Benchmark
China's Migrant Workforce Is Aging
- The number of non-farm rural workers is growing less slowly
- Migrant workers are better educated but staying closer to home
Two Chinese workers clean the roof of a walk way of a shopping mall in Beijing.
Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
A typical Chinese migrant worker is now less likely to be a teenager trekking across the country for a factory job in a southern boom town.
Instead, as China’s economy matures, its migrant worker force is also aging, staying closer to home, and increasingly working in stores and restaurants rather than on assembly lines.