and 57 percent of local workers in village industry had graduated from middle school
(columns 2, and 3). Workers participating in rural-to-rural movement also graduated
from middle school less frequently than rural-to-urban labor movement (45 percent
compared to 59 percent in 1995). While education tends to increase a worker’s chances
of finding off-farm employment (only 37 percent of the total labor force graduated from
middle school), commuting and migrating to other rural villages appears to have provided
off-farm employment for many workers who do not have a middle school education.
Off-farm employment also is disproportionately available to young people in
China, and this is especially true for migrant workers. Migrants from China’s rural
villages tend to be significantly younger when compared to their fellow villagers (Zhang,
Zhao and Chen, 1995) and this is true in our sample as well. While only 28 percent of
the total labor force and 21 percent of locally employed off-farm workers were under age
25 in 1995, 55 percent of rural-to-urban migrants and 40 percent of rural-to-rural
migrants were younger than 25 (table 2, row 9, columns 1, 4 and 7).
The gender, education and age profile of the rural mobile workforce shows that it
is made up of a segment of the rural labor force less likely to find off-farm employment
elsewhere. Our descriptive analysis suggests that rural-to-rural commuting and migration
provides a new channel for female and less-educated workers to enter the off-farm labor
market and participate in migration. Why do we find more of these types of workers
moving into other rural villages than are moving into cities or finding jobs in their home
village? In the next section, we examine the characteristics of China’s rural industry that
may facilitate or restrict the employment of certain types of labor.
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