Based on the recent three population censuses of China, in this article, we used life table technique to compute the expected years of working life for the Chinese labor force in the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in 1982, 1990 and 2000. We found, after two decades of economic reform, the expected years of working life in the primary industry decreased from 32.04 and 26.74 years for males and females in 1982 to 27.07 and 26.12 years, respectively, in 2000. For the tertiary industry, the expected years of working life increased from 5.70 and 2.94 years for males and females in 1982 to 8.05 and 5.66 years in 2000, respectively. For the secondary industry, there was virtually no change in terms of the expected years of working life.