-1988, there were more than 7,000 young female workers living in Hayes dormitory area of Shekou Industrial Zone in Shenzhen;
-1988, a plastic handbag factory in Baoan county, Shenzhen, with 205 people and only 4 male employees;
-1990, Shenzhen Baoan county construction company, with more than 8,000 employees in 27 factories and 9 dormitory buildings, 8 of which are all female workers, with more than 7,000 girls. So at present, in Shenzhen, especially in Baoan and Longgang, which are mainly processing industries, or in various industrial zones in the special zone, there are women workers everywhere after work. The gender structure of migrant workers in Shenzhen provided by Shenzhen Labor Bureau reflects the imbalance of gender structure of migrant workers.
The fifth population census in Shenzhen found that the proportion of male and female population in the golden age of women's marriage and love (16-23 years old) was seriously unbalanced, and the maximum sex ratio was 100 women to 44.75 men.
According to the traditional custom of China people's marriage age, women generally choose men who are about two years older than themselves. In the census, the total number of men aged 20-25 was 895 143, and the total number of women aged 18-23 was 13482 12. Most of the women workers in these age groups came from. As can be seen from this gender structure table, among the migrant workers who are the main force of Shenzhen's social labor force, the imbalance between male and female is really serious. Moreover, due to the separated employment and life mode of men and women, the closed life management mode, and the real dilemma that the registered population and the temporary population are difficult to communicate, the employment places and living spaces of men and women are completely isolated, which further strengthens the imbalance between men and women in the real world.
The gender structure of men and women is seriously unbalanced, and the social management mode of gender segregation leads to many social problems of losing sexual orientation. 1987 The Shekou News, run by Shenzhen Shekou Industrial Zone, once disclosed a letter entitled "Sadness? Confession? Hope? "Letter from female migrant workers with eye-catching title. The letter expresses an adolescent girl's emotional and psychological agitation, saying that "we even forget our existence as a woman, and only once a month's' routine' reminds us that you are still a woman ..." Her loneliness, melancholy, sense of loss and the emptiness of women's psychological world reflect the physical, psychological and emotional plight of this group.
Due to the unique course of industrial development in Shenzhen, a large number of workers absorbed are mainly distributed in labor-intensive processing industries such as electronics, clothing, toys and hardware. They don't need advanced professional skills training and high physical strength, but they welcome rural girls who are careful, obedient, hard-working and easy to manage. In the tertiary industry, catering, sales, babysitting and social services also basically employ women, which makes the situation of severely punishing the imbalance of sex ratio have obvious characteristics of professional division of labor. Therefore, although times have changed and the number of migrant workers has changed, the imbalance between male and female migrant workers in Shenzhen, which is mainly based on production lines, has always continued and developed into the basic gender employment model for foreign-funded enterprises and "three to one supplement" enterprises in the Pearl River Delta region.
In the past 20 years, the average age of migrant workers in Shenzhen mostly hovers between 23 and 25, and the youngest is only 22, while the average age of migrant girls is even lower. According to the data of the fifth population census in Shenzhen, the floating girls are mainly in the age group of 17-22. The number of floating girls after 23 years old decreases greatly with the increase of age, and the number of women aged 25 is higher than that of 19 years old. This shows that the working life of migrant workers in Shenzhen, mainly female migrant workers, is in a period of youthful agitation, and most of them are unmarried female workers under the age of 23, accounting for about 55.6% of the female population above 0/5 in Shenzhen/Kloc. For these young girls, going out to work is not only their "life station", but also their "love season". This is an extremely contradictory fact-life position determines the uncertainty of their lives. Because of practical problems such as unstable household registration and occupation, most of them are confused about their future and don't know what to do next and where to end up. But physically, they are eager for love and marriage, and they have to make the most important choice in life. This contradictory situation is faced with the unbalanced sex ratio and the rising expectation of personal love and marriage, which makes many working girls spend their teenage years in loneliness until their youth withers, and then they have to go back to their hometowns to get married or become older unmarried women. Therefore, lonely people often walk in this city.
According to a survey conducted by the Population Research Institute of Sun Yat-sen University in Shenzhen, 65% of female migrant workers in Shenzhen have never been in love. 95% want to get married; 72% chose to "build a happy family"; Married 100% unwilling to divorce. The wish is beautiful, but the reality is cruel. We looked up the literary works and documentary reports about the life of female migrant workers in Shenzhen in the past 10 years, and frequently saw such sad words as "Shenzhen doesn't believe in tears", "Shenzhen can't afford love", "You don't understand my love" and "There is no love in the factory". All the love descriptions about female migrant workers in Shenzhen are full of helpless sadness and melancholy. The disparity between men and women in this city makes the so-called white-collar girls from the city have a longing for love, and they don't know where their hearts will go, not to mention these "ugly ducklings" who come from the countryside and can only sell cheap labor and youth on the production line.
Therefore, although there is a need for the opposite sex and emotion in adolescence, it is difficult for women to get happy love and a beautiful marriage because of the sense of wandering in a foreign land, the difference in urban and rural status and education level, and their own physical and psychological weaknesses. In the best years of life, they either let their youth drift away in loneliness or follow more love tragedies. The romance in their hearts is ruthlessly shattered by the cruel reality, which makes them feel disappointed with men and even discouraged about life and the future. A female worker named He Xiaoyan wrote a letter to the radio host complaining: "Many relationships in the factory are fruitless. Everyone is lonely when they go out, so the boy wants to find a girl to spend some time with. Girls also think that finding a friend can take care of each other. But we all come from all corners of the country, and it is still a question whether we can be together in the future. So many people like to find fellow villagers. Everyone is deeply rooted and can go home together in the future. Many people have no feelings, and some have changed factories and broken up. Some two people secretly rent a house outside to live together. " Therefore, I think: "Emotion is the most unreal thing, always floating in the air. Looks like someone else's stuff. Sometimes I can give them to you, sometimes I will take them away. It's not how much you pay, how much you get in return. " He Xiaoyan's suspicion of feelings is only a response to the repeated setbacks of migrant girls' feelings; This situation was confirmed in a report published in Shenzhen Business Daily: "A considerable number of women workers in Shenzhen factories are disappointed with Shenzhen men. First, some men have problems with their own survival; Second, there is an irresponsible attitude of taking part in accidental amusement; The third is to hold other girls and call his wife to lie that he is talking about business or on the road. "
Although there are so many disappointments and helplessness, the efforts of girls in the workplace to pursue love and marriage are always very strong. Some researchers have found that in factory dormitories where it is difficult to invite people to eat sugar, people often invite them to eat sugar-that is, to celebrate dating with the opposite sex (talking about friends). Some people are still willing to accept their feelings or sex when they know that it is impossible to get married with each other. This also shows that in order to solve the real dilemma of love and marriage, floating girls began to separate love and marriage, or sex and marriage. In the traditional agricultural society, marriage and love have a very distinct purposeful tendency-limited communication between young men and women, with a strong purpose, and usually talk about marriage directly. If a young man and a young woman keep close relationship for a long time and postpone marriage, it is abnormal and not allowed. However, their work and life have disintegrated their original social network, or the original restrictive force has been very weak. When marriage becomes an unattainable luxury, love becomes an important "agenda" for girls in the workplace, and because love in the workplace is mostly a "fruitless flower", it intensifies the emotional game color of male-female communication. The direct result of the separation of love and marriage is the separation of sex and marriage, which has caused many tragicomedy in life.
It should be said that the fact that female migrant workers have sex with the opposite sex or live together unmarried is not only a reflection of their unbearable emotional loneliness and youthful impulse, but also shows that female migrant workers have to endure this kind of relationship between men and women that is not guaranteed by law and violates traditional morality in order to save rent and find an emotional home. Of course, when the relationship breaks down, it is mostly the working girls who pay more. Some people lost their jobs, others committed suicide. This problem began to be noticed in the late 1980s. The reporter conducted an investigation on unmarried pregnant female workers in Shekou Industrial Zone. At that time, there were more than 10000 migrant women workers in the earliest industrial zone in Shenzhen. Statistics show that the number of unmarried pregnant women is increasing year by year: more than 200 in 1984; 1985,300 or more; 1987 rose to more than 800 people.
In Bao 'an County, outside the special zone, 1989, the number of female workers who went to the hospital for induced abortion was as high as 6,967, of which 286 1 person was confirmed unmarried, and more than 95% were migrant workers, but the number of unmarried cohabitants was unknown.
Unmarried cohabitation and tolerance of extramarital sex reflect that the views on marriage and love and ethics of migrant girls have changed greatly. Chen was asked about premarital sex when she was investigating migrant girls' views on marriage and love in four cities in Guangdong. Among them, 34.66% thought it didn't matter, 6.23% said it was understandable, 3.49% voted in favor, that is, 44.38% were tolerant of premarital sex. When asked about their views on getting involved in other people's families, 2 1.95% said it was understandable, 6.98% thought it didn't matter, 1.75% thought it was ok to be a mistress, and only 6.73% claimed that they would never be a mistress. It is not excluded that some of them are guided by orthodox ideas, do not reveal their true thoughts, and have a great influence on the social life of female workers of the same age. The tolerant attitude towards premarital sex is definitely higher than the above figures. This shows that the moralization of some people provides an explanation for the change of ethical concepts for the behavior anomie of some floating girls while the morality and marriage concepts of this particular group are diversified. Therefore, some female workers working in hair salons, bars, cafes or other service places have joined the "sex industry" for various reasons. Emotional confusion not only puzzles the working girls in the factory, but also the white-collar women in the office building. It should be said that white-collar women had more conditions and opportunities to get love and marriage at that time, because their career, education, income, self-accomplishment and free choice opportunities were beyond the reach of factory women farmers. Although they belong to the large group of migrant workers, they are actually trying to distance themselves from factory women workers in love and marriage to show their different identities. However, white-collar women among migrant workers are also facing various social and institutional factors that affect love and marriage, such as the serious imbalance between men and women in the whole city and the separation and integration of household registration, housing and work experience. Some people say, "The instability and loneliness of immigrant cities make people desperately seek the comfort of love. The ignorance of the past and the unpredictability of the future breed many people's game mentality and increase people's doubts about love loyalty." As a result, even the most emotional and romantic things like love and marriage have become very realistic and even cruel. We have consulted the archives of some matchmaking agencies and found that there are striking similarities between men and women in choosing a spouse, that is, women generally require men to have economic strength and a career foundation; The man asked the other person to be young and beautiful. The Family Marriage Service Center under the Shenzhen Women's Federation has more than 4,000 members. Although the staff made a lot of efforts, few people succeeded. The crux of the problem is that men think women are "old" and women think men have less money. So "in this place of Shenzhen, you can talk about anything except love".
Official statistics and scholars' research confirm that the age of first marriage of migrant girls at all levels is generally delayed. The research group of "Rural Floating Women" of China Academy of Social Sciences conducted an investigation in Zhongshui Village, Jiahe County, Hunan Province. According to the information provided by the village women's director, there are 10 girls in this village who go out to work (8 in Guangdong and 2 in Jiahe County), and they are still unmarried, and some have already taken 6 jobs. One of the reasons why migrant girls delay their marriage choice is that they are in a dilemma and it is difficult to make a choice. The influence of urban civilization makes them have certain requirements for the quality of marriage, but the combination of work and life has created too many love tragedies, which makes them afraid of their future marriage life: "Seeing some people get married outside, have children, and get divorced; I'm afraid to see it. " Moreover, the choice of marriage and love will affect her future career design-whether to continue working or go home to get married, whether to stay in a modern city or return to a relatively closed and backward countryside. These contradictory dilemmas make their marriage and love choices more difficult. Therefore, delaying the choice is also a kind of resistance to fate, and it is a choice that cannot be chosen. The emergence of a large number of older unmarried floating girls has become a serious social problem, which should attract the attention of relevant departments and society.