The Chinese dream, a migrant’s nightmare?

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to uncover whether having a long-term or permanent contract improves the quality of employment of internal migrants in China. The focus lies specifically on the labour reforms in 2008, which will be analysed using a differences-in-differences approach. Though the results seem to point towards a positive direct effect of having such a contract, the laws seem to cause ambiguity. In particular, the effect of said regulations may differ due to regional heterogeneity and the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. Whether labour reforms have improved the position of internal migrants is thus dependent on context and the political will to enact social progress.