Selfish, obscenely rich, insular, and opportunistic: these remain how Chinese minorities in Indonesia are perceived by the Indigenous population. However, far from being passive victims of discrimination and marginalisation, Chong presents a forceful case in which Chinese Indonesians possess the agency to shape their future in the country, particularly in the changing political, business, and socio-cultural environment after the fall of Suharto. While a lack of good governance that promotes the rule of law and accountability allows or even encourages some Chinese to maintain the status quo by.
AbstractChina is undergoing a process of decentralization that has been highly valued for its economic growth. However, this paper aims to explore how this process has affected the equality of social provision for rural–urban migrants in China by taking hukou system reform as a case study. It is argued here that the traditional assumption that decentralization promotes social welfare by bringing the government closer to the people is not necessarily true, or at least not uniformly so in certain institutional settings. Decentralization policies in contemporary China indeed make local governments more powerful and responsible for social welfare provision to their local citizens, but have also undermined the incentives for local governments to cover the welfare costs for migrant workers. To this extent, decentralization has played a negative role in integrating the large number of migrant workers into local cities and promoting equity within social welfare delivery at a national level in China.
The modern development of the agricultural sector in Russia is inextricably linked with investment processes, which are the driving force behind the integration of the national economy into the world economy. Total investments aimed at the development of agriculture in the Far East in recent years do not exceed 5% of their total volume. It should be noted that state agri-food programs for the development and modernization of the country's agriculture have been developed and are operating in the Far East. A lot has been done, but only quantitative indicators have increased, qualitative ones - there is much to be desired.
China's internal migration has drawn extensive interest since the 1980s, and numerous studies have focused on migrant workers who are employed by the "world's factories". However, less attention has been paid to migrant workers participating in the informal economy in urban China. In fact, the informal economy, which refers to income-generating activities that are not regulated by the state, has been estimated to have expanded dramatically over the past two decades, and migrant workers comprise the overwhelming majority of participants in the informal sector. These informals are mostly self-employed or paid employees working for informal factories hidden in the urban villages. This study, taking an urban village known as Kangle village in Guangzhou as its research site, adopts an ethnographic method to understand the lives of China's migrant workers engaged in the informal economy. It attempts to (1) examine the institutional environment for the expansion of the informal economy in urban China, (2) understand the individual choices of migrant workers in terms of being formal or informal, (3) explore their economic performance and (4) discover whether the informal economy could represent an alternative for migrant workers to achieve upward mobility in receiving cities. It is found that institutional factors, including policy practices of the state, regulation enforcement by local government and the relative autonomy of the migrant enclave all contribute to the development of the informal economy in urban China. Individual choices in being formal or informal are based primarily on participants' rational calculations comparing costs and benefits; howbeit these choices have actually been largely affected by the social networks of migrant workers. Migrant workers engaged in the informal economy receive relatively higher incomes than their counterparts in the formal sector. However, the higher monthly incomes for the wage employees in the informal economy can also be viewed as compensation for their willingness to undertake the risky, dirty, long-hour informal jobs. Social networks have also played an essential role in the economic performance of migrant workers in the informal economy. For instance, the strong social ties of migrant workers largely facilitate the process of becoming self-employed or migrant entrepreneurs by providing market information, financial support and labor resources. Also, the use of social networks reduces the transaction costs between different business owners in the informal sector where formal contracts are absent. Economic stratification among the migrant workers in the urban village is obvious, and a small number of migrants have achieved economic success by becoming self-employed or migrant entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, migrant entrepreneurship cannot continue to be a sustainable alternative for the majority of migrant workers to achieve upward mobility due to the vulnerability of the informal economy and the absence of institutional inclusion for the participants in the informal economy. It is thus suggested that society and government rethink and adjust current institutional settings to improve work conditions, promote entrepreneurship, and facilitate the formalization of the informal economy on the one hand; meanwhile initiate top-down reforms for the integration of migrant workers in both the formal and informal sectors. ; published_or_final_version ; Social Work and Social Administration ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy
The term "Old Malaya" refers to the Malay states of the eastern coast of the Peninsular (Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu) and the "New Malaya" to the states on the west coast (Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor and Pahang). The British concentrated their economic growth on the west coast, thereby giving rise to a dual economy. On the west coast, the British were profit driven with special focus on mining and plantation sectors which reaped great economic growth. Similar policy was carried out by the post-independence government which focused more on the west coast states. This had serious implications and caused the east coast states to be underdeveloped. It is only very recently (2007) that the government planned to create the East Coast Economic Region (ECER) and Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) with major projects to improve the economic condition of the east coast states. The unequal development extended beyond regional inequalities, again as in the case of colonial rule. For instance, the Indians were marginalised both during the colonial era as well as in post-independent Malaya/Malaysia. The marginalisation of the Indians when plantations were bought over by government owned companies led to uneven development in post independent Malaya. This article intends to explore the uneven development of Malaya in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a situation which continued to exist in post-independent Malaya. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s1p161
