Emerging in-migration of urban young adults engaging in rural tourism in China

Abstract

During the rapid urbanisation of China in recent decades, a vast proportion of the labour force left rural hometowns to find employment in cities. In the context of rural revitalisation and tourism development in China, rural tourism is booming, bringing many tourism-related jobs to the countryside. As a result, some young urban adults have moved to work in rural areas. Based on in-depth interviews in Su village in Nanjing, China, this study seeks to investigate the motivations of those who choose to work in the countryside and the connections between this and stages in the life course of urbanites in the 90s generation, a cohort that is quite distinct from older cohorts. This study finds that the motivations of these younger workers range from career development and cost reduction to a preference for a rural lifestyle. Engaging in tourism-related work in rural areas is associated with two life courses (work career and individual/family pathway). This study also finds that the cohort working rural tourism in rural areas is differentiated: while some pursue career development, others aim to escape certain pressures and obligations by ‘lying flat’ in the more congenial rural setting where living costs are lower than in cities. Pro-tourism rural areas, with an acceptable distance from cities, become valuable places for these youth to resist or balance their life in front of increasingly competitive urban life during their adult transitional period.