Anthony
(2) Rural Labor Rapidly Moves to Cities
[CND, 01/04/98] The Xinhua News Agency said China has seen a dramatic drop
in farming population since 1979, mainly due to rural laborers moving to
cities, AFP reported on Saturday. Farmers now account for about 71
percent of the 700 million rural population, compared to 80 percent in
1979. Official numbers showed that about 120 million farmers have left the
countryside for better-paying jobs in the cities during the past few
years. Meanwhile, some peasants in rural areas are getting money from
non-farming sources. A nationwide random survey of 40,576 rural families
showed that 62.8 percent of rural residents are still dependent solely on
farming, while 37.2 percent gain incomes from sources other than farming.
For 6.6 percent of those households, the main source of income is no
longer farming. It was estimated that 53 million people worked in rural
enterprises at the end of 1996. (Weijun LIU, Guochen WAN)
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