Time Running Out on China's Boom

Estimates of the number of migrant workers in China range from 110 million to 120 million. With a population of 7.5 million registered residents, a city such as Guangzhou, the export capital of southern China, couldn't run without its 3.7 million migrant workers. Whole industries would come to a halt: Migrants make up 80% of all urban construction workers and 68% of workers in electronics manufacturing, according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Why do migrant workers in China do it? Because if they scrimp and save, they can go back to their farms with enough capital to start a rabbit business or pay off debt after a bad year. They can save enough, they dream, to afford school fees for a child in the hope that he won't have to lead a peasant's life. And because -- bad as the life of a migrant worker is -- for the 150 million Chinese who live below the official poverty line, most of whom are farmers in the West of the country, it offers the only hope of escape.

Millions Left Behind

Let there be no doubt about it: China's economic boom has lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty -- about 300 million between 1978 and 2003, according to the World Bank. But it has left hundreds of millions of Chinese behind. According to official figures, China's richest 20% own 55% of the country's wealth. The Gini index, a measure of economic inequality, where 100 is the most unequal, gives China a score of 44, up from 28 in 1981 and 40 in 2003. That's better than Brazil at 59.1 but worse than the capitalist-dog U.S. at 40.8.