Organizer: Terry Sicular, University of Western Ontario, Canada Chair: Bjorn Gustafsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Under the Hu-Wen leadership, China has adopted a development strategy based on the idea of a “harmonious society” in which growth is balanced against social welfare and equity objectives. In keeping with this strategy, China has implemented a range of policies strengthening social programs, supporting rural areas, and providing protection to vulnerable groups. Reports suggest that despite these measures, social fault lines have persisted or even widened, but systematic empirical evidence has been limited.
This panel will feature an integrated set of empirical studies on China’s progress towards a harmonious society. The papers all use common data from the 2007 China Household Income Project (CHIP), a nationwide household survey designed to provide reliable household- and individual-level data on incomes and economic activities. Comparable data from earlier rounds of CHIP (1988, 1995, 2002), permit analysis of changes over time.
The panel papers are selected from a larger collaborative study that uses the 2007 CHIP data to analyze aspects of inequality and poverty in China. The panel will contain an overview paper that describes the dataset and summarizes key, cross-cutting findings of the larger study, plus five papers on selected topics such as urban versus rural inequality, gender, ethnic minorities, and housing wealth.
The authors/presenters include established and junior scholars, mostly economists, from China, North America, and Europe. Each presentation will be 15 minutes, allowing 30 minutes for open discussion and questions from the floor. A major goal of the panel is to promote exchange on these topics across disciplines.
This paper, co-authored with Hiroshi Sato and Terry Sicular, summarizes key, cross-cutting findings from larger set of papers written as part of the CHIP 2007 study of incomes and inequality in China. It provides an overview of trends in income inequality and poverty between 2002 and 2007, with comparisons to earlier years, examination of differences between the urban, rural and migrant populations, and discussion of government policies and other factors contributing to these trends.
This paper, co-authored with Terry Sicular, examines income inequality and poverty among rural households. It finds that rural household incomes increased rapidly between 2002 and 2007, the result of growth both in farm income and in wage earnings, but especially in migrant earnings and government transfers. On balance this income growth was associated with only a slight increase in overall inequality in rural China. The paper discusses these trends in the context of government policies aimed at supporting rural areas and the growing role of migration.
This paper, co-authored by Bjorn Gustafsson, investigates incomes and inequality among formal urban residents, with reference to the role of government social safety net policies and other urban-based measures. Between 2002 and 2007 urban incomes increased rapidly, and inequality among urban residents rose markedly. The rise in urban inequality was mainly associated with income from private businesses and owned housing. Government transfers, while still relatively small, grew in importance and helped moderate inequality. Trends in poverty depend on whether poverty is measured in relative or absolute terms.
This paper, co-authored by Ding Sai and Li Shi, analyzes earnings of minority versus Han workers in urban China using data from the 1995, 2002 and 2007 CHIP surveys. Ethnic earnings inequality narrowed between 1995 and 2002, but then widened again between 2002 and 2007. This paper decomposes the minority-Han wage gap between human capital, regional and industry/occupational factors; as well, it examines how the returns to education and the differences in earnings associated with employment in state-owned enterprises differ between minority and Han workers.
Gender wage differences in urban China have attracted increasing attention lately, with some studies showing a widening gender gap following the phasing out of planned labor allocation, enterprise restructuring, and the development of urban labor markets. Using data from the 1995, 2002 and 2007 CHIP surveys, this paper (co-authored with Li Shi) investigates changes in gender wage differences, decomposing the component that is “explained,” that is, associated with differences in characteristics between male and female workers, and that which is “unexplained,” and perhaps associated with discrimination. The paper finds that the gender wage gap has increased significantly , especially in 2002-07, and that an increasing portion of this gap is unexplained. Also, it finds that the gender wage gap is larger for low wage groups.
An important change in China since the mid-1990s has been the resurrection of private ownership and wealth. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 CHIP surveys, the authors (Yue Ximing and Terry Sicular) examine the level and distribution of housing wealth in China. Housing is the largest single component of household wealth, and the analysis sheds light on the consequences of China’s urban housing privatization on incomes and inequality. A key finding is that inequality of housing wealth in China is high by international standards if measured only among homeowners, but among all households (including non-owners) it is not particularly high, due to the relatively high proportion of homeowners in China, The gap in housing wealth between low and high income households has been increasing, as has that between urban and rural households. Imputed income from owner-occupied housing is also unequally distributed and increasingly contributes to inequality in household incomes. The paper relates these findings to developments in government housing policies and real estate markets.
This paper, co-authored with Hiroshi Sato and Terry Sicular, summarizes key, cross-cutting findings from larger set of papers written as part of the CHIP 2007 study of incomes and inequality in China. It provides an overview of trends in income inequality and poverty between 2002 and 2007, with comparisons to earlier years, examination of differences between the urban, rural and migrant populations, and discussion of government policies and other factors contributing to these trends.
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