California’s Aging Farm Labor Work Force Leaves Questions About The Future Of Agriculture

In 1979, the average California farmworker was 30 years old. Today it’s 40, with many still laboring well into their 60s and 70s, according to Edward Flores, faculty director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, who has studied these changes. Beginning in the 1970s, the U.S. experienced one of the largest migration waves in modern history: hundreds of thousands of young men and women came from Mexico to California, filling farm jobs that fueled the state’s agricultural boom. In 1969, the largest group of farmworkers was between 16 and 25. By the 1990s, it had shifted to 25 to 34, and the average age has only continued to rise. “If their parents have chronic health issues, struggle to make ends meet, and tell their kids to get an education instead, many children listen,” Flores said.

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