The post-199os economic boom in China is largely associated with an increasing rural-urban divide and a decline in formal wage employment in the urban sector. The case of workers in the Shenzhen special economic zone in south China is representative of this trend. When agriculture was deprioritised there was an exodus to the cities. The “peasant workers” in Shenzhen are forced to pay taxes and fees in their native villages but are not officially accepted as urban workers and cannot enjoy the urban-based facilities that the latter do.
