Migrant Woman Workers in China
China and the miracle of its economic growth is clearly the work of the untiring labor of its huge workforce. In this workforce too, women occupy a central position and the number of migrant women laborers employed in Chinese factories numbers in the hundreds of millions. Leslie T. Chang, in her study of women in the Chinese factories, in the book Factory Girls: From Villages to City in a Changing China, explores the life and motivations of these women who ensure that China remains the manufacturing hub of the world. Her analysis reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, migrant young Chinese women seem happy to be working in these factories and even if they are exploited, they do not feel so. Most of these women are pragmatic in their approach to life and believe that it is only through hard work in their youth that they can make a better life for themselves.
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They miss their homes but as Min, one of the young workers with whom Chang lived, states, “home is good…but you can stay only for a few days” (271) thereby reiterating the idea that these women, even though they miss their homes also enjoy the freedom of living on their own and earning and spending their money as they like. This element of freedom and independence is also elaborated upon in the book review by David Rocks when he says that they “have more to gain from leaving the countryside, where boys are first in line to take over the parent's’ farm plots” (94). Being part of the factory workforce ensures that these women get a chance to escape the drudgery of life in the village and also to live life according to their own terms and in time make a future for themselves by saving enough money to get married and set up their own