External Migrants under Mainland China’s Informal Welfare Regime: Risk Shifts, Resource Environments, and the Urban Employees’ Social Insurance

Social insurance in mainland China long catered to populations that were assumed to remain in one place permanently. In recent decades, however, internal and transnational labour migration has been on the rise. Building on existing research about internal migrants’ social security, this study asks how different groups of external labour migrants cope with the social risk shifts induced by mobility. It focuses on documented migrants from UN member countries; from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao; and on undocumented migrants. It employs the resource environment approach, which integrates a transnational perspective and acknowledges informal sources of security. Focusing on healthcare, the study argues that informal practices affect the majority of external migrants irrespective of nationality or migration status, protecting expatriates from double coverage, causing low-income migrants to fall through the gaps, but also enabling access to healthcare for undocumented migrants. Despite mandatory participation, effective migrant coverage of the Urban Employees’ Social Insurance (UESI) remains low. The system is highly decentralized with incomplete internal and external portability, and cities have considerable leeway over their own migration and welfare regimes. Migrants from more socio-economically developed areas tend to have a greater reliance on public services and security from the sending areas, or on high-end private alternatives. Conversely, as the example of Nigerian traders illustrates, undocumented migrants piece together their protective arrangements from individual networks and community institutions. Religious organizations from the Global South also reach out transnationally and provide informal protections to migrant communities. This study employs a mix of ethnographic fieldwork, document analysis, and descriptive statistics.

中国大陆非正式社会保障体制下的外来流动人口： 风险转换、资源环境以及城市雇员的社会保险

关键词：中国；移民；社会保险；外国公民；台湾。

中国大陆的社会保险长期以来用来满足一个假定中永久性固定于同一个地点的人口。然而最近几十年来，内部以及跨国劳工迁移不断上升。本研究以现有对内部流动人口社会保险的研究为基础，提出各种不同的外来劳工群体是怎样应对由流动所引发的社会风险转换的问题。本研究聚焦于来自联合国成员国以及台湾、香港和澳门的有证明文件的移民，以及无证明文件的移民。本文使用了资源环境方法，整合了一种跨国视角，并且认可非正式的保障资源。本研究考察卫生保健方面，提出无论国籍或是移民身份，非正式的做法都影响到大多数外来流动人口，不但保护外籍人士免于支付双重保险，避免低收入移民保障落空，而且也促成了没有合法身份的移民能有使用医疗保健体系的渠道。尽管城市雇员社会保险（UESI）是强制性规定参加的，但是有效覆盖率仍然偏低。该体系高度地方化，内部和外部可转移性都不完备； 并且各城市对自己的人口迁移和福利体系都有相当程度的掌控余地。来自社会经济发展程度更高地区的流动人口倾向于更多依靠所来自地域的公共服务和社会保障，或是高端的私人服务。相反，正如尼日利亚商人的例子所展示的，没合法文件的流动人口则将来自个人社会网络以及社区制度的各种保护性安排拼凑在一起。来自全球化中的南方国家的宗教组织也跨国深入移民社区，为其提供非正式的保护。本研究使用了民族志田野、文献分析以及描述性统计等混合的方法。

Translated from English by Li Guo