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China: Migration and Inequality

Migration has been the driving force behind China's economic transformation over the past few decades but could the vast supply of cheap labour in China be running out?

Migration of impoverished rural peasants has been the driving force behind the China's economic transformation over the last few decades. The 主播大秀's Justin Rowlatt ventures deep into the countryside to find communities where life would be recognisable to those from the time of the emperors.

Kam Wing Chan, a Professor of Geography at University of Washington, explains how Chinese labour is going to start becoming increasingly scarce, which is going to have profound effects not just in China, but on the world.

And Oxford University classicist Armand D'Angour describes the powerful attraction of civilisation's earliest cities.

(Image: Chinese workers in a textile factory. Credit STR/AFP/Getty Images)

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18 minutes

Last on

Tue 27 Nov 2012 23:32GMT

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  • Tue 27 Nov 2012 08:32GMT
  • Tue 27 Nov 2012 13:32GMT
  • Tue 27 Nov 2012 23:32GMT

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