Tailored rural revitalization efforts

AFTER THE ANNUAL CENTRAL ECONOMIC Work Conference concluded on Wednesday, Wang Xiaoyi, a senior researcher on social studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, commented on its significance in an article published by China Youth Daily:

China has already become a middle-income economy and its farmers have long solved the problem of food and shelter. The next step is to revitalize the rural regions and coordinate balanced urban-rural development.

According to the experiences of developed countries, it is almost inevitable that the working-age rural population will migrate to the cities, which in turn leads to a hollowing out of rural areas. China has been experiencing such a process since the 1980s. With large numbers of residents migrating to cities to find work, many rural regions have become empty of working-age residents and many seniors who cannot leave home have become so-called empty nesters.