Revisiting Migrant Workers in 2023
Many people seriously overestimate the income of rural migrant workers. A while back, I laid this out: in central provinces such as Henan and Hubei—major sources of agricultural labor—one mu (roughly 0.067 hectares) of land is typically allocated per person. Two crops of grain are planted each year on that plot, yielding about 1,200 jin (≈600 kg) of wheat or corn per harvest. The usual recovery price hovers around 1.2 yuan per jin, but in years plagued by disasters it can drop to roughly 0.7 yuan per jin. In other words, a family of four earns less than 10,000 yuan a year from farming—before even deducting production costs such as fertilizer and pesticides, which public figures put at about 500 yuan per mu. Stay in the village, and a household’s annual income stays under 10,000 yuan. Go out to work, even at the lowest wages—1,800 or 2,700 yuan per month—and you still more than double what you’d earn farming. That surplus is precisely what underpinned China’s manufacturing dominance over past decades: three-shift, 24/7 operation, sustained by migrant workers whose monthly take-home rarely exceeded 3,000 yuan. It’s worth noting that within just a few years of manufacturing relocating to Vietnam, Vietnamese workers’ wages have already climbed to 3,500 yuan or more. Worse still, rural residents’ pensions range only from 68 to 200 yuan a month, while urban retirees draw several thousand, and civil servants/public-institution retirees often receive nearly 10,000 yuan or more. Only construction workers who sign formal contracts tend to do better, saving roughly 500,000 yuan over three to four years—money that is quickly devoured by children’s education expenses, midlife marriage costs (a house at 300,000 yuan, bride-price at 150,000 yuan, wedding at 100,000 yuan, and other major expenditures), and the inflated conspicuous consumption that is especially severe in smaller towns. The end result: no one to rely on in old age, no one to care for them.