This Day, That Year

Item from Jan 29, 1988, in China Daily: Marching into a new life - 79 young women from Sichuan province, most of them junior or senior middle school graduates, came to Beijing last week to serve as housemaids, which are in great demand in the capital.

The country's fast growing middle class and the recent relaxation on the decades-long family planning policy have driven up the demand for housekeepers or nannies to take care of new mothers and their babies in cities nationwide.

Many new mothers in China will hire yue sao, or nannies for the baby and mother, in the first few months after the birth of the child. These highly sought nannies can command salaries that are much higher than those of white-collar workers, according to childcare and homecare professionals.