THE RISE OF RURAL-TO-RURAL LABOR MARKETS IN CHINA

The Composition of Rural-to-Rural Labor Movement

Migration rarely selects randomly from the population in the sending areas.
Specific subsets of the rural population, like the young and better educated, are more
likely to join the migrant labor force (Todaro, 1980). Those who do not migrate,
unfortunately, often are left reliant on low-income village agriculture and other activities
that bring low returns to labor.

Migration in China is no exception. Certain groups tend to participate more in
rural-to-urban migration than others. China’s urban-bound migrants are more likely to be
young and male (Wang, forthcoming). Rural-to-urban migrants also tend to have
relatively higher education (Banister and Harbaugh, 1992) and usually come from
villages that are home to previous migrants (Meng, 1996; Rozelle et. al., 1999).

Urban migrant worker policy and structural barriers of China’s urban economy
may cause the inequities by placing migrants in squatter communities with little legal
protection, few social services and demanding the service of certain types of workers
(Mallee, 1995). The denial of education in public schools to migrant children
discourages families from migrating as a unit and the urban environment is often
perceived as unsafe for women and the elderly (Wang, forthcoming). The kinds of jobs
available in urban areas also affects the types of workers moving there (Solinger, 1999;
Zhao, 1998). For example, since the most common jobs available for migrants in urban
areas are in construction, the types of workers most commonly used in this work, young
males, will have a greater likelihood of finding jobs.

Differences in the nature of urban and rural areas may give rise to distinctly
different patterns of rural-to-urban labor movements when compared to rural-to-rural

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