The ongoing migration of rural labourers into China's cities and factories is a huge driver of the global economy and challenging Chinese pension reform efforts in ways that are not fully recognized outside of the country, argues Fan Gang, a respected academic.
This represents a demographic shift of proportions comparable, if not bigger, to the mass migration to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
So far, at least 200 million rural workers have moved to the industrial or service sector, mainly but not exclusively located in the coastal cities. The result is today over 60% of China's labour force is in sectors unrelated...
