, the children's education is difficult to achieve in the city, and the meager wages and limited resources hinder the development of the blue-collar class.
(2) The blue-collar class suffers discrimination
"Jackie Chan" is a traditional concept that has existed since ancient times, and the current stage of education has further strengthened this concept of people. In Western societies, the so-called blue-collar and white-collar identities correspond to the identities of workers and cadres in Chinese societies, and the huge identity differences between the two (e.g., differences in social status and welfare benefits) lead the public to make clear choices naturally. To this end, going to college seems to have become a symbol of white-collar workers or cadres, and going to college has become a channel to white-collar workers or cadres, whose work is decent and respected, while going to vocational colleges has become a difficult and helpless choice after the college entrance examination, and has become synonymous with workers or blue-collar workers. This "consensus" is generally accepted and recognized by the public at this stage in China, and then a stubborn ideological stereotype is formed, and China's blue-collar class has always been a discriminated class. This problem has not been taken seriously by all sectors of society, and China's blue-collar class is still synonymous with "backwardness" in social classes and suffers discrimination.
(3) Blue-collar class academic qualifications are limited
Compared with developed countries in Europe and the United States, China's blue-collar class generally has a relatively low education, basically a secondary school education, and lack of necessary vocational and technical training, the proportion of skilled workers with a skill is very small, and most of the blue-collar class is still mainly engaged in relatively low-level labor. In short, education is a basic project, the overall education level and quality of China's blue-collar class are low, vocational and technical training in society needs to be strengthened, and a reasonable vocational education system has not been formed. The blue-collar class has further grown into the core competitiveness of the blue-collar middle class that lacks academic qualifications. With the advancement of China's future urbanization and industrialization, with the gradual emergence of a large number of new industrial products, the scope of blue-collar employment will gradually expand, mainly in the field of after-sales service from "production lines" to "service lines", mainly including computers, air conditioners, color TVs, refrigerators, mobile phones and new electronic office equipment. In this way, the labor market urgently needs a large number of high-quality blue-collar workers, and the backwardness of vocational education at this stage and the imperfection of supporting talent training measures cannot meet the requirements of China's industrial upgrading for the quality of the blue-collar class, and it is urgent to take effective academic qualifications or vocational education for the blue-collar class to meet the needs of the future national economic development.
(4) Binary labor market segmentation
At present, China's labor market has a binary labor market segmentation between the upper and secondary labor markets. Since the 1970s, developed countries in the West have developed a theory of a "binary labor market", which divides the labor market into an upper labor market and an inferior labor market. The difference between the upper labour market and the inferior labour market (or inferior labour market) is as follows: workers working in the upper labour market have better career prospects, higher salaries, good benefits, more opportunities for learning and training, and workers working in the upper labour market are more likely to be gradually promoted. In contrast, workers working in the secondary labour market (or inferior labour market) are considered "bad occupations", with poor occupations, lower salaries, fewer benefits, lack of necessary learning and training opportunities, and workers in secondary labour market work with little opportunity to be promoted, usually in relatively simple occupations for a lifetime. After the formation of a binary labor market segmentation, cross-market liquidity opportunities are almost non-existent. Workers working in the inferior labour market are mainly engaged in heavy manual and simple labour, and it is difficult to have the opportunity to grow from workers in the lower labour market to workers in the upper labour market. The white-collar workers who work in the upper labor market have a great opportunity to gradually grow into the middle class, but the blue-collar workers who work in the lower labor market have few opportunities to do so. In short, workers in "bad occupations" have fewer opportunities to switch to "good occupations," i.e. there is little opportunity for cross-labor market mobility between the two occupations.
At present, China's blue-collar class is facing a variety of problems, limitations and unfair situations, there is no doubt that under the background of sustained and rapid and healthy economic development over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, the overall economic, political, social environment and the growing blue-collar class have bred enough factors to transform into the middle class, and the current comprehensive deepening of reform strategy also provides a good opportunity for the blue-collar class to change to the middle class.
——Excerpt from "China's Road and the Growth of the Blue-Collar Middle Class"
The middle class doesn't just come from highly educated people who work in white-collar jobs. The blue-collar middle class refers to employees who work in labor and join the urban middle class due to rising wages. In developed countries, a major source of the middle class is blue-collar workers. History has proven that in a fast-moving world, the development and competitiveness of countries depend on a skilled workforce. At present, China's economic development calls for more "new blue-collar workers", and we should adjust the education mechanism, change ideological concepts, and develop and expand China's "blue-collar middle class".
With insight into the major economic and development issues of the growth of the blue-collar middle class, Mr. Li Yining launched a study in this field in early 2015 with an article entitled "On the Growth of the Blue-Collar Middle Class". In this context, this book brings together more than a dozen articles by more than thirty authors, analyzing and discussing the growth of the blue-collar middle class from both theoretical and practical aspects. This book will undoubtedly lead all walks of life and leading cadres in China to conduct more in-depth discussion and research on the problem of the blue-collar middle class.
The research of the "China Road Series" edited by Professor Li Yining mainly focuses on China's actual economic problems and highlights the way of economic development with Chinese characteristics.