Historically, China has managed labor migration with its household registration system, hukou, which ties its citizens to the place in which they were born. Those who move away from the place in which they are registered are not entitled to government services such as education for their children, nor protected by minimum wages and other labor laws and health care. They are obliged to live in dormitories owned by the companies. As such they are constantly under the control of their employers, nor do they have the opportunity to form working class communities of their own. They are at any moment at the disposal of the "just in time" production which the world market requires. Urban dwellers enjoyed a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while China's 800 million rural residents were treated as second-class citizens. As China transitioned from state socialism to market capitalism, rural people form an "industrial reserve army" that could be called up whenever needed for construction or industrial initiatives. The migrants predominantly work in factories, on construction sites and mines.
