The Analysis on the Potential and Trend of the Non-agricultural Transfer of Chinese Rural Labor in the Following 20 Years

The non-agriculturalization of rural labors,which has caught much research attention,is an ecessary phenomenonin the process of urbanization. However, conflicts exsitson some basic issues due to the disagreement on the concept and data of the rural non-agricultural labor force,and there is alack of systemic and quantitative research on the potentials of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the future. By predicting the changing trend of future rural labor force, the demand for agricultural labors, and the trend of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer, this paper estimated the potentials of Chinese rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the next 20 years. It found that the surplus labors in the countryside will decrease annually, and its total number will range between 100 million and 250 million by 2030. Although there is still some increase potential of the stock of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the near future, its increase will approach to zero in 10 years, and rural transferrable surplus labor will also approach to zero in about 5 to 10 years.