Beijing pins property revival hopes on migrant workers

Beijing

HE makes less than US$1,000 a month in a city where apartments can cost more than US$1 million, but even so the Chinese government is pinning its improbable hopes for a property revival on the likes of Liu Jun.

The electrician and plumber is a recent addition to China's 250 million-plus migrant workers, who have provided the labour force to transform the country's economy in recent decades, emerging from the countryside in droves to seek better lives and incomes in the cities.

Construction workers, machine operators in factories, office cleaners - the sweat of their brows has lubricated China's growth as it expanded to become the world's second-largest economy. But while they are free to move in search of employment, they and their children have long been denied equal access to public services such as schools, hospitals and housing under a decades-old household registration system kn…