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Migrant workers is a unique social group in China. On the one hand, it’s difficult for them to really integrate into the urban society because of their ascribed status of farmers and the urban social exclusion, although they come to work in the city for life, making great contributions to the development of urbanization; on the other hand, they are gradually alienated from the rural community due to their long-term stay in the city, especially the new generation of migrant workers, who have generated some kind of strangeness to rural areas. As a result, migrant workers is presenting a reality of "double marginalization".The article demonstrates the marginalization of migrant workers through in-depth field investigations and interviews with migrant workers. Firstly, the impact of institutional factors including the employment system, education and training systems, social welfare and security system are studied; secondly, non-institutional factors, such as the urban social exclusion of migrant workers, migrant workers’ lack of self-identity, and others are examined.As is shown in the paper, due to these institutional and non-institutional factors, migrant workers have, on the one hand, further enhanced their marginalized social status and their sense of self-identity; on the other hand, their marginal status is having a tendency of being cured, with an effect of inter-generational reproduction.
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