With the development of radioactive beam facilities, studies concerning the shell evolution of unstable nuclei have recently gained prominence. Intruder components, particularly s-wave intrusion, in the low-lying states of light neutron-rich nuclei near N=8 are of importance in the study of shell evolution. The use of single-nucleon transfer reactions in inverse kinematics has been a sensitive tool that can be used to quantitatively investigate the single-particle orbital component of selectively populated states. The spin-parity, spectroscopic factor (or single-particle strength), and effective single-particle energy can all be extracted from such reactions. These observables are often useful to explain the nature of shell evolution, and to constrain, check, and test the parameters used in nuclear structure models. In this article, the experimental studies of the intruder components in low-lying states of neutron-rich nuclei of He, Li, Be, B, and C isotopes using various single-nucleon transfer reactions are reviewed. The focus is laid on the precise determination of the intruder s-wave strength in low-lying states.