C. P. Chandrasekhar and J. Ghosh -
2006
Rising
inequality in China
THERE is much international
interest in China's economy, because of its
remarkable growth
over the past quarter century. Recently, attention has also focussed on
the fact that this
growth has been associated with significant increases in inequality in
both income and
wealth distribution, which were relatively low during the central
planning period.
From
the World Institute for Development Economic Research
New Light on China’s Rural Elites
Bjorn Gustafsson1 and Ding Sai - October 2010
This paper analyses political elites,
economic elites, hybrid elite households and non-elite
households in rural China using household data for 1995 and 2002. We
seek to understand the
determinants of belonging to each of the three elite categories. We
find that education and
military experience positively affect the probability of being a
political elite. The probability of
becoming an economic elite is linked to the age of the head of
household and to the income
level of the county, indicating that opportunities to become an
economic elite have increased
over time, but in a spatially uneven way.
We also investigate disparities in household per capita income as well
as in household per capita
wealth. Asia Market Transition Theory, we find that the relationship
between education and the
household’s economic status became stronger from 1995 to 2002. This
theory also predicts that
payoffs from belonging to the political elite decrease during
transition towards market economy.
Our results show that in the richest counties in 2002, the economic
gain from being a political
elite household was higher than elsewhere and higher than in
high-income counties observed in
1995. We also found that although elite households on average have a
better economic situation
than non-elite households, income inequality and household wealth
inequality in rural China
would decrease only marginally if such disparities were to vanish. In
contrast the spatial
dimension is much more important for income inequality and for wealth
inequality in rural
China.
Alice H. Amsden - October 2010
Elites and property rights
An elite derives its status from its
relationship to property, whether physical or human
capital. While stable property rights are necessary for everyday
business, unstable
property rights that result in major institutional changes (such as
land reform) may have
a positive impact on economic development. When are the ‘wrong’
property rights
right? Institutional changes have a positive impact on economic
development when a
country’s elite can manage them. To support this generalization we
examine the
managerial capacity associated with elite status, highlighting which
capabilities enable
them to control changes in property rights regimes to their individual
and national
advantage. We compare how nationalization of foreign firms, a radical
change in
property rights, was managed in Argentina, China, Korea and Taiwan
after the Second
World War.
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From
the Institute of World Economics and Politics
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, CHINA （2007）
Transition and Health Status in China
By Lu Aiguo
Transition to market in China has been commonly viewed as highly
successful.
Compared with other transition economies, China’s economic performance
is indeed
quite outstanding. Since the onset of the reforms in 1978, GDP has
grown at the
annual rate of about 9%, which is now 10 times as it was in 1979. Per
capita national
income grew from less than 100 in 1978 to over 1,500 USD in 2006. As a
result,
China undoubtedly becomes wealthier and the overall standards of living
are
improved notably.
According to conventional wisdom, rapid growth of national wealth
should be
followed by favorable human development records, especially the rising
health status
of the population. This paper discusses health outcomes during market
transition in
China. After a brief presentation of the health profile, an assessment
of government
policies in health sector is provided which are deemed largely
responsible for the
changes in health status. In the concluding remarks, a few lessons are
drawn from the
Chinese experiences in health sector during transition.
|
From The
New York Times - 30 April 2007
Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China
By David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo
ZHANGQIU, China, April 28 — As American food safety regulators head to
China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into
pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in
this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is
routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly
supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap
additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not
provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders
and agricultural workers here.
|
From United Nations University
World
Institute for Development Economic Research:
DP2004/10
Guanghua Wan,
Ming Lu and Zhao Chen:
Globalization
and Regional Income Inequality: Evidence from within China
(PDF
305KB)
China’s recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its
integration into the
world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of
globalization on the
already rising inter-region income inequality in China. This paper
discusses China’s
globalization process and estimates an income generating function,
incorporating trade
and FDI variables. It then applies the newly developed Shapley value
decomposition
technique to quantify the contributions of globalization, along with
other variables, to
regional inequality. It is found that (a) globalization constitutes a
positive and
substantial share to regional inequality and the share rises over time;
(b) capital is one of
the largest and increasingly important contributor to regional
inequality; (c) economic
reform characterized by privatization exerts a significant impact on
regional inequality;
and (d) the relative contributions of education, location, urbanization
and dependency
ratio to regional inequality have been declining.
DP2003/61
Songhua Lin:
International
Trade, Location and Wage Inequality in China
(PDF
304KB)
Models of economic geography predict that transportation costs directly
affect demand
for goods and the supply of intermediate inputs. One of the reasons
that international
trade is concentrated in the coastal provinces of China is that they
have lower
transportation costs in transporting goods to other countries than do
provinces in the
interior. This paper examines the relationship between the provincial
wage rate and each
province’s access to international markets, and to suppliers of
intermediate inputs. A
gravity equation is first estimated to construct these ‘market access’
and ‘supplier
access’ variables. In the second stage, the effect of market access and
supplier access on
the wage rate is estimated. It is found that about one quarter of the
provincial wage
differences in the coastal provinces and 15 per cent of the wage
differences in the
interior provinces can be explained by these economic geography
variables.
RP2004/52
John Knight, Li Shi and Zhao Renwei:
Divergent
Means and Convergent Inequality of Incomes among the Provinces and
Cities of
Urban China
(PDF 132KB)
Two precisely comparable national household surveys relating to 1988
and 1995 are
used to analyse changes in the inequality of income in urban China.
Over those seven
years province mean income per capita grew rapidly but diverged across
provinces,
whereas intra-province income inequality grew rapidly but converged
across provinces.
The reasons for these trends are explored by means of various forms of
decomposition
analysis. Comparisons are also made between the coastal provinces and
the inland
provinces. The decompositions show the central role of wages, and
within wages profitrelated
bonuses, together with the immobility of labour across provinces, in
explaining
mean income divergence. The timing of economic reforms helps to explain
the
convergence of intra-province income inequality. Policy conclusions are
drawn.
RP2004/51
Guanghua Wan and Zhangyue Zhou:
Income
Inequality in Rural China: Regression-based Decomposition Using
Household Data
(PDF 109KB)
A considerable literature exists on the measurement of income
inequality in China and
its increasing trend. Much less is known, however, about the driving
forces of this trend
and their quantitative contributions. Conventional decompositions, by
factor
components or by population subgroups, only provide limited information
on the
determinants of income inequality. This paper represents an early
attempt to apply the
regression-based decomposition framework to the study of inequality
accounting in
rural China, using household level data. It is found that geography has
been the
dominant factor but is becoming less important in explaining total
inequality. Capital
input emerges as a most significant determinant of income inequality.
Farming structure
is more important than labour and other inputs in contributing to
income inequality
across households.
RP2004/50
Ravi Kanbur and Xiaobo Zhang:
Fifty
Years of Regional Inequality in China: A Journey through Central
Planning,
Reform, and Openness
(PDF 276KB)
This paper constructs and analyses a long-run time-series for regional
inequality in
China from the Communist Revolution to the present. There have been
three peaks of
inequality in the last fifty years, coinciding with the Great Famine of
the late 1950s, the
Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, and finally the period
of openness and
global integration in the late 1990s. Econometric analysis establishes
that regional
inequality is explained in the different phases by three key policy
variables; the ratio of
heavy industry to gross output value, the degree of decentralization,
and the degree of
openness.
RP2005/38
Jiao Wang, David Mayes, and Guanghua Wan:
Income Distribution and
Labour Movement in China after WTO Membership: A CGE
Analysis
(PDF 329KB)
Using a CGE model, PRCGEM, with an updated 2002 I/O table, this paper
explores
how earnings will be affected in each of 40 separate industries across
31 regions (or 8
regional blocks) of China for the period 2002–07. Labour movement
between regions
within China is considered. It is found that the direct contribution of
WTO membership
is small to the whole economy in terms of growth and development. Real
GDP will rise
only 6.48 per cent (5.6 per cent) in the pure WTO short-run (long-run)
shock. Full
economic structure change besides WTO shock makes regional output
better-off,
especially the coastal regions where the economies are well
established. Regional labour
movement increases by 69.2 per cent in the long-run closure of full
economic structural
change during the transition period. When regional labour movement is
considered, it is
found that the Gini coefficient is slightly decreased.
RP2006/66
Min-Dong Paul Lee:
Widening
Gap of Educational Opportunity? A Longitudinal Study of Educational
Inequality
in China
(PDF 221KB)
This study attempts to convey an accurate and dynamic account of
educational
inequality in China during the last decade. The study finds that there
is clear evidence of
rapid expansion of education, and younger students all over China are
benefiting from
the expansion. One of the most notable achievements is the virtual
elimination of gender
bias against girls in educational attainment. However, analysis of
province-level school
enrolment data over the last decade shows evidence of persistent
regional inequality of
educational attainment. Students from inland provinces continue to face
strong
structural inequality in educational opportunity, and this structural
inequality becomes
more pronounced as they progress to higher grades. Moreover,
inter-cohort analysis
reveals that the inter-provincial inequality in upper grades is
increasing for younger
cohort of students, meaning that educational inequality in China is
deteriorating further.
Lastly, a decomposition analysis shows that the causes of
inter-provincial educational
inequality are quite complex and cannot simply be explained by the
urban-bias
hypothesis that is often suggested as the main source of income
inequality.
RP2006/63
Guanghua Wan:
Poverty
Accounting by Factor Components: With an Empirical Illustration Using
Chinese
Data
(PDF 193KB)
The purpose of this paper is to develop two poverty decomposition
frameworks and to
illustrate their applicability. A given level of poverty is broadly
decomposed into an
overall inequality component and an overall endowment component in
terms of income
or consumption determinants or input factors. These components are
further
decomposed into finer components associated with individual inputs.
Also, a change in
poverty is decomposed into components attributable to the growth and
redistributions of
factor inputs. An empirical illustration using Chinese data highlights
the importance of
factor redistributions in determining poverty levels and poverty
changes in rural China.
RP2006/57
Zhicheng Liang:
Threshold
Estimation on the Globalization-Poverty Nexus: Evidence from China
(PDF
164KB)
China has experienced rapid integration into the global economy and
achieved
remarkable progress in poverty reduction over the last two decades. In
this paper, by
employing panel data covering twenty-five Chinese provinces over the
period of 1986-
2002, and applying the endogenous threshold regression techniques, we
empirically
investigate the globalization-poverty nexus in China, paying particular
attention to the
nonlinearity of the impact of globalization on the poor. Estimation
results provide
strong evidence to suggest that there exists a threshold in the
relationship between
globalization and poverty: globalization is good for the poor only
after the economy has
reached a certain threshold level of globalization.
RP2006/43
Justin Yifu Lin and Peilin Liu:
Economic
Development Strategy, Openness and Rural Poverty: A Framework and
China’s
Experiences
(PDF 368KB)
This paper argues that both openness and poverty in a country are
endogenously
determined by the country’s long-term economic development strategy.
Development
strategies can be broadly divided into two mutually exclusive groups:
(i) the comparative
advantage-defying (CAD) strategy, which attempts to encourage firms to
deviate from the
economy’s existing comparative advantages in their entry into an
industry or choice of
technology; and (ii) the comparative advantage-following (CAF)
strategy, which attempts
to facilitate the firms’ entry into an industry or choice of technology
according to the
economy’s existing comparative advantages.
RP2006/42
Yin Zhang and Guanghua Wan:
Globalization
and the Urban Poor in China
(PDF 273KB)
This paper examines the distributional impact of globalization on the
poor in urban
China. Employing the kernel density estimation technique, we recovered
from
irregularly grouped household survey data the income distribution for
29 Chinese
provinces for 1988-2001. Panels of the income shares of the poorest 20,
10 and 5 per
cent of the urban residents were then compiled. In a fixed-effect
model, two of the
central conclusions of Dollar and Kraay (2002)—that ‘the incomes of the
poor rise
equi-proportionately with average income’ and that trade openness has
little
distributional effect on poverty—were revisited. Our results lend
little support to either
of the Dollar-Kraay conclusions, but instead indicate that average
income growth is
associated with worsening income distribution while globalization in
general, and trade
openness in particular, raises the income shares of the poor. It is
also found that
openness to trade and openness to FDI have differential distributional
effects. The
beneficial effect of trade was not restricted to the coastal provinces
only, but also
weakened significantly after 1992. These findings are robust to allow
for nonlinearity in
the effect of globalization and to control for the influence of several
other variables.
RP2006/65
Yiu Por Chen, Mingxing Liu, and Qi Zhang:
Development of Financial
Intermediation and the Dynamics of Rural-Urban
Inequality: China, 1978-98
(PDF 352KB)
Using China as a test case, this paper empirically investigates how the
development of
financial intermediation affects rural-urban income disparity (RUID).
Using 20-year
province level panel data, we find that the level of financial
development is positively
correlated with RUID. Examining two subperiods, 1978-88 and 1989-98, we
test several
competing hypotheses that may affect RUID. We find that the increase of
RUID may be
explained by fiscal policy during the first period and financial
intermediates during the
second period. In addition, we show that the direction of the Kuznets
effect on RUID is
sensitive to changes in government development policies. The rural
development policies
during the first period may have enhanced the rural development and
reduced RUID.
However, the financial intermediary policy during the second period
focused on urban
development and increased both urban growth and intra-urban
inequalities, thus leading to
an increase in RUID. Finally, we show that RUID is insensitive to the
provincial industrial
structure (the share of primary industry in GDP). These results are
consistent with the
….
RP2005/56
Yin Zhang and Guanghua Wan:
Why
Do Poverty Rates Differ From Region to Region? The Case of Urban China
(PDF 143KB)
This paper proposes a semi-parametric method for poverty decomposition,
which
combines the data-generating procedure of Shorrocks and Wan (2004) with
the Shapley
value framework of Shorrocks (1999). Compared with the popular method
of Datt and
Ravallion (1992), our method is more robust to misspecification errors,
does not require
the predetermination of functional forms, provides better fit to the
underlying Lorenz
curve and incorporates the residual term in a rigorous way. The method
is applied to
decomposing variations of urban poverty across the Chinese provinces
into three
components – contributions by the differences in average nominal
income, inequality
and poverty line. The results foreground average income as the key
determinant of
poverty incidence, but also attach importance to the influence of
distribution. The
regional pattern of the decomposition suggests provincial groupings
based not entirely
on geographical locations.
DP2001/21
Li Shi - 2001
Changes in Poverty
Profile in China
(PDF 163KB)
DP2003/61
Songhua Lin - 2003
International Trade,
Location and Wage Inequality in China
(PDF 304KB)
Models of economic geography predict that transportation costs directly
affect demand
for goods and the supply of intermediate inputs. One of the reasons
that international
trade is concentrated in the coastal provinces of China is that they
have lower
transportation costs in transporting goods to other countries than do
provinces in the
interior. This paper examines the relationship between the provincial
wage rate and each
province’s access to international markets, and to suppliers of
intermediate inputs. A
gravity equation is first estimated to construct these ‘market access’
and ‘supplier
access’ variables. In the second stage, the effect of market access and
supplier access on
the wage rate is estimated. It is found that about one quarter of the
provincial wage
differences in the coastal provinces and 15 per cent of the wage
differences in the
interior provinces can be explained by these economic geography
variables.
DP2002/10
Jyotsna Jalan and Martin Ravallion - 2002
Household Income
Dynamics in Rural China
(PDF 343KB)
It is well known in theory that certain forms of non-linear dynamics in
household
incomes can yield poverty traps and distribution-dependent growth. The
potential
implications for policy are dramatic: effective social protection from
transient poverty
will be an investment with lasting benefits, and pro-poor
redistribution will promote
aggregate economic growth. We test for non-linearity in the dynamics of
household
expenditures and incomes using panel data for rural south-west China.
While we find
evidence of non-linearity, there is no sign of a dynamic poverty trap.
Existing private
and social arrangements in this setting appear to protect vulnerable
households from the
risk of destitution. However, the concavity we find in the recursion
diagram does imply
that the speed of recovery from an income shock is lower for the poor,
and that current
inequality reduces growth in mean incomes.
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UNDP
China Human Development Report 2005 - Chapter II
The
state of equity in China: income and wealth distribution
To analyze the
particularities of Chinese society
today, this report proposes an analytical framework to
answer two questions: who is the subject of equality,
and what is the object of equality?. The
subject of equality can be divided into three major
classifications: urban and rural residents, residents in
different regions, and different population groups. The
population groups include males vs. females, rural migrants vs. local
urban residents, and vulnerable groups
vs. ordinary groups. The object of equality comprises
the following major variables: income, wealth, job opportunity
and wage, education, health, social security, and
government fiscal spending. The subject and the object
of equality together constitute a matrix, which clearly
indicates the dimensions of the inequality highlighted
by this report.
-
"The reason why people are restless is because among
them there are the rich and the poor. When
the poor people are so poor as to be unable to sustain life while the
rich people, often complaining about
being sought after, come up with mean measures to avoid giving them
aid, the poor set their minds on
scrambling for wealth."
Quoted from Ri Zhi Lu (Records of Things Knowledgeable in a Day),
Volume 6. by Gu Yanwu
1613-1682), the Ming Dynasty
|
Xin Meng, Xiaodong Gong
and Youjuan Wang
Impact of
Income Growth and Economic Reform
on Nutrition Intake in Urban China: 1986-2000
From The Institute for the
Study of Labor, Bonn - 2004
This paper investigates how estimates of the extent and trend of income
poverty in China
between 1990 and 2001 vary as a result of alternative plausible
assumptions concerning
key parameters that influence the poverty line and estimated
consumption levels. Our
methodology focuses on the following sources of variation: alternative
purchasing power
parity conversion factors, alternative estimates of true per capita
private incomes,
alternative estimates of the share of income assumed to be consumed by
the lower
income groups, and alternative consumer price indices. We find that
regardless of the
assumptions we make within a reasonable range, a remarkable reduction
in consumption
poverty occurred in China during the 1990s. However, estimates of the
extent of Chinese
poverty in any year are greatly influenced by the assumptions made.
China’s record of
reducing aggregate deprivations is encouraging, but must be interpreted
with care,
especially in view of some recent evidence concerning possible
increases in consumption
poverty (especially in urban areas) and worsening nutrition.
|
Xin Meng, R. Gregory and
Youjuan Wang
Poverty,
Inequality, and Growth
in Urban China, 1986-2000
From The Institute for the
Study of Labor, Bonn - 2005
Although urban China has experienced spectacular income growth over the
last two
decades, increases in inequality, reduction in social welfare
provision, deregulation of grain
prices, and increases in income uncertainty in the 1990s have increased
urban poverty.
Using a large repeated cross-section household survey data from 1986 to
2000, this study
maps out the change in income, inequality, and poverty over the 15 year
period and
investigates the determinants of poverty. It is found that the increase
in the poverty rate in the
1990s is associated with the increase in the relative food price, and
the need to spend on
education, housing and medical care which were previously paid by the
state. In addition, the
increase in the saving rate of the poor due to an increase in income
uncertainty contributes
significantly to the increase in poverty measured in terms of
expenditure. Even though
income growth reduces poverty, the radical reform measures implemented
in the 1990s have
sufficiently offset this gain that urban poverty is higher in 2000 than
in 1986.
|
Sanjay G. Reddy and
Camelia Minoiu
Chinese
Poverty:
Assessing the Impact of Alternative Assumptions
Dept. of Economics, Barnard
College, Columbia University and University Center for Human Values,
Princeton University - 2005
This paper investigates how estimates of the extent and trend of income
poverty in China
between 1990 and 2001 vary as a result of alternative plausible
assumptions concerning
key parameters that influence the poverty line and estimated
consumption levels. Our
methodology focuses on the following sources of variation: alternative
purchasing power
parity conversion factors, alternative estimates of true per capita
private incomes,
alternative estimates of the share of income assumed to be consumed by
the lower
income groups, and alternative consumer price indices. We find that
regardless of the
assumptions we make within a reasonable range, a remarkable reduction
in consumption
poverty occurred in China during the 1990s. However, estimates of the
extent of Chinese
poverty in any year are greatly influenced by the assumptions made.
China’s record of
reducing aggregate deprivations is encouraging, but must be interpreted
with care,
especially in view of some recent evidence concerning possible
increases in consumption
poverty (especially in urban areas) and worsening nutrition.
|
Xin Meng, Xiaodong Gong
and Youjuan Wang
Impact of
Income Growth and Economic Reform
on Nutrition Intake in Urban China: 1986-2000
From The Institute for the
Study of Labor, Bonn - 2004
Although urban China has experienced a rapid income growth over the
last twenty years,
nutrition intake for the low income group declined in the 1990s. Does
this imply a zero or
negative income elasticity for the low income group? This paper
examines this issue using
large representative sample of repeated cross-sectional data for the
period 1986-2000. It is
found that income elasticities of calorie consumption for urban
households are far from zero,
and the lower the income level the higher the income elasticity. The
main reason for the
reduction in calorie consumption for the low income group in the early
1990s was a sharp
increase in food price. In addition, in the mid to late 1990s large
scale social welfare reform
increased households’ need to pay for education, medical, housing
expenses and the need
to save for future consumption and income uncertainty. These factors
seem to have played
an important role in suppressing nutrition consumption of the low
income group during this
period.
|
|
Xin Meng,
Xiaodong Gong and Youjuan Wang
Impact of
Income Growth and Economic Reform
on Nutrition Intake in Urban China: 1986-2000
From The
Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn - 2004
This paper investigates how estimates of the extent and trend of income
poverty in China
between 1990 and 2001 vary as a result of alternative plausible
assumptions concerning
key parameters that influence the poverty line and estimated
consumption levels. Our
methodology focuses on the following sources of variation: alternative
purchasing power
parity conversion factors, alternative estimates of true per capita
private incomes,
alternative estimates of the share of income assumed to be consumed by
the lower
income groups, and alternative consumer price indices. We find that
regardless of the
assumptions we make within a reasonable range, a remarkable reduction
in consumption
poverty occurred in China during the 1990s. However, estimates of the
extent of Chinese
poverty in any year are greatly influenced by the assumptions made.
China’s record of
reducing aggregate deprivations is encouraging, but must be interpreted
with care,
especially in view of some recent evidence concerning possible
increases in consumption
poverty (especially in urban areas) and worsening nutrition.
-------- |
Xin Meng,
R. Gregory and Youjuan Wang
Poverty,
Inequality, and Growth
in Urban China, 1986-2000
From The
Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn - 2005
Although urban China has experienced spectacular income growth over the
last two
decades, increases in inequality, reduction in social welfare
provision, deregulation of grain
prices, and increases in income uncertainty in the 1990s have increased
urban poverty.
Using a large repeated cross-section household survey data from 1986 to
2000, this study
maps out the change in income, inequality, and poverty over the 15 year
period and
investigates the determinants of poverty. It is found that the increase
in the poverty rate in the
1990s is associated with the increase in the relative food price, and
the need to spend on
education, housing and medical care which were previously paid by the
state. In addition, the
increase in the saving rate of the poor due to an increase in income
uncertainty contributes
significantly to the increase in poverty measured in terms of
expenditure. Even though
income growth reduces poverty, the radical reform measures implemented
in the 1990s have
sufficiently offset this gain that urban poverty is higher in 2000 than
in 1986.
------------ |
Sanjay G.
Reddy and Camelia Minoiu
Chinese
Poverty:
Assessing the Impact of Alternative Assumptions
Dept. of
Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University and University Center
for Human Values,
Princeton University - 2005
This paper investigates how estimates of the extent and trend of income
poverty in China
between 1990 and 2001 vary as a result of alternative plausible
assumptions concerning
key parameters that influence the poverty line and estimated
consumption levels. Our
methodology focuses on the following sources of variation: alternative
purchasing power
parity conversion factors, alternative estimates of true per capita
private incomes,
alternative estimates of the share of income assumed to be consumed by
the lower
income groups, and alternative consumer price indices. We find that
regardless of the
assumptions we make within a reasonable range, a remarkable reduction
in consumption
poverty occurred in China during the 1990s. However, estimates of the
extent of Chinese
poverty in any year are greatly influenced by the assumptions made.
China’s record of
reducing aggregate deprivations is encouraging, but must be interpreted
with care,
especially in view of some recent evidence concerning possible
increases in consumption
poverty (especially in urban areas) and worsening nutrition.
---------------------- |
From The New York Times ( December 2004)
The
Great Divide | Talking Back to Power
Article in series The Great Divide, on widening gap between China's
rural poor and urban rich, examines full-scale riot in Wanzhou, one of
many mass protests springing up around country; China is having more
trouble maintaining social order than at any time since Tiananmen
Square democracy movement in 1989; many protests are being touched off
by government corruption, police abuse and inequality of riches
accruing to powerful and well connected; protests are numerous, in part
because they are small, local expressions of discontent over layoffs,
land seizures, use of natural resources, ethnic tension, misspent state
funds, forced immigration, unpaid wages or police killings; in Wanzhou,
minor street quarrel between street porter and another man provoked
thousands of people to demonstate in steets after second man boasted
that he was ranking government official and beat porter with stick;
such mass protests show how people with different causes can seize
opportunity to press their grievances together
THE GREAT DIVIDE | A MISSING GENERATION
Rural
Exodus for Work Fractures Chinese Family
December 21, 2004
HUANGHU, China - Yang Shan is in fourth grade and spends a few hours
every day practicing her Chinese characters. Her script is neat and
precise, and one day, instead of drills, she wrote letters to her
parents and put them in the mail.
"How is your health?" she asked.
Shan, who is 10, then added a more pointed question: "What is happening
with our family?"
Her parents had left in March. Their absence was not new in Shan's
short life. Her father, Yang Heqing, has left four times for work. He
is now in Beijing on a construction site. Her mother, Ran Heping, has
left three times. She is in a different city as a factory worker.
Over the years, Shan's parents have returned to this remote village to
bring money and reunite the family. They leave when the money runs out,
as it did in March. Her father had medical debts and needed cash to see
another doctor. Shan's school fees were due, and her grandparents also
needed help.
"I think they are suffering in order to make my life better," Shan said
of her parents. She added a familiar Chinese expression: "They are
eating bitterness."
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From The Economist ( 9 Sept. 2004 )
China,
no right to work
A survey of five large
cities conducted by academics at the University of Michigan and the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found unemployment rose overall from
7.2% to 12.9% between 1996 and 2001.
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A tale of two countries
It is supposed to be a
communist state, but inequality in China is growing at a remarkable
rate - and it is the rural population that is bearing the strain. Jon
Watts meets Zhang Wanwei, one of the millions of workers who have
migrated from the country to the city in search of a better life
November 9, 2004 - The Guardian
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February 2004
The Evolution of Income
Inequality in Rural China
D. Benjamin, L. Brandt,
and J. Giles
We document the evolution of the income distribution in rural China,
from 1987 through 1999, with an emphasis on investigating increases in
inequality associated with transition and economic development. With a
backdrop of perceived improvements in average living standards, we ask
whether increases of inequality may have offset, or even threaten
welfare gains associated with economic reforms. The centerpiece of the
paper is an empirical analysis based on a set of household surveys
conducted by the China’s Research Center for Rural Economy (RCRE) in
Beijing.
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Róbinson Rojas (1997)
The other
side of China's miracle: unemployment and inequality
Since the
counter-revolution took over in China in 1977, two main problems have
been mounting: increasing unemployment and income differentiation...
Róbinson Rojas
(1997)
Notes on
China's painful path to capitalism
Between October 1976
and late 1978 the Chinese socialist path to development was stopped and
then dismantled by the counter-revolutionary members of the Communist
Party who staged a coup-d'etat in late 1976 to reverse the
revolutionary process evolving since 1950. This coup d'etat was the
last battle in a civil war started in 1966, when the new communist
ruling class in China was challenged by part of the industrial workers,
students and peasants and a section of the Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party. Leaders of the new ruling class were Liu
Shao-chi (then president of China), Chou En-lai (then Prime Minister of
China), and Deng Xiaoping (then second in command in the political
bureau). Between 1966 and 1976 this civil war was known as the
"cultural revolution"...
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From Asia Times:
Michelle Chen (1 April
2004)
The
jobless: victims of China's economic success
The Chinese government claims its official unemployment rate is 4.2
percent - a modest admission considering that at one time it boasted
virtually zero unemployment. In 1978, however at the beginning of the
economic Reform Era, China finally began to acknowledge the problem of
unemployment. Now it vows to keep the rate under 4.7 percent and to
create 9 million jobs this year. According to the Bureau of Statistics,
in 2002 the total urban workforce was 247.8 million, out of a national
labor force of 737 million.
The 4.2 percent figure is misleading, however, as it only counts those
officially registered as unemployed by SOEs and it does not count many
because of technicalities. The calculations exclude xia gang
workers, along with rural laborers, migrants seeking work in cities,
among others (see Who are the unemployed?).
Sam
Ng (17 October 2003)
China's
paradox: growth and unemployment
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the registered
unemployment rate in urban areas has risen to 4.2 percent from 3.1
percent at the end of 2001 despite the economy's momentum. That figure
is almost certainly bogus. The urban unemployment rate is closer to 10
percent, according to the Department of Society Development, the
development research center under the State Council.
In the 1980s, a 1-percentage-point increase in China's gross domestic
product (GDP) translated into an average increase of 2.4 million jobs.
That figure has shrunk to 700,000 since the 1990s. Why, in China, are
things the wrong way around?
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BBC
News (March 2002)
China's Unemployment Challenge
The modernisation of China's economy and the opening of its markets
have brought wealth, but at the cost of unemployment for many.
Over the past decade more than a million people have lost their jobs in
Shanghai, as an increasingly competitive market-place and
government-planned economic restructuring have sounded the death knell
for many of the city's old core industries.
The textile industry, once Shanghai's pride, has shrunk most
dramatically, with many of its old plants being transferred to inland
areas of China, and others closing completely.
According to Professor Liang Hong of Shanghai's Fudan University, these
people, who grew up during China's political movements of 1960s, are a
lost generation.
BBC News
(April 2002)
China says unemployment still
rising
The Chinese Government has warned that unemployment in cities is set to
triple over the next four years, adding to an already high unemployment
rate in villages.
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Amei Zhang (1997)
Poverty
alleviation in China: Commitment, Policy and Expenditures
Poverty, in this paper, consists of two elements: income poverty and
human poverty. Income poverty is defined as the lack of necessities for
material well-being, which can be measured by incidence of poverty.
Human poverty means the denial of choices and opportunities for
a tolerable life in non- income aspects. Human poverty includes
many aspects, such as deprivation in years of life, health, knowledge
and housing, the lack of participation and lack of personal security.
Due to the limitations of data availability and measurement, the scope
of this paper is limited to income poverty and some aspects of human
poverty in China.
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