Mingong

Mingong (Chinese: 民工) are migrant workers in the People's Republic of China, who, starting in the last decades of the 20th century, have been travelling from the countryside to the cities to work.

The existence of these migrant workers is connected to the Hukou system of the People's Republic of China, with which the government sought to limit the ratio of urbanization of the population.

With the political and economical opening of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, the need for workers in the urban areas grew.

These couldn't officially settle near their workplace, due to the Hukou system, which led to their family staying in the countryside on their farms, while the workers leave home to work.

The growing number of workers must settle for exploitative wages, work without contracts and uncertain conditions.