Young migrants prefer city

BEIJING - The latest survey on migrant workers' employment showed that the younger generation of farmers-turned-workers are not willing to go back to cultivating farmland as their parents do.

The survey, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' population and labor economics institute, covered 1,200 workers - including young and old, and rural and urban - at 60 enterprises in Chongqing and Tianjin between March and April.

Through comparison, researchers found only 17 percent of the young migrant workers surveyed (aged 24 and under) were willing to return home to rural areas if they could not survive in cities. More than 80 percent of these young migrant workers wanted to stay in cities no matter what happened to them.