What is agricultural labor force and what are its characteristics?

Rural labor force refers to the rural population aged 16 and above who often participate in collective economic organizations (including township enterprises and institutions) and household sideline businesses.

At this stage, the characteristics and activities of rural labor force in China are mainly manifested in the following aspects:

① Rural labor mobility is multi-level, diversified and highly inclined. There are four main battlefields for labor transfer in China. One is the rural front. Some rural laborers are absorbed by township collective industries, while others are engaged in rural tertiary industries, such as transportation, commerce, catering and rural household industries. The second is the urban, industrial and mining, and service fronts. Industrial and mining temporary workers and contract workers have strong ability to absorb rural labor. The third is the urban-rural cross-front. Mainly in the construction industry all over the country. The fourth is the international front. Mainly to export laborers overseas. First of all, the high tilt is manifested in the fact that the agricultural labor force is mainly transferred to township enterprises, but the structure is not reasonable, and it is biased towards industries other than agricultural product processing industry; Geographically, the regional space of rural labor transfer is unbalanced, mainly concentrated in small towns and small and medium-sized cities, and the labor outflow is increasing from east to west.

② The structure of rural labor mobility has changed. First, the age structure of migrant workers has changed. In recent years, because a large number of farmers have gone out to work for a long time, it has been several decades, so the older age group of migrant workers is on the rise. The second is the change of gender structure. In recent years, among migrant workers, the proportion of men and women going out is not far from the actual proportion of men and women, and the proportion of men and women going out is basically the same. In a few places, because some coastal enterprises think that female workers are easier to manage, or some industries need more female workers, it is easier for female workers to find jobs, and there are more female migrant workers than men. Third, there is a big deviation between the employment structure and the output structure of rural labor. Fourth, there are more job transfers and less geographical transfers.

③ Rural labor mobility is part-time and extensive. First of all, rural labor mobility has the characteristics of part-time employment. In most areas, the vast majority of laborers transferred to non-agricultural industries are not completely divorced from agriculture, giving up land contracting rights, and still using leisure time or family-assisted labor to operate agriculture. A considerable amount of labor force belongs to seasonal transfer, busy farming, leisure work and commerce. Nearly 60% of the labor transferred from agriculture is "part-time". At the same time, rural labor mobility has extensive characteristics. First, the quality of labor force is poor. The second is that the employment field is mostly traditional labor-intensive industries. More than half of the employees are employed in labor-intensive industrial sectors such as construction, food, textiles, clothing and leather.