Abstract
The income imbalance between urban and rural areas has seriously affected social fairness and justice and has become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of the economy and society. The analysis of the spatiotemporal laws and causes of urban-rural income disparity is of great significance to realizing the coordinated and integrated development of regional urban and rural areas. In this study, the coefficient of variation, Theil decomposition index, spatial autocorrelation method and GeoDetector model were used to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of the urban-rural income gap and its driving force in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2017. The results show that the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in the study area shows a trend of rapid growth from 2000 to 2017. The urban-rural income gap in the study area showed an inverted "U"-shaped development process as a whole, and the relative difference showed an increasing trend. Regarding the spatial pattern, the study area showed a significant east-west differentiation pattern. The spatial distribution of the urban-rural income gap in the study area has an obvious positive spatial correlation, that is, the phenomena of high-value agglomeration and low-value agglomeration were significant. The economic development level, the industrial structure, the regional development policy, transportation, topographical conditions and resource endowments can strongly explain the spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap in the study area. The spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap is affected by both natural factors and socioeconomic factors. Among them, socioeconomic factors are the dominant factors, followed by natural factors. There is a significant interaction between natural factors and socio-economic factors, and the combination of socio-economic factors and adverse natural factors can significantly affect the regional urban-rural income gap.
Highlights
Since the reform and opening up, China has implemented a series of urban-biased development policies under the guidance of unbalanced regional development strategies
The per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in the Yangtze River Economic Belt showed a trend of rapid growth from 2000 to 2017
We used the variation coefficient and Theil index to reflect the relative differences in the study area, the three subregions, between regions and within regions
Summary
Since the reform and opening up, China has implemented a series of urban-biased development policies under the guidance of unbalanced regional development strategies. With its advantageous geographical location and development policies, the regional social economy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has developed rapidly, and the income of residents has been significantly improved. A relatively fair income distribution can provide a stable external environment for regional social and economic development; the growing material needs of residents in the Yangtze River Economic Belt make the income gap between the rich and the poor increasingly prominent. The income imbalance between urban and rural areas has seriously affected social fairness and justice and has become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of the economy and society. Analyzing the causes of the urban-rural income disparity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and effectively curbing the income gap between urban and rural areas is of great significance for building a sustainably developing society
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