摘要
Studies on long-term wage levels of rural migrant workers are rarely found in relevant literature. On the basis of systematic collection of statistical data, this paper gives a quantitative estimation of the wage level of rural migrant workers in China and its evolution following pro market reforms since 1978. Results indicate that over the past 30 years, the nominal monetary wage of migrant workers maintained a 10% average annual increase. Real wage levels adjusted by the consumer price index （CPI） experienced three stages of evolution： initially, migrant workers earned a higher average monetary salary than formal employees, whereas this situation reversed in later stages.
