The Christian Science Monitor

Beijing gives migrant workers their marching orders

For the past five years, Ms. Peng has worked as a cleaner in a Beijing office block. It was a tiring, low-paying job – the kind that is easily overlooked but essential in cities around the world.

Beijing is no different. Over the past four decades, millions of migrants have flocked here from poor rural China in the hope of finding a better life. They have built the city’s gleaming new skyscrapers, they have cared for its children, and they have sold and delivered its groceries, among other services.

While the municipal government has hardly welcomed the newcomers – denying them basic rights such as free public education and health care

Evicted for their own good?If they don't do the work, who will?

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor3 min read
NBA Playoffs Without Curry? James? Durant? A New Guard Rises In Basketball.
LeBron James’ basketball career has always been paradoxical with respect to time, whether it was his rise through the NBA ranks as a teenager, or how he remains one of the game’s great players upon the completion of his 21st season. The way that camp
The Christian Science Monitor3 min read
Stories Of Resilience: Bees Make A Comeback, And How Immigrants Lift Economies
Since 2006, steep winter losses of worker bees have spurred scientists and the U.S. government to try to understand colony collapse disorder. Honeybees pollinate four-fifths of all flowering plants, which makes one-third of the food system dependent
The Christian Science Monitor3 min readAmerican Government
Police Are Begging Lawmakers To Stop Relaxing Gun Laws. Charlotte Shows Why.
From New York to Texas to Alabama, law enforcement officials have warned for years that relaxing gun laws would lead to more violence toward police. The fatal shooting of a local police officer and three members of a fugitive task force in Charlotte,

Related Books & Audiobooks