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Rural-urban migrants seeking higher wages fill many urban manufacturing and construction jobs. These internal migrants, who typically return to their villages for the Lunar New Year holidays in January, went home early in 2008-09 as their jobs disappeared in recession. Up to 20 million of the estimated 150 million rural-urban migrants did not immediately return to urban areas in Spring 2009 because there were fewer jobs available.

However, by summer 2009 China's economic stimulus package had created additional jobs, especially in construction, increasing the estimated internal migrant work force to its pre-recession level of 150 million; the Chinese economy expanded at a 7.1 percent annual rate in the first half of 2009. Some migrants are receiving lower wages in 2009 than 2008. The city of Shenzhen set 2,750 yuan ($400) as its average wage guideline, down slightly from 2008.

The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin reported that up to a quarter of China's migrants are now "whole family units," meaning that parents bring their children with them when they find work in coastal cities. As a result, there are growing demands for schools and health care services for migrant children, and fewer returns to villages for the Lunar New Year holidays.

The 2,800-pupil Eastern Pearl School in Dongguan in Guangdong province illustrates the trend toward settlement and a parallel private education system. Eastern charges Rmb 1,000 ($146) a semester, and is one of 200 so-called minban or "people-run" schools in Dongguan, which has eight million migrants. Only 1.7 million registered residents of Dongguan are entitled to subsidized education and other services from the local government.

Uighurs. Violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of China's western Xinjiang region, left 192 people dead and more than 1,680 injured in early July 2009. Several reports traced the roots of the violence to a migration program that encouraged Uighurs to move to Shaoguan, 1,800 miles away, to work in the Early Light Toy factory, a Hong Kong-based firm that is the world's largest toy producer.

Members of China's 55 minority groups are eight percent of Chinese residents. They have lower incomes than Han Chinese. In urban areas, Han Chinese had average disposable annual incomes of 15,800 yuan ($2,300) in 2008 while minorities had incomes of 13,200 yuan ($1,930). In rural areas, incomes were lower and the gap was relatively larger, 4,800 yuan for Han and 3,400 yuan for minorities.

The goal of the migration program was to move Uighurs outside Xinjiang and place Han-run factories in Xinjiang to raise the living standards of Uighurs; most Uighurs do not speak Mandarin. Xinjiang's labor export program, launched in 2002, allowed Uighurs to earn two or three times higher wages than they could earn in Xinjiang, up to $200 a month.

Some Uighurs complained that each family was required to send a child to southern Chinese factories or pay a fine to local officials (as ethnic minorities, Uighurs are allowed to have two or more children). However, a report in the state-run Xinjiang Daily said that 70 percent of the Uighur migrants went "voluntarily."

Local officials say that they did not coerce Uighurs into the migrant program, although they acknowledge that some of the girls sent as migrants were as young as 14; they had forged their ID cards. A bilingual security officer from Xinjiang was stationed at the factories employing Uighur migrants. Tensions at the toy factories, which employed 16,000 Chinese and fewer than 1,000 Uighurs, erupted after a Han worker was allegedly raped by Uighurs, prompting riots that left two Uighurs dead and retaliatory riots in Urumqi.

After the riots, Early Light announced that Uighur migrants would be employed in a separate factory staffed only by Uighurs, with its own cafeterias and dorms.

In late August 2009, migrant Han Chinese began to arrive in Urumqi to hand-pick cotton. About 300,000 of the peak 500,000 cotton harvesters are female migrants from other provinces; pickers earn about 100 yuan ($14.60) a day and 4,000 to 5,000 yuan during the two-month harvest. Harvesting machines are gradually replacing hand harvesters? previously, up to a million workers picked cotton.

The province of Xinjiang has about 21 million residents and occupies a sixth of China; it is China's major cotton producing area. In September 2009, there were more tensions between Han Chinese and Uighurs in Urumqi, prompting the dismissal of the city's leader.

Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government in September 2009 announced that the minimum wage for domestic helpers would remain at HK$3,580 ($462) a month plus a minimum HK$740 a month for food. Hong Kong is developing its first island-wide minimum wage, but it will not cover domestic helpers.

Some 135,000 Indonesian domestic helpers were in Hong Kong in July 2009. Their number is increasing because they are willing to work for less than the minimum wage and they learn Cantonese quickly.

Taiwan. Taiwan's export-oriented economy was hard hit by the global recession, leading to expectations that the number of foreign migrants would fall. Their number did fall, but not as much as expected.

The number of foreign migrants peaked at over 373,000 in summer 2008, and fell to a low of 341,000 in June 2009. However, as of August 2009, the number climbed to 345,000, reflecting a record 171,500 caregivers. The number of migrants in manufacturing peaked at 195,000 in fall 2008 and reached a low of 159,000 in summer 2009 http://statdb.cla.gov.tw/html/mon/c12020.htm).

The government on August 1, 2009 banned commercial match-making operations; non-profit marriage brokers are not affected. As of June 2009, some 410,000 Taiwanese men had married women from China or southeast Asia.

Tom Mitchell, "China schools offer incentive to migrants," Financial Times, September 2, 2009. Edward Wong, "Workers Return to Restive China Region," New York Times, August 22, 2009. Ariana Eunjung Cha, "China Unrest Tied to Labor Program," Washington Post, July 15, 2009. Wu, Bin. 2007. Globalization and Marginalization of Chinese Overseas Contract Workers, pp 135-154 in Zhang, Heather, Bin Wu and Richard Sanders. 2007. Marginalization in China: perspectives on transition and globalization. Ashgate.