Abstract: In the trend of village recession in China since entering the 21st Century, some villages losing or gaining large population face atomization and deintimation of acquaintance society, while some semi-industrialization villages remain vitalized and balanced. These semi-industrialization villages absorb a settled population based on labor-intensive industries, which offer jobs with minimal requirements as well as maximal flexibility. Rural traits and industrial features mutually embedded in semi-industrialization villages lead to the “defragmentation” mechanism in the allocation of labor force resources. On the one hand, compared with the depopulated villages, semi-industrial villages maintain a close community of social network, which provides the possibility of efficient dissemination of information in the labor market. On the other hand, compared with fully industrialized villages, semi-industrial villages reduces the risks of temporary employment for both parties because of the agreement on credit and rules. On the contrary, employment contracts in modern large-scale production can only be based on legal-rational authority and recognized by specific signees, contrary to the highly flexible “defragmentation” mechanism. Finally, the idle fragmented semi-labor force in these villages in the low stage of industrial development was integrated into the labor market, which changed the family income structure, intergenerational relationship and the expectation of buying houses in cities. Thus, semi-industrialization villages progress towards “folk-urban continuum”, rather than completely urbanization in well-industrialization villages or split urbanization in none-industrialization villages.

Key words: depopulation of village, idle labor force, rural industry, urbanization