Research研究

Mothers Chasing the Harvest Season追赶农时的母亲们

Seasonal women tea pickers in China: working conditions, the protection gap, and a five-point policy agenda. By Molly Yuan.中国的季节性采茶女工：劳动状况、保障缺口与五点政策议程。作者：Molly Yuan。

Abstract摘要

China's spring tea is picked by hand, to a standard no machine can meet, by a workforce that is mostly female, mostly over fifty, mostly migrant, and almost entirely uninsured. This paper assembles the published evidence on that workforce from official statistics, provincial agriculture departments, local governments, insurers, courts and peer-reviewed research; adds field evidence from one harvest in Yixing, Jiangsu, recorded in the documentary The Weight of Tea; sets out the structure of Chinese social protection as it reaches an older, rural, female, seasonal worker, and shows where it stops; compares the treatment of comparable workers under certified-tea standards, South Asian plantation law, Korea's Jeju haenyeo programmes, Japan's farmer pension and accident insurance, the European Union's seasonal-worker directive and Italian and Spanish law; and proposes five measures that a county, a court, a cooperative, a brand or a statistics bureau can adopt within one harvest cycle.中国的春茶靠手工采摘，标准是机器达不到的；采茶的人以女性、五十岁以上、外来务工者为主，几乎没有保险。本文汇集官方统计、省级农业部门、地方政府、保险公司、法院与同行评审研究中关于这支劳动力的已发表证据；加入纪录片《苦与香》记录的江苏宜兴一个茶季的田野证据；梳理中国社会保障体系对一位年长、农村、女性、季节性劳动者的实际覆盖，并指出它止步于何处；比较认证茶叶标准、南亚种植园法、韩国济州海女项目、日本农民年金与劳灾保险、欧盟季节工指令及意大利、西班牙法律对类似劳动者的处理；并提出县政府、法院、合作社、品牌或统计部门可以在一个茶季内采纳的五项措施。

Key findings主要发现

• A Ministry of Agriculture survey counted about 33 million tea pickers; in Zhejiang under 3 percent are under 35 and 80 percent come from other provinces, and local cohorts average 55 to 58 years old.农业农村部的调查统计约有3300万采茶工；浙江采茶工中35岁以下不足3%，80%来自外省，各地采茶队平均年龄55至58岁。¹²⁵
• Migrant pickers earn 180 to 200 yuan for a day of twelve hours or more, which works out below the provincial minimum hourly wage; the season is 15 to 40 days, and a bad spring halves it.外来采茶工干十二小时以上挣180至200元，折算低于省最低时薪；一季15至40天，一个坏春天就能让收入减半。³⁴
• Pickers hired by farming households are outside the regulations that provide employment injury insurance, and a Henan court has said so in a judgment; the 2026 rules for workers past retirement age and the nationwide occupational-injury pilot both stop at the formal employer.农户雇用的采茶工不在工伤保险条例的适用范围内，河南一家法院的判决已明确指出；2026年的超龄劳动者规定和全国职业伤害保障试点也都止步于正规用人单位。¹⁰⁹
• The resident pension pays roughly a tenth of a rural living; resident medical insurance paid 66 percent of in-list hospital costs in 2025, leaving more than a month's income out of pocket for an average stay.城乡居民养老金约为农村生活开支的十分之一；2025年居民医保住院费用目录内报销66%，一次平均住院的自付部分超过一个月的收入。¹¹
• Counties have already shown the fix is cheap: Anji's court-designed contract with mandatory accident insurance was signed by over 10,000 pickers in its first season.各县已经证明补救成本很低：安吉法院设计的、强制投保意外险的标准合同，第一季就有上万名采茶工签署。⁸

Contents目录

1. 1Introduction: the overlooked laborers导论：被忽视的劳动者
2. 2Field site and method田野地点与方法
3. 3One harvest in Yixing: what the film records宜兴的一个茶季：影片记录了什么
4. 4Who picks China's tea: the published evidence谁在采中国的茶：已发表的证据
5. 5The protection gap: what Chinese social protection offers a seasonal picker保障缺口：中国社会保障能给季节性采茶工什么
6. 6How others protect comparable workers其他国家如何保护类似的劳动者
7. 7Five recommendations五项建议
8. 8Conclusion: from being seen to being protected结论：从被看见到被保护
9. 9References参考文献

Method and evidence方法与证据

The paper combines three kinds of evidence: published statistics and documents, each read in full on the date given in the reference list; one season of field observation in Yixing, recorded on video and cited by timestamp; and the texts of the laws, regulations and standards discussed, cited by article. Where a widely repeated figure could not be traced to a primary source it was left out, and three figures used in the first edition and in early campaign materials have been withdrawn. Derived figures are marked as approximate. Nothing in the paper identifies an individual picker.本文结合三类证据：已发表的统计数据与文件（每一份都在参考文献所注日期当天完整阅读）；在宜兴的一季田野观察（以视频记录，按时间码引用）；以及所讨论的法律、法规与标准的原文（按条款引用）。无法追溯到一手来源的流行数字一律不用，第一版和早期宣传材料中使用的三个数字已经撤回。推算数字标注为约数。文中不指认任何一位采茶工。

Corrections勘误

Corrections and additional sources are welcome at欢迎来信指正或提供补充来源： hello@fairtea2030.com. The reference list is at the end of the online copy.参考文献列于在线版文末。