Abstract
The considerable gap between urban and rural areas in China has been one of those social problems during the urbanization process. Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of theoretical and empirical studies have discussed the association between urbanization and urban-rural income gap (URIG) in China. However, a very limited consensus has been reached so far, which makes it challenging to support formulating well-informed policies. To identify factors contributing to different conclusions of the effects of urbanization on URIG in China, we conducted a systematic literature review of 29 empirical studies and stepwise meta-regression analysis from 94 direct effect-size estimates. Our findings reveal that while urbanization is associated with larger URIG when URIG is measured via urban-rural income/consumption, urbanization is associated with smaller URIG when URIG is measured with inequality index (e.g., Theil index and/or Gini coefficient). Additionally, financial development is correlated with larger URIG. By contrast, human capital level, agricultural support policy, and farmland scale contribute to narrowing URIG. Finally, we did not find a significant publication bias from the primary studies. This work suggests that it is worth to conduct more in-depth analysis to examine the heterogeneous effects of different indicators of URIG and their associations with other potential driving factors. Future work is suggested to investigate the effects of financial development level, human capital level, agricultural support policy, farmland scale, and urban land scale on the relationship between urbanization and URIG. In the urbanization process, policymakers need to pay attention to the practice of remedying income-based urban-rural inequality.
Highlights
Urban expansion in the developing world has been dramatic (Jedwab et al, 2017)
This study used Meta-regression analysis (MRA) to understand urbanization’s effect on the urban-rural income gap (URIG) in China by synergizing studies quantitatively, which is different from the previous qualitative review articles, where general viewpoints and research contents of reviewed studies were summarized qualita tively
While China has its own characters in the urbanization process, there are many similarities between China and other developing countries when it comes to the rural-urban divide (Dong and Putterman, 2000; Cai, 2007; Tan et al, 2016)
Summary
Urban expansion in the developing world has been dramatic (Jedwab et al, 2017). From 1950 to 2018, urban population in less developed regions has increased more than tenfold, from approximately 0.3 billion to 3.23 billion; the proportion of urban population has been more than doubled, from 18 % to 51 % (United Nations, 2019). The URIG will be narrowed, and the living standard of urban and rural residents will tend to be equal (Stark, 1988) Such an argument is already supported by some empirical studies (Chen and Jiang, 2014; Yang et al, 2013). Studies have revealed that the discriminatory institutional arrangements during the process of urbanization con tribute to enlarging the URIG in China These institutions have hindered the development of the labor market, for example, the household re gistration system has separated population and labor between rural and urban areas; the social security system has excluded rural residents from its welfare policy (Cai, 2007). Empirical studies have adopted different data sources, indicators of urbanization and URIG, control variables, estimation methods, temporal span, etc. The workflow of the MRA (Fig. 2) included three steps: (i) selection and review of the primary studies, (ii) integration of the meta-dataset that connects measures of study heterogeneity sources to the meta-regression model, and (iii) analysis of variables with significant effects
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