Post-reform Rural China Research Articles

Revolution and Family in Rural China: Influence of Family Background on Current Family Wealth

This paper examines the influence of family human capital on offspring’s economic status in post reform rural China by concentrating on the father-son relationship. We focus on two indicators of family background: family class origin (jiating chengfen) and occupational experience. The results of a family wealth function for 2002 suggest that, after controlling for other individual and family characteristics, both measures of family background have a significant influence on family wealth. First, parental experience of a nonagricultural family business before collectivization has a positive and statistically significant effect on current family wealth. Second, the offspring of landlord/rich peasant and middle peasant families are more likely to have higher family wealth than poor and lower-middle peasant families. We also find cohort and regional differences in the influence of family background. Our findings suggest that the strength and robustness of the Chinese rural family as a cultural institution preserves family human capital across radical institutional changes.

Elite Mobility in Post-Reform Rural China

This study examines the mechanisms and factors that affect the stratification order in post-reform rural China. Using inter-village variations and measurements of social capital and kinship capital, it examines multilevel relationships between village context and individual determinants of career opportunities. It identifies two distinct paths into political and economic elite groups, one emphasizing party loyally and the other meritocratic principles. At the same time, the political rewards of social capital and kinship networks further show how local social institutions drive stratification order. For cadre posts, the effects of political capital increase notably when it is accompanied by social capital and kinship capital in addition to human capital. That is, those who are Party members, better educated, more socially connected, and originate from a strong sub- lineage are more likely to become village cadres. When it comes to entry into entrepreneurship, political, social and kinship capital lose ground to human capital, which plays a determining role. Nevertheless, two village-level factors-the degree of industrialization and commercialization and the degree to which there is a developmental local state-are found to have significant effects on one likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur This study concludes that the distinct paths of status attainment for political and economic elites are products of the workings of distinctive social and economic institutions in today's Chinese villages.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Developing EconomiesVolume 43, Issue 3 p. 412-421 BOOK REVIEWS First published: 06 March 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1049.2005.tb00952.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Book Reviewed in this article: The Growth of Market Relations in Post-reform Rural China: A Micro-analysis of Peasants, Migrants and Peasant Entrepreneurs by Hiroshi Sato. New Development Strategies: Beyond the Washington Consensus edited by Akira Kohsaka, Basingstoke The Mystery of Economic Growth by Elhanan Helpman. Volume43, Issue3September 2005Pages 412-421 RelatedInformation

Hiroshi Sato, The Growth of Market Relations in Post-Reform Rural China. A micro-analysis of peasants, migrants and peasant entrepreneurs

Hiroshi Sato, The Growth of Market Relations in Post-Reform Rural China. A micro-analysis of peasants, migrants and peasant entrepreneurs

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China. By Xin Liu. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. 261 pp. $45.00 (cloth); $15.95 (paper).

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China. By Xin Liu. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. 261 pp. $45.00 (cloth); $15.95 (paper).

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China. Xin Liu

<i>In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China</i>. Xin Liu

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post‐Reform Rural China

In One's Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post‐Reform Rural China. Xin Liu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. ix. 245 pp., photographs, figures, notes, glossary, bibliography, index.

In one's own shadow: an ethnographic account of the condition of post-reform rural China

In one's own shadow: an ethnographic account of the condition of post-reform rural China

Transient Poverty in Postreform Rural China

In a new, relatively high-quality, panel-data set on household consumptions for postreform rural China we find that consumption variability accounts for a large share of observed poverty and is likely to be a severe constraint on efforts to reach the long-term poor. Half of the mean squared poverty gap and over a third of the mean poverty gap is transient, in that it is directly attributable to year-to-year fluctuations in consumption. There is enough transient poverty to treble the cost of eliminating chronic poverty when targeting transfers according to current consumptions and to tilt the balance in favor of untargeted transfers. Anti-poverty policies in China may have to give greater emphasis to the problem of transient poverty.J. Comp. Econom., June 1998,26(2), pp. 338–357. World Bank Washington, DC.

Two-tier land tenure system and sustained economic growth in post-1978 rural China

The two-tier land tenure system has been widely blamed for the problems in land allocation and in land-specific investment observed in the postreform rural China. Greater privatization of property rights in land has been proposed to enable productive farmers to acquire more land, to promote land circulation, to improve farmers' access to credit, and to encourage farm investment. It is argued here that in the presence of multiple market distortions, land privatization is unlikely to provide a solution to the agricultural problems. Rather, an approach which refines the existing framework of the two-tier ownership system offers more promise.

Rural industrialization: An engine of prosperity in postreform rural China

The postreform period (post-1978) in China has been marked by very sharp increases in both income and consumption of peasant households. Such sustained high growth over a period of more than a decade is impressive by any standard. The fast-growing rural industries acted as the engine of prosperity achieved by the peasant households of China during this period. With very high rates of growth achieved by such industries, the emergence and rapid growth of private enterprises, and institutional changes that took place in methods of recruitment and payment of wages in collectively owned industries, rural industries as a whole became an important source of income for peasant households. In addition to the direct contribution, these industries played an important role in fostering the growth of agriculture (e.g., by providing funds for social investment in irrigation, and by facilitating farm mechanization and the use of fertilizers), and thus made a valuable indirect contribution to peasant income.