The Shuitun job fair on the outskirts of Beijing was bustling with job seekers even before the crack of dawn one April morning. Like many other job markets offering short-term employment across Beijing, it was packed with seniors. Mostly men, slightly hunched, dressed in dark clothes and trousers. They carried canvas bags with an assortment of tools, shovels, measuring rulers and gloves. Women dressed more brightly. All had tanned faces, which were coarse and wrinkled. Their hands revealed years of toil: thick knuckles, hardened palms.
These elderly migrant workers are part of the generation indispensable to China's economic growth. Most of them were born in the 1950s and 1960s and went out to work in the 1980s and 1990s when China began its reform and opening-up. According to data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics in April, the country had 300 million migrant workers in 2021, with those over the age of 50 accounting for 27.3%, or around 80 million.
