Institute of Population and Labor Economics

The disagreements on changed stages of demographic transition and the role of a demographic dividend in a dual economy development process often lead to wide debates among scholars about China's development stages. This paper tries to reveal the nexus between demographic transition and dual economy development: the common starting point, close-related processes, and identical characteristics of stages. Based on the empirical evidence of population dynamics, the paper supports the judgment of diminishing demographic dividends and an imminent Lewis turning point in China. The paper also argues that keeping a sustainable and steady economic growth, and becoming a high-income country as early as possible is the key and only way to close the ‘aging before affluence’ gap. Accordingly, the paper concludes by proposing measures to exploit the potential of the first demographic dividend, creating conditions for a second demographic dividend, and tapping new sources of economic growth.

The diffusion of e-commerce has played a significant role in recent rural economic development in China. E-commerce is also considered as an efficient channel to alleviate poverty in rural China. Voluminous studies have investigated the contribution of e-commerce to agricultural development, yet it is lacking empirical evidence as to the effects of e-commerce on rural poverty alleviation. Since the year of 2014, in order to develop rural e-commerce, Chinese government launched the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project. This gradual involvement policy offered a natural experiment for evaluation of e-commerce. Based on village-level survey data from rural China and Heckit method, our study finds that rural e-commerce has a significantly positive effect on rural income. Moreover, the effect is inverted U-shaped for the relative-poverty villages. The estimation of the propensity scores matching model confirms that the results are robust. The following policy recommendations are proposed: (1) policy support to rural e-commerce should prioritize the poverty-stricken villages. By doing so, the marginal income effects of e-commerce will be maximized. (2) Investment in internet infrastructure and establishment of human resources for e-commerce in rural areas will have spillover effects, increasing rural income through the “digital dividend”.

Abstract Like income inequality, housing inequality in urban China is strongly affected by state policies that give preferential treatment to insiders. In this case, the key policies are related to their residence status, which involves not only their migration history but also their legal position. Using data from the Chinese census of 2000 for eight large cities, this study shows how residence status affects access to various pathways to housing. In addition to the well‐known marginal housing situation of the recent ‘floating population’, it documents surprising advantages for migrants with urban registration status and persistent disadvantages for rural migrants regardless of how long they have lived in the city. Résumé Comme l’inégalité de revenu, l’inégalité de logement dans les villes chinoises est nettement affectée par les mesures étatiques qui privilégient les résidents en place. En l’occurrence, les politiques déterminantes s’attachent au statut de résidence, ce qui recouvre à la fois l’historique migratoire des individus et leur situation juridique. À partir des données du recensement chinois de 2000 dans huit grandes villes, l’étude montre comment le statut de résidence influe sur l’accès aux différents canaux conduisant à un logement. Outre la condition de logement marginale bien connue de la «population flottante» récente, sont exposés les surprenants atouts des migrants qui sont enregistrés comme urbains, et les inconvénients persistants que rencontrent les migrants ruraux quelle que soit la durée pendant laquelle ils ont vécu dans la ville.

Although average incomes in China have risen dramatically since the 1980s, concerns are increasing that the rural elderly have not benefited from growth to the same extent as younger people and the urban elderly. Concerns about welfare of the rural elderly combine spatial and demographic issues. Large gaps exist between conditions in coastal and interior regions and between conditions in urban and rural areas of the country. In addition to differences in income by geography, considerable differences exist across demographic groups in the level of coverage by safety nets, in the benefits received through the social welfare system, and in the risks of falling into poverty. This book aims to do two things: first, it provides detailed empirical analysis of the welfare and living conditions of the rural elderly since the early 1990s in the context of large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and second, it explores the evolution of the rural pension system in China over the past two decades and raises a number of issues on its current implementation and future directions. Although the two sections of the book are distinct in analytical terms, they are closely linked in policy terms: the first section demonstrates in several ways a rationale for greater public intervention in the welfare of the rural elderly, and the second documents the response of policy to date and options to consider for deepening the coverage and effects of the rural pension system over the longer term.

Using data from the China Urban Labour Survey conducted in five large Chinese cities at year end 2001, we quantify the nature and magnitude of shocks to employment and worker benefits during the period of economic restructuring from 1996 to 2001, and evaluate the extent to which adversely affected urban workers had access to public and private assistance. Employment shocks were large and widespread, and were particularly hard on older workers and women. During the period of economic restructuring, unemployment reached double figures in all sample cities and labour force participation declined by 8.9 per cent. Urban residents faced modest levels of wage and pension arrears, and sharp declines in health benefits. Public assistance programmes for dislocated workers had limited coverage, with most job-leavers relying upon private assistance to support consumption, mainly from other household members.

Abstract This paper reviews the development of the urban and rural old age security system in China, and discusses the challenges in the process of constructing a sustained old age security system. Although funding gaps and empty individual accounts have imposed a heavy burden on the sustainability of China's urban pension system, there is a relatively high coverage rate of 35.3 percent for urban workers. However, China's pension system provides low coverage rate for rural farmers. The more rapidly aging population and lower incomes in rural areas pose challenges to the vulnerable rural household support system. The separation of the old age security system between rural and urban areas also puts great pressure as a result of urbanization on farmers who lose their farmland. Therefore, it is urgent for China to speed up the reform of its old age security system to provide an institutional support for its economic and social transition. (Edited by Zhinan Zhang)

Abstract Through review of relevant studies and analysis, this article indicates that the “middle‐income trap” is in line with the framework of the mainstream economic growth theories, and, therefore, it is a useful concept through which we can analyze economic growth phenomena in specific economic growth phases. The empirical experiences of many countries also indicate that at specific middle‐income stages, economies with high rates of growth tend to encounter economic slowdown or even stagnation. The article shows that China is facing the challenge of determining how to move smoothly beyond the middle‐income stage of economic development, while taking into account the shifting population structure, changing resource endowment and growth patterns. The article, drawing on international experiences, puts forward several policy suggestions relating to improvement in total factor productivity, expansion of human capital accumulation and deepening of system and government function reforms.

Purpose: The research objectives of this study are to test the scientific propositions of whether Internet use promotes life satisfaction among the elderly, whether there is variability in the effect of Internet use on the well-being of the elderly, and through what channels Internet use affects the elderly's life satisfaction. Method: Using data from the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), this paper employed linear regression, ordered logit model, and the propensity score matching (PSM) approach to investigate the association of Internet use with life satisfaction among the elderly in China. Results: The results show that Internet use was significantly and negatively associated with the life satisfaction of the Chinese elderly. Further analysis on group heterogeneity demonstrates that the negative association was more prominent among the participants who were males, at a lower age, had lower income and education, non-agricultural registered, and relatively healthy. Finally, the mediating effect indicates that Internet use may affect life satisfaction among the elderly through the channel of reducing their perceptions of social justice. Conclusions: In order to avoid the negative effects of using the Internet, the following policy suggestions are put forward: Improve the elderly's attitudes toward Internet use; pay attention to the sense of fairness of the elderly to improve life satisfaction; guide the elderly to reduce the time of using the Internet.

Abstract As a result of the shrinking working age population (aged 15 to 59 years), all factors that have driven China's rapid economic growth over the past 30 years tend to diminish from 2010. The present paper estimates the average annual growth rate of potential output to be 7.2 percent over the 12th Five‐year Plan period and 6.1 percent over the 13th Five‐year Plan period. Future sustainable growth requires furthering economic reform in related areas to enhance potential growth. This paper simulates two scenarios in which both an increase in labor force participation and improvement in total factor productivity can significantly enhance the potential GDP growth rate. Relevant policy implications are discussed.

Abstract Using a counterfactual analysis approach, the present paper examines a host of conventional wisdoms relating to issues of farmer, the countryside and agriculture, which are believed to be all originated from the existence of mass surplus laborers in China. When analyzing various sources of statistics, evidence shows that there is no longer a large pool of surplus laborers in rural China as most people believe. Based on this counterfactual result, all related events, such as the direction of agricultural technological changes, the level of comparative productivity of agricultural labor, and the degree of rural‐urban income gap must be reconsidered.

Purpose: The Internet has become an important part of daily life. However, older adults in China remain digital refugees amid the rapid development of digital information technology. This study attempts to scientifically answer how Internet use affects the subjective welfare of older adults. Method: Using data from the 2014 and 2016 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS), a combination of ordinary least squares, ordered logit regression models, and propensity score matching (PSM) models were used to analyze the effects of Internet use on the mental health of Chinese older adults. Results: Our findings suggest that Internet use affects the mental health of older adults and increases the incidence of their depressive symptoms. These findings are robust to changing the key indicators, research method, and sample. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that the negative effects on mental health are more evident for specific groups of older adults, such as those who are women, younger and middle-aged, high-income, non-rural Hukou, less educated, and living with others. Conclusions: Cultivating the ability of older adults to use the Internet and maintain a rational attitude while doing so can prevent its negative impact on their life satisfaction. Moreover, it can improve their attitudes toward using the technology and reduce their anxiety.

China's rural-urban migrants have been the engine room that has driven China's high rate of economic growth; however, their living and working conditions are poor. This paper addresses the question: What keeps China's migrant workers going? We seek to answer this question through examining the determinants of the happiness of China's rural-urban migrants, drawing on a large-scale survey administered across 12 cities in 2005. We find that expectations as to future income are important determinants of happiness. This suggests that many migrants expect their financial position and, by extension, their lives more generally to get better in the future and that this is having a positive effect on their current levels of happiness. The effect of optimistic expectations outstrips any realistic increase in their own income. We find that for those who expect a big increase in income over the next five years, this translates to an increase of 380% in average monthly income and for those who expect a small increase in income over the next five years, this translates to an increase of 200% in average monthly income to obtain an equivalent increase in happiness compared with those who expect no change in income. This finding has important implications for economic growth and socio-economic stability in China, given that maintaining socio-economic stability is important to maintain China's high rate of economic growth and positive expectations about future income are important for maintaining socio-economic stability during times of economic transition.

Abstract The shift from routine work to nonroutine cognitive work is a key feature of labor markets globally, but there is little evidence on the extent to which tasks differ among workers performing the same jobs in different countries. This paper constructs survey-based measures of routine task intensity (RTI) of jobs consistent with those based on the U.S. O*NET database for workers in 47 countries. It confirms substantial cross-country differences in the content of work within occupations. The extent to which workers’ RTI is predicted by technology, supply of skills, globalization, and economic structure is assessed; and their contribution to the variation in RTI across countries is quantified. Technology is by far the most important factor. Supply of skills is next in importance, especially for workers in high-skilled occupations, while globalization is more important than skills for workers in low-skilled occupations. Occupational structure explains only about one-fifth of cross-country variation in RTI.

Over the past 2 decades, China has made remarkable progress in health-care service coverage, especially in the areas of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, infectious diseases, and service capacity and access. In these areas, coverage is comparable to those in high-income countries. Inequalities of service coverage in these areas have been reduced. However, there remain large gaps in the service coverage of chronic diseases. There has been little progress in controlling risk factors of chronic diseases in the past 10 years. Service coverage for most chronic conditions is lower than in high-income countries. Moreover, China has disproportionately high incidences of catastrophic health expenditure compared with countries with similar economic development. This paper comprehensively evaluates China's progress towards universal health coverage by identifying the achievements and gaps in service coverage and financial risk protection that are crucial to achieve universal health coverage goals by 2030.

Abstract This study uses survey data collected from five large cities in China to describe and decompose the earnings difference between female and male workers. The results indicate that the main source of lower earnings for females lies in unequal pay within sectors, and that the earnings gap due to differences in sectoral attainment is relatively small. The results also reveal that most of the gender earnings differential is attributable to sex discrimination rather than to the gender difference in the endowment of human capital. Therefore, eliminating discrimination against females within individual sectors is effective in narrowing the gender earnings gap.

This study examines the impact of migration on women's positions in Chinese rural households. A number of studies have found that rural Chinese migrant women experience more autonomy and freedom in urban areas than they would at home. But do these experiences carry over into marriage when they return to rural areas? Using a survey of more than 3, 000 married, rural women in Anhui and Sichuan provinces and controlling for potential endogeneity of migration and return, this paper explores four main categories of women's status: women's views on male/female relationships, women's roles in household decision making, women's relationships with their husbands, and women's views concerning parents and children. It concludes that for women from Anhui and Sichuan, migration has some statistically significant lasting effects on a woman's position in the household, though the effects are not always positive, nor are they universal.

This article examines influences of patriarchal ideas and practices, relative resources, and housework specialization on three dimensions of marital decision-making power in urban China. The authors analyze mundane, child-related, and economic decisions using data from a 2000 national sample of 8,300 married urban individuals from 178 cities. Gender ideology and gendered patterns of inequality remain the most salient determinants of marital decision-making power. Specialization in housework bestows power on wives in mundane and child-related decisions and extends the existing pattern of gendered specialization in housework and breadwinning into wives’ prevalence in mundane decisions and husbands’ dominance in economic decisions. There is little support for resource theory: wives fail to use their relative income to bargain for more power. Housework, not relative income, boosts Chinese wives’ marital decision-making power in mundane and child-related decisions, indicating the absence of a “transitional equalitarian” value system and a collective rather than an individualistic orientation in marital power process.

This report analyses the underlying causes of China's achievements and gaps in universal health coverage over the past 2 decades and proposes policy recommendations for advancing universal health coverage by 2030. Although strong political commitment and targeted financial investment have produced positive outcomes in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health and infectious diseases, a fragmented and hospital-centric delivery system, rising health-care costs, shallow benefit coverage of health insurance schemes, and little integration of health in all policies have restricted China's ability to effectively prevent and control chronic disease and provide adequate financial risk protection, especially for lower-income households. Here, we used a health system conceptual framework and we propose a set of feasible policy recommendations that draw from international experiences and first-hand knowledge of China's unique institutional landscape. Our six recommendations are: instituting a primary care-focused integrated delivery system that restructures provider incentives and accountability mechanisms to prioritise prevention; leveraging digital tools to support health behaviour change; modernising information campaigns; improving financial protection through insurance reforms; promoting a health in all policy; and developing a domestic monitoring framework with refined tracer indicators that reflects China's disease burden.

Demographic transition has occurred more rapidly in China than in most developed countries. As the population ages, the growth rate of the working age population has started to decline and the absolute quantity of the working age population will begin to shrink after 2015, which will inevitably result in structural labor shortage. Under the circumstance where comparative advantage is still embodied in its labor-intensive commodities, timely and sufficient supply of a skilled labor force is vital for China to sustain fast economic growth. (Edited by Zhinan Zhang)

Abstract The present paper describes the current urban poverty situation, examines the factors affecting the probability of a household being in poverty and investigates how the urban minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program helps poor people to get out of poverty. The targeting efficiency of the urban dibao program is discussed. The present study finds that the poverty rate of households with unemployed workers is much higher than that of households without unemployed workers. The urban dibao program is helpful in reducing poverty rates, but it does not reduce poverty rates too much. The government should place emphasis on helping laid‐off and unemployed workers to become reemployed. The most urgent problem for the dibao program is improving the efficiency of targeting.