After the two-decade economic reform, the Chinese rural workers enjoy much more
freedom of choosing their occupations among household farming, local non-farm
employed job, local non-farm self-employment and migration, whereas before the late
1970’s they had no choice but collectivised farming. Under these circumstances,
answering the following questions would be very meaningful economically and
socially: how the rural workers choose their occupations among local non-farm
employed jobs, local non-farm self-employment and migration besides household
farming? What are the factors affecting their choices? What are the main changes of
the factors that influence the Chinese rural non-farm job allocation after the 1990’s
further drastic market-oriented reform and economic growth?
Based on a rural household survey conducted in nine villages in Xinmin County that
lies in the northeast China in 1998, this paper intends to shed lights on the above
questions. Xinmin County is a 50-km away west neighbour of Shenyang – the
Liaoning province’s capital city. Shenyang is a huge city (with a population of 4
million) even by Chinese standard and the number 1 heavy industrial city of China.
As situated besides Shenyang, Xinmin is in good situation in term of the
transportation and communication, cultivable land and other natural resources. For
example, the arable land per rural capita is 4.9 Chinese Mus and per rural workers is
13.59 Chinese Mus. In other words, its supply of arable land is abundant comparing
with the provincial average condition and of course that of most other provinces of the
country (See Table 1). Consequently, its rural workers would not be forced by lack of
arable land to find jobs in local non-farm sectors or urban area, which happens in 2
many parts of China. The southeast part of the county, which lies in the east of Liaohe
River and the south of the railway, is the richest and developed area of Xinmin. The
main reason would be that this area is very close to Shenyang and oil field is situated
here. The rest of the county is much poorer and almost indifferent.