Farmers''''Income Sees Highest Increase

The National Bureau of Statistics said that the average annual income for farmers reached 2,936 yuan (US$355) in 2004, up 12%t over the previous year. Their income growth rate was 6.8% in real terms, the highest increase since 1997, according to the bureau's sampling survey. Income from agricultural production accounted for a great portion of the growth. In 2004, agricultural production income per rural household rose by an average of 13.3% to 1,746 yuan (US$211). Wage income also contri…     

Government Takes Steps to Increase Farmers＇ Incomes

Though 2004 saw a sharp rise in farmers‘ incomes,the income gap between rural and urban residents continued to widen. Chinese officials consider this a major obstacle to what they call the “building of aharmonious society.”     

Improving Equity and Sustainability of Social Protection System in China

The segmentation of the social protection system in China makes the system inequitable and inefficient.Employees in the public sector, particularly civil servants, are overprotected,while employees in the nonpublic sector,especially farmers and rural migrant workers,are underprotected. Segmented pension insurance system impedes labor mobility and increases administrative costs.The polices,such as implementation of the New Rural Cooperative Medical System,New Rural Old-age Insurance Scheme, as well as the polices to promote migrant workers to participate in social insurance programs for urban employees,help improve the equity of social protection. However,the competition between different local governments on increase in welfare and overburden of the local finance due to escalating social expenditures have affected the sustainability of social protection programs.The following measures need to be taken to solve such problems. First is to avoid using social insurance coverage as an indicator to evaluate the performance of government officials. Second,on the one hand, the social spending responsibilities of the central government need to increase,and on the other hand,public transfers to less development regions need to augment for enhancing social assistance and merit goods provision.Third is to reduce and remove the segmentation of social protection system through integrating or combining various segments under the same insurance program.     

The Change and Trend of Population Momentum in China since 60 Years

This paper calculates total population momentum,urban and rural population momentum and agespecific population momentum in China since 60 years.The main findings and conclusions are as follows:Firstly,the power of population momentum of the positive growth is disappearing rapidly;Secondly,the cities are in the turning point of population momentum from positive to the negative growth while China’ s population growth was wholly attributable to momentum in the rural areas;Thirdly,China’ s population momentum of positive growth mainly is due to substantial growth of the old.     

The Impacts of Rural Labor Migration on China’s Economy and Regional Disparities

This study constructed Computable General Equi-librium(CGE) model of four-regions and six-departments to analyze the impacts of rural labor migration on economic growth and regional disparities in China, based on 2000 and 2007 China’s Regional Input-Output Tables. The results showed that it had made China’s GDP respectively grow from 1.054% in 2000 to 5.565% in 2007.The impacts had the most obvious effects on the eastern region’s economic growth, the largest growth rate on the central region’s economic growth, and a negative-to-positive transformation on the western region’s economic growth. Compared with rural labor migration within regions, it widened gap among regions in 2007,making the disparities of eastern-central, eastern-western and central-western respectively grow by 5.738%,6.668% and 12.627%. These disparities were much higher than those in 2000.Meanwhile the migration led value added in nonagricultural sectors to increase and added value in agricultural sector to decrease. Also it left the greater impact on the service sector of the central region and greatest impact on the heavy industrial sectors of the western region.     

The Analysis on the Potential and Trend of the Non-agricultural Transfer of Chinese Rural Labor in the Following 20 Years

The non-agriculturalization of rural labors,which has caught much research attention,is an ecessary phenomenonin the process of urbanization. However, conflicts exsitson some basic issues due to the disagreement on the concept and data of the rural non-agricultural labor force,and there is alack of systemic and quantitative research on the potentials of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the future. By predicting the changing trend of future rural labor force, the demand for agricultural labors, and the trend of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer, this paper estimated the potentials of Chinese rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the next 20 years. It found that the surplus labors in the countryside will decrease annually, and its total number will range between 100 million and 250 million by 2030. Although there is still some increase potential of the stock of rural labor’s non-agricultural transfer in the near future, its increase will approach to zero in 10 years, and rural transferrable surplus labor will also approach to zero in about 5 to 10 years.     

How Wide Is the Income Gap in China?

Thanks to the introduction of the reform and opening up policy, China has achieved rapid economic development and recorded a significant rise in the income level of its urban and rural residents as a whole. However, the level of income varies from industry to industry, from rural to urban areas, and from region to region, and the gap is widening. Estimates show that the Gini coefficient (an economic indicator measuring disparities in personal income) in China was 0.424 in 1996, 0.456 in 1998,…     

Research on Health Status and Health Care of the Elderly in China

The issue of health status and care for the elderly in urban and rural areas is becoming increasingly serious in the rapid context of population aging in China.The paper analyzed the health status of urban and rural elderly in China in the two-week morbidity rate,prevalence rate of chronic diseases, disability status,self-rated health and healthy life expectancy of the elderly using the data from the 2006 Sampling Survey on the Status of Urban/ Rural Aged Population in China,the Fourth National Health Service Survey and the 2006 Second China National Sample Survey on Disability,to explore the current provision of sources of care for the elderly and try to make some policy recommendations about to improve the health and care for the elderly population facing the crisis of population aging.     

Economic Impact of Rural to Urban Labor Migration in China from 1991 to 2011

This paper quantitatively explores the size of rural labor force transfer and the specified flow nonagricultural industries, and the corresponding contribution of the increase of labor force utilization and productivity to economic growth from 1991 to 2011. The transfer size increased from 86.73 million people in 1990 to more than 250 million people in 2011. In 2011, 53.7% of the transfer labor worked in second industry, the others in third industry. By using growth accounting, this paper decomposes GDP growth into three growth components: working age population, labor force productivity and labor force utilization. Firstly, the paper calculated the real average annual growth rate of these three factor from 1991 to 2011 and their contributions to GDP growth. Then we calculated the changes of three factors and GDP'growth rates under the scenario without rural labor transfer, and finally got the contribution of rural labor transfer to GDP growth by comparing the difference between real and assumption scenario. The resuit shows that from 1991 to 2011, the real average annual growth rate of three factors were 1.3%, 9.3% and-0.3%, and their contribution the GDP growth was 12.2%, 90.2% and-2.4%separately. Under the scenario without rural labor transfer, the average annual growth rates of labor force productivity and labor force utilization would reduce to 8.9% and-1.4%, while the GDP average annual growth rate would reduce from 10.3% to 8.8%. The profound analysis in details shows that the transfer promoted labor force utilization by 30.7%and productivity by 23.9% annually on average, therefore promoting GDP by 63.7%, and GDP growth rate by 1.6% annually on average. On the one hand, through the utilizing of the ‘surplus rural labor force', the transfer promoted the labor force utilization, then made the potential population dividend brought by the increase of working age population size practical; on the other hand, through promoting of labor force industry structure, the transfer promoted the total productivity. The transfer has been and will be an important driving force of economic growth in China.     

Knowledge and Thinking on the Positive Effects of the Rural Labor Shortage

The academic circles hold a general view that the rural labor shortage brings out some positive effects. This paper analyzes the positive effects in the reality by means of empirical study, and analyzes the cause why the positive effects is difficult to come true effectively. At present, rural labor shortage cannot improve the rural migrant worker’s wages and welfare radically, cannot achieve the industrial upgrading effectively. The positive effects of the rural labor shortage would undergo a kind of slow and difficult process; the government should establish and improve the guidance and the regulative mechanism to stimulate the positive effects of the rural labor shortage.     

Support for the Elderly under the Market Transition in China

Modernization theory predicts loosening family ties and the gradual decline of family supports for the elderly. In a transitional economy,we argue that the rapidly growing income for adult children helps to maintain family supports for the elderly at a high level.Data from 2005 China’s 1%population survey shows that half of elderly people in towns or rural areas relied on family supports as the main source for living.The odds-ratio from Logistic regression shows that family supports were far greater for females than males and far greater for rural than for urban residents.Labor migration by a rural household member greatly enhanced the odds of family supports for the elderly in rural areas.In the cities,we found that the odds of family supports were the highest in the well-developed regions along the coast.As the population is rapidly aging, more government efforts are needed to expand socialized supports for the elderly, especially to the weakest.     

Cooperative Medical Service Benefits Rural Tibetans

Bnrgeoning cooperative medical services in rural China has greatly eased the economic pressures of poverty-stricken Tibetan farmers, for whom a major headache is the thought of “going to the hospital”.     

Cash Income Increases In Rural China

In the first three quarters of 2001, the per capita cash income of rural residents reached RMB1,641, RMB99 more than the same period last year, an increase of 6.4% (actual growth 5.2% considering inflation), according to a sampling survey of 68,000 rural residents in 31provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) conducted by the State Statistical Bureau of China. The increased income stemmed from four aspects:wages (8.8%), farming (6.4%), animal husbandry (8.4%) and family busin…     

Empirical Analysis on Impacts of Migration with and without Hukou Change on China's Provincial Economy

Based on the preliminary investigation of spatial and temporal patterns of migration with and without hukou (i.e.,the household registration system ) change and drawing on panel data in the past ten years,this paper uses random coefficient models to examine the impacts of migration on provincial economy growth in China.Analytical results show that:(a) migrations with hukou change across regions have been relatively stable,while migration without hukou change has increased rapidly and continuously since2000with extreme disparities across provinces;(b) the migration and mobility of the population is a Pareto improvement for China’s overall economy;(c)hukou in developed areas plays a role as the hourglass;(d) for most central provinces and some western provinces with large-size of outmigration, the negative impact of the loss of human capital due to large-scale out-migration on local economy began to come out;although outmigration has in general a positive mi pact,its contribution to local economic development is not as obvious as we expected.     

China’s Urban Population Exceeding Half: Challenges and Responses

China’s urban population exceeded rural population for the first time in Chinese history,reaching 51.27% in 2011.However,the level of urbanization has been exaggerated.If deducting the landless peasants under forced urbanization and migrant workers being not treated equally in the cities,China’ s actual urbanization level stood at 41.6% .There are challenges ahead.For example,an urban social value system has not been established in our society; we don’ t have a clear understanding of the role of cities and how to develop a city; urban management has not prepared well for urbanization development; and there is a long way to go in achieving equal treatment for all of the Urban residents.To cope with the challenges of urbanization,we need to improve the quality of urbanization,correctly understand the role of urbanization and its substance,follow the law of the urban development,and to explore building of an urban culture system.     

Dynamics of Nonagricultural Transfer of Rural Labour Force in China

since the reform and opening to the outside world there has been a rapid and continuing growth of nonagricultural transfer of rural labor force in China. The existing studies on this issue are largely confined to migration or regional transfer of rural labor force. Meantime, because of the limitations of available data, there are few studies with time-series analysis. In this article, following the definition of non-agricultural transfer of rural labour force. estimation is made of the amount and its time-series changes of non-agricultural transfer of rural labour force by using data derived from common primary statistics through simple calculations, with analysis of the dynamics of non-agricultural transfer of rural labour force in the context of China＇s economic development and policy changes.     

National Conference on Population and Family Planning Work Was Convened

National Conference on Population and Family Planning Work was convened on January 14, 2013 in Beijing. Main tasks of the conference were to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of the Party’s Eighteenth National Congress, summarize the work done in 2012, analyze current situation, clarify the tasks and objectives for 2013, further emancipate people’ mind, change people’s concepts and do real practical and solid work in order to accelerate the development of population and family planning undertaking and continuously make new accomplishments. Mrs. Wang Xia, Minister     

The Major Deviations of Urbanization in China

Urbanization is a major strategic issue in China’s economic transformation. This paper argues that China should coordinate the development of urbanization, industrialization,agricultural modernization,and informationalization,based on analysis of the five major deviations in the process of China’s urbanization.In order to advance the sustainable development of urbanization in China,following measures need to be taken by the government:balancing the development of large,medium-sized and small cities and towns,reforming the government’s fiscal and tax system,encouraging migrant workers and their families to work and live at local cities and towns,providing citizenship to migrant workers,and avoiding the inter-cities cutthroat competition on GDP.     

The Trend of China＇s Gini Coefficient： A Calculation by Subdividing People Groups of 2000~2009＇s National Statistic Data

To reduce the error factors on calculating China’s Gini Coefficient, this paper first subdivides people (data of 2000～2009) into multiple groups according to 3 gaps, ie. interregional, urban-rural and wealth , then sorts the groups of urban and rural according to each income level. The area method is used to calculate the Gini Coefficient. The finding shows that China’s Gini Coefficient is at a high level. It became bigger during the 10th Five-year Plan period but kept stable during the 11th Five-year Plan period. Under the rapid developmentofurbanization,theincome distribution in urban areas became one of the biggest contributive factors to Gini Coefficient.     

Market Access and the Border Effect of China’s Labor Migration

This paper introduces a new economy geography index,market access, to analyze the dynamic mechanism of labor migration in China based on the sample data from China’s labor cross-region flow 1998 ～ 2008.The empirical test prove the reversed U-shape of "Market access -Wage - Migration" and finds that market access in early period of China’s reform increased labor migration significantly from peripheral zone to the central area which caused China’s core-peripheral competition landscape.However with the appearance of"Lewis turning point"and disappearance of demographic dividend,the M-W-M mechanism tends to weaken.The calculation shows that the estimated value of hidden barriers against labor migration, i.e.border effect, is 3.94,and the values of border effects boast of a ladder-type rising trend from the east to the west in China.The labor market in the central area is relatively open while more isolated in peripheral zone.To change China’s center-periphery pattern into more balanced development among regions and to maintain the competitiveness of China’s industrial production,it is important for government to have proper policies to maintain free market and ensure efficient allocation of production factors.