How Much Have the Wages of Unskilled Workers in China Increased? Data from Seven Factories in Guangdong, 2000-2004

China has experienced unprecedented economic growth for a long time. How long will such a high growth be sustained? The answer to this question, to a large extent, depends on whether China has exhausted its rural surplus labour. In this paper, I use an unique payroll data from seven large manufacturing factories to show that wages of unskilled labour in these factories have not increased significantly, if at all. These findings may shed some light on whether China has reached a "Lewistian Turning Point" and the extent to which Chinese economic growth may be sustainable. ∗Department of Economics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia. E-mail: [email protected].