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.
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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.
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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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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.
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
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.
|
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."
|
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.
|
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
|
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.
|
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"...
|
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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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.
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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.
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