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They make up the 200-million-strong workforce in the nation's manufacturing heartlands and have been known for decades for their diligence, tolerance and plain living. 
So why are the migrant workers on the mainland still so poor after close to three decades of double-digit economic growth?
Chen Xingping, a 45-year-old cleaner from Sichuan who earns 1,200 yuan (HK$1,375) a month mopping the marble floors of a Shenzhen department store frequented by the city's Prada-wearing elite, says he doesn't have an answer to that question.
Mainland sociologists blame unreasonably low statutory minimum wages and heavy taxation that offer little in the way of social welfare protection. 
Chen and his wife have worked as cleaners at the department store for two years. They are both paid 1,200 yuan a month and do not have medical insurance or a pension scheme. 
They can't afford to rent private accommodation so the company deducts 50 yuan from each of their salaries each month for two tiny berths in a cramped dormitory shared by 11 others. 
They work 13 hours a day, seven days a week - and still live in poverty. 
'We each spend only 10 yuan on food a day, which can only buy  the cheapest food, which simply fills your stomach,' Chen says. 'There's no budget for entertainment or any other expenses after sending money back to our rural home.'
Professor Lu Huilin, from Peking University, says the mainland's minimum wage policy, meant to protect workers' rights, actually helps employers exploit workers. 
'Last year, the statutory minimum wage in Shenzhen was 900 yuan a month, but official statistics suggested that Shenzhen people spent an average of 613 yuan on food,' Lu said. 'Migrant workers spend most of their income on food which means their other basic needs such as accommodation, transport or basic social contacts can't be fulfilled.' 
As in many other mainland cities, most Shenzhen employers pay migrant workers the minimum wage or a little more.
Lu said a reasonable minimum wage should be 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the locality's average monthly salary, and that many foreign countries set the level at 60 per cent. 
But only a few mainland cities even reach 30 per cent. Shenzhen's minimum wage is just 20 per cent of a resident's average income. 
Last year, Shenzhen residents earned an average of about 3,900 yuan a month. Lu said the minimum wage needed to allow migrant workers to live with dignity should be about 2,300 yuan. 
'Only when [the statutory minimum wage] is twice the average expenditure on food, or 1,200 yuan a month, can migrant workers dress warmly and eat their fill,' he said. 'If we consider workers' expenditure on their children and parents, the number should be 2,300 yuan a month.' 
He said Shenzhen's per capita gross domestic product had risen sevenfold since 1992 but the city's minimum wage rose only threefold in that time.
Chen says he deserves to make 1,500 yuan a month and that the extra 300 yuan would let his family live a more dignified life. 
More than 5,000 workers surveyed by Shenzhen's labour union federation and Shenzhen University last month said a reasonable monthly salary would be around 2,700 yuan, but they actually earned an average of 1,800 yuan - including overtime that often exceeded legal limits. 
Sociologist Liu Kaiming, from Shenzhen's Institute of Contemporary Observation,  said heavy taxation and an inequitable social insurance system added to the plight of low-paid migrant workers. 
In Western countries, taxation and social welfare were designed to help narrow the poverty gap and protect the disadvantaged, but similar systems on the mainland actually added to inequality by making migrant workers subsidise the benefits enjoyed by affluent city dwellers. 
Lu Feng, an assembly line worker from Hunan, earns 2,500 yuan a month in Shenzhen by working from 7pm to 7am, plus excessive overtime, well below the city's average income. 
But Lu and his employer are required to pay 25 per cent of his monthly income to government pension and health care schemes. Twelve per cent of his income goes straight from his employer into a pool that is meant to help fund pensions and medical care for the disadvantaged. However, city dwellers generally get much higher relief payments from the pool than migrant workers.
Lu is also required to pay 12.50 yuan in tax each month because the mainland's tax threshold for individuals is 2,000 yuan.
'I earn two-thirds of city dwellers' average income but am still required to pay tax and 250 yuan to both schemes. About 300 yuan in premiums paid by my boss, which should be considered as part of my income, goes to the pool,' Lu said. 'Only workers who have lived in Shenzhen for 15 years can enjoy the pension, otherwise your contribution to the pool will benefit the city's affluent permanent residents.' 
Liu said Guangdong's pension scheme pool netted at least 30 billion yuan between 2002 and 2006, when  8 million migrant workers left the province. He said 1 million migrant workers left Shenzhen last year, leaving 1 billion yuan behind in the coffers of the city's pension scheme.
At least there has been some progress on that front this year. Since January, some 20 million migrant workers in Guangdong have been allowed to transfer the premiums paid by their employers and their own contributions to other provinces, under a regulation issued by the State Council. 
However, Lu is not entitled to cheap housing, free education for his children or unemployment relief in Shenzhen because he doesn't have permanent residency, or hukou, in the city where he has worked and paid taxes for three years. None of the other 12 million migrant workers living in Shenzhen are entitled to such things either.
According to the city's civil affairs bureau, only 13,000 struggling households among the city's 2 million permanent residents received relief funds last year. They were allocated about 50 million yuan - 0.05 per cent of the government's 88 billion yuan revenue last year. 
Many sociologists want  the hukou residential permit system scrapped, saying it prevents migrant workers from gaining access to social welfare, but Wang Chunguang , a public policy researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the mainland's discriminatory social welfare system had entirely forgotten the poor - whether they had city hukou or not. 
'You can  enjoy high-quality social welfare protection if you have high social status,' he said. 'Although the system was originally designed to guarantee that disadvantaged groups could maintain their livelihoods, it has now become a kind of privilege - special welfare and a different form of income [for officials and government employees]. 
'[The country's] social welfare system has widened the poverty gap and aggravated social inequality.' 
Wang said retired government employees in Beijing could receive pensions of up to 3,000 yuan a month but the city's elderly farmers were entitled to only 200 yuan a month. 
Li Changping, a prominent researcher at Hebei University on Chinese farmers, said the way to solve the migrant workers' problems was to treat them equally. 
'Give them equal treatment with other citizens,' Li said. 'Rather than 'one country, two systems', officials and the general public - both city dwellers and migrant workers - should have equal access to welfare.'



An economic boom, but migrants still dirt poor