In upper middle-income countries this trend is even stronger. Yet the proportion of young people who are professional workers, which is the core category of wage employees, is only marginally larger in MICs than in LICs. In spite of low earnings, young people in the rural non-farm sector are on average much better off than their counterparts in farming and are closer to their urban contemporaries in their employment and poverty profiles (Figure 6.22.). Of youth in rural areas who work in non-farm activities 34% are wage employed, compared to only 10% of rural youth working in farming.