Faculty hosted conference in China on migration and social protection

Researchers from the faculty recently hosted a major conference in Beijing, focusing on the key issues involved in establishing a social protection regime for migrant workers in China.

The conference was organised by the Asian Business and Economics Research Unit in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Social Science and Renmin University of China, with generous financial support from the Department of Economics.

The theme of migration and social protection is consistent with the Chinese central government’s objectives of ‘establishing an harmonious society’ and the integration of rural and urban populations.

China’s internal migrants are estimated to be around 150 million and the conference made for timely critical analyses of the deficiencies in existing social security arrangements.

The importance of the conference was underscored by the calibre of speakers and attendees, which included many of the world’s most notable China specialists, including Professors Albert Park and John Knight from Oxford University, Professor Cindy Fan from UCLA, Professor Mark Duda from Harvard University, Professor Lina Song from Nottingham University, Professor Ken Roberts from South-western University, Professor Cai Fang from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Dr David Kelly from the National University of Singapore.

The conference was also attended by representatives from each of the major lending and aid agencies including the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the ILO and UNESCO.

A strength and highlight of the conference was that as a group, the presenters provided a range of different, yet complementary disciplinary perspectives on the conference theme.  A special presentation by Genevieve Domenach-Chich on UNESCO’s ‘Together with migrants’ program was a particular highlight.

As Dietrich Fausten, head of the Department of Economics summed up the conference: ‘Distinguished experts from academia and NGOs offered perceptive analyses of the challenges posed by the massive rural-urban migration flows.

The calibre of the speakers was outstanding; the scope of interdisciplinary investigation remarkable; the intensity of discussion exhilarating; and the international collaboration in bringing the conference together a notable achievement.

A volume entitled ‘Migration and Social Protection’ to be edited by the conference’s principal organisers, Ingrid Nielsen from the Department of Management, and Russell Smyth, from the Department of Economics containing many of the papers presented at the conference will be published by World Scientific in 2008.