Defaulted payments and industrial injuries are a common concern for millions of migrant workers. But their plight is slowly starting to improve thanks to new measures being introduced.

Chinese migrant workers, waited to be paid, crowd on a bed inside a small room in China's capital Beijing December 31, 2005. [Reuters]

A brand new national policy has been accepted by the State Council to improve the social security system for migrant workers.

Based on two years' investigations, the central government has adopted concrete measures to expand social security coverage to about 200 million farmer-turned workers, said Labour and Social Security Minister Tian Chengping yesterday.

Besides insurance schemes covering industrial injuries, medical insurance will also help cover the costs of treatment for serious diseases among the migrant workers according to the policy, said the minister at the 2006 China Development Forum, which opened yesterday in Beijing.

After years of efforts by the whole society, fewer employers in China now dare to delay salaries to migrant workers, said experts.

The acceleration of a greying society and urbanization process, as well as more diversified employment, highlights three major challenges for China to reform its social security system, noted Tian.

The proportion of the population aged above 60 in China has surpassed 10 per cent, which is an international standard of an ageing society, said Tian.

According to a report released by the China National Committee on Ageing last month, the ageing population in China is growing by 3.02 million annually. By 2051, China's elderly population is expected to hit 437 million, when three out of 10 Chinese people will be aged over 60.

Meanwhile, the quickening urbanization process will lead to larger amounts of migrants coming from the countryside to cities, as well as a shortage of youth labour force in urban areas.

"It has become an important task for the central government to balance the workforce market and to link up the social security system in urban and rural areas," said the minister.

China plans to enlarge its pension system coverage from the present 174 million, mainly in urban areas, to more than 220 million people in 2010, with an annual increase of 10 million, Tian said.

"China still has a great number of employees and individuals from non-State-owned enterprises, which are not covered by the current pension system."

The plan will extend coverage to workers of various sorts of urban businesses, self-employed people and people with no fixed jobs.

Tian acknowledged that the present pension system is quite limited, as 65 per cent China's senior citizens live in the countryside, including 8.6 million elderly people who live in poverty.

By the end of 2005, China started collecting premiums for the pension scheme from farmers in 1,870 counties around the country, and has so far accumulated a fund of more than 30 billion yuan (US$3.75 billion), Xinhua reported.

About 2.5 million farmers are now receiving pensions and they have drawn about 3 billion yuan (US$375 million) from the pension fund. Some 3 million farmers who have lost their land are also receiving benefits, it said.

(China Daily 03/20/2006 page2)