China's Rural Surplus Labor Xiangcheng Transfer Studies

Full employment is an important goal of economic growth in all countries. In developing countries, the increase of employment results in increase of income and improvement of living standard, which is also the necessary way to diminish poverty. In developed countries, the increase of employment ensures a stable society and a steady economic growth.With a large population, china's labor resources are rich. Therefore, the full employment and reasonable allocation of labor are of profound economic and social significance. The common opinion is that employment is the most important problem facing China in the process of economic growth in the future. What's more, whether China can achieve steady growth and achieve comparative advantage in the new structure of international trade or not is dependent on whether labor resource can be fully reasonably employed.The transfer of rural labor from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector, from country to city is the most important characteristic of economic growth and agriculture change in developing countries. Generally speaking, labor forces muster in agricultural sector in the initial stage of industrialization. Labor surplus in agricultural sector is an important characteristic of economy. When the economic development enters the accelerating stage of industrialization in the developing countries, labor forces will transfer from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector correspondently, resulting in diminishing labor surplus in agricultural sector and establishing a labor employment structure which is similar to industrial structure. However, this takes free flow of labor as precondition. If there is institutional obstacle of restricting free flow of labor in the economy, the transfer of labor from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector will be cut off. In this case, the industrialization process may be fastened by non-market method in developing countries. On the other hand, the transfer of labor from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector cannot be in the same pace with industrialization, resulting in the fact that the transfer of employment structure lags behind the transfer of production value structure.As a developing country, China has been striving for realization of industrialization from the 1950s. Before the economic reform, China chose the industrialization path with a heavy-industry orientation. Centrally planned economic system was employed to achieve the goal and the production value structure of agriculture and industry had been changed dramatically in a short period of time. However, the employment transfer of rural labor in the same time lagged behind the transfer of production value. The underlying reason lay in the segmentation of labor markets in the country and the city before 1978, which restricted the free flow of rural labor in the process of industrialization.Among the social changes in the past 20 years in China, the transfer of rural labor from agriculture to non-agriculture and from the country to the city is one of the most attracting phenomenons in China. With the establishment of family-operated system and the substitution of market economy for traditional planning economy, the rural surplus labor, which was locked onto the land, has broken away from the land and has been looking for employment opportunity in non-agricultural sector.It is exciting and enlightening to review the history or to expect the future of the transfer of rural labor and the resulting change in labor structure from the reform. It helps us to comprehend the transfer process, system and function of rural labor by analyzing the transferred and transferring rural labor. More importantly, it is helpful for government to stipulate more reasonable labor policy. The economic reform and economic development in the past 20 years help the transfer of rural labor, but the labor surplus in the country is still a certain fact. The transfer of rural labor is still a long-run process accompanying the economic and social development of China in the future. Whether the process is smooth or not relies on whether the government can select reasonable system and design effective policy to guide and regulate the process because China is in the important process of economic change. The transfer of rural labor from the economic reform contains, in fact, a lot of important policy information. Only by analyzing the process can we understand the system and function of the transfer of rural labor and find out the contradiction and problems, based on which the government may stipulate more reasonable policy to use the rural labor resources.Based on the above-mentioned consideration, the author takes "On the Transfer of Rural Surplus labor from Country to City" as topic, analyzes the transfer system and process of rural labor, evaluates its effect on the economic growth and increase of peasants' income, distinguishes the contradiction and problems in the process of transfer and analyzes the potential and ways to enlarge the employment opportunities.The dissertation uses theoretical method complemented by empirical analysis. In the theoretical analysis part, the characteristic and nature of rural labor transfer are analyzed and summarized. Using the knowledge and method of economic history, the developing process of labor transfer is analyzed, based on which it deducts the theoretical statements which are ready for the proof of empirical facts. In modern economics, empirical analysis is an important method which is quite convincing. The empirical analysis part mainly employs the econometrics method to measure the scale of rural labor transfer. Besides, comparative analysis is used a lot.The dissertation is divided into seven parts, the structure of which is as follows.The first part is introduction, which discusses the research background and significance, raises the research goal and logic as well as the organization.Chapter Two, literature review of rural surplus labor transfer from country to city, mainly reviews the literature on rural labor transfer domestically and abroad. It summarizes and evaluates the related research on Chinese rural labor transfer done by scholars domestically and abroad and attempts to clarify the research logic of rural surplus labor, grasping the theoretical frontier of the field.Chapter Three reviews the process of Chinese rural surplus labor transfer from country to city. The dissertation reviews the rural surplus labor transfer before and after the economic reform. Characteristics of transfer in different stage are analyzed using research method of economic history. The innovation of this dissertation is that it finds clear institutional factors and some unique characteristics by reviewing the process of Chinese rural labor transfer from the economic reform, which is as follows. (1) The beginning of rural labor transfer is closely connected with the change of economic system. (2) The different stages of transfer of Chinese rural labor surplus are largely affected by related government policies throughout the whole reform period. (3) Chinese rural labor transfer presents a series of unique attributes closely related to institutional arrangement. (4) Rural labor flown to the cities is closely related to their family in the country.Chapter Four analyzes the factors causing the surplus of Chinese rural labor. The employment scale of a country's labor is related to the economic developing level and corresponding economic structure, the combination of production relations corresponding to the development of productivity, and the change of population. The surplus of rural labor is not haphazard, but the result of interaction of labor resources inside the country. In summary, the surplus of Chinese rural labor is due to dual economic structure, economic developing level and the increase of rural population. These important factors result in the surplus labor in Chinese countries, which has not been transferred in time.Employment of Chinese rural surplus labor and transfer modes are discussed in Chapter 5. It studies the labor quantity, quality and employment of Chinese countries, probes the geographic and sector nature of Chinese rural surplus labor, analyzes the problems in rural surplus labor transfer from country to city, and conducts comparative analysis on two modes of local transfer and non-local transfer.Chapter 6 analyses the transfer routes of Chinese rural surplus labor from country to city. It studies the effect of agricultural intensivism, peasant avocation, country service system, rural firms, turning countries into towns and developing third industry on Chinese rural surplus labor transfer. Chapter 7 is dealt with the employment condition and institutional condition of Chinese rural surplus labor transfer from county to city. Staring from the present states of China, it raises counter policies of promoting Chinese rural surplus labor transfer from the two aspects of employment condition and institution. The policies consist of developing medium-and-small firms, giving peasants partial land ownership, establishing fair and free labor employment system, establishing registration system which promotes the flow of population as well as establishing welfare insurance system to connect country and city. There are two innovations in the chapter. First, it designs a scheme to deepen the land reform and give peasants partial land ownership. Second, it points out that a social security system should be established to be in correspondence with the developing trend of social security system and adapt to the present situation of China. It should also be transitional and be able to connect the social security systems of the country and the city.Finally, there are several improvements to be made in the dissertation. First, it is difficult to obtain data about the accurate quantity of Chinese rural surplus labor and conduct empirical analysis due to the high fluidity of rural labor. As a result, convincing conclusion is hard to reach. Second, the dissertation only analyzes four typical institutional reforms promoting rural surplus labor transfer. In fact, there are other instructions hindering the transfer of rural surplus labor. For example, property rights related to labor transfer including property of fund, property of houses and tools, property of agricultural products, property of human resources as well as non-property institution related to labor transfer consisting of investment, education, taxation, financing and administrative systems. The author does not further the study into the above-mentioned problems due to limited space. However, they provide an incentive for the future research.