The commuting rural labour forces revealed by mobile phone trace data

Abstract

Many rural labour forces are involved in non-farm employment and follow a non-traditional lifestyle in developing countries. Among the different types of new livelihoods, rural–urban commuting has received relatively scant research. To fill this gap, this study takes advantage of mobile phone trace data, which has been widely used in urban studies but less so in rural topics. From one week’s mobile phone trace data in the city of Chengdu, China, the study identifies the home and work locations of 819,047 members of the rural labour force and visualizes the home–work location pairs. The graphic shows that 7% of the rural labour force commute to urban areas to work almost every day. Although the number is not large in itself, it reveals a shifting livelihood and lifestyle in developing countries which is worthy of attention in rural policy-making.