Research On The Resident Income Mobility Of Urban And Rural Areas In China

The economic researchers always focus on the issue of income distribution. In recent years, there is a trend which is to take a dynamic perspective in research, and in which the researchers gradually research the income inequality problem from a single years'income inequality to many years'income inequality(including the income inequality problem of life cycle),so as to study the issue of so-called "income mobility". The present research show that, the income gap in and between the urban and rural areas in China is enlarging, and which mean that not only the per capita income of rural area is far lower than that of urban area, the degree of unfair in the internal of rural area is also higher than the one in urban area, but associating with the income gap enlarging, people's relative position of income is also exchanging(there is"income mobility"), which make the residents who was the low-income people now isn't a low-income people, so the same state of income gap may have totally different policy implication. Taking the fact of residents'income mobility in account, the serious consequences brought by the sustainable income gap in and between the urban and rural areas in China will alleviate to some extent. Therefore, the research on income mobility can provide an totally new angle of view for the income distribution policy.This paper analyzes income mobility from the aspects of scale income distribution and function income distribution. Under the facet of scale income distribution, I explore the mechanism of dynamics of income status through measurement and structural analysis of income mobility of urban and rural citizens. Under the facet of function income distribution, building a theoretical framework of citizenship income mobility based on human capital investment, I explore the importance of human capital investment on citizenship income mobility and investigate the influence of present poor-friendly policy in reducing occurrence possibility of poverty. It is organized as follows:Chapter 0 is introduction. It advances the background and the meaning, then confirms research focus and methods, putting forward basic framework, creative points and shortages, also introduces the content and logic structures of this paper.Chapter1 summarizes theoretical and empirical resumes of income distribution and income mobility according to scale income distribution and function income distribution, and comments on the previous studies, and then proposes expanding direction of studies about urban-rural income mobility in china which offers a basis for our research.Chapter 2 constructs a theoretical framework of research on income mobility according to scale income distribution and function income distribution. Firstly, from the aspect of function income distribution, I construct index system for the measurement of income mobility based on the existing index about income mobility, which provides a basic theoretical frame for the studies of urban-rural income mobility in china through mutual complementation of different index. Secondly, from the aspect of scale income distribution, i analyze the influence mechanism of human capital investment on citizenship income mobility according to theory of human capital and income distribution. Based on this, I propose three assumptions about human capital investment and income mobility defined by the bisection method of"low income/high income".In Chapter 3 I put the index systems which designed in Chapter 2 into practice, using the CHNS dataset to measure the value of income mobility in the urban and rural areas in our country, and then to analyze the structure of income mobility, and to find out the regularity of both the income mobility and the dynamic of residents'economic position in our country.Based on the result of value measuring for the income mobility in the urban and rural areas in our country, I've found that: firstly, the institutional change brought by the reform and opening significantly influence residents'income mobility in our country. Secondly, the degree of boom of macroscopic economic background significantly influence the income mobility, the income mobility of period 2000-2004 is the highest of all, and the structure of income mobility is benefit for the improvement of most of the peoples'economic position. The income mobility of period 1997-2000 is lowest of all. Thirdly, although totally the value of income mobility of rural areas is obviously higher than the one of urban areas, in fact, the income mobility of this kind of higher level is mainly because the rural areas'larger income fluctuation comparing to the one of urban areas.Based on the analysis of the structure of income mobility and the residents' economic position dynamic, we can find that: Firstly, the comprehensive state of residents' income mobility in rural areas is better than the one of urban areas. Secondly, the income stratum of Middle-Income Stratum is more fragile than the other income stratums. This means that from the long-term, the prospect of improvement of the Middle-Income Stratums'income stratum is a little cloudy.Chapter 4 empirically test the hypothesis which is brought about in Chapter 2 and which is based on the dichotomization definition that take a form of"low income/ non- low income", using the CHNS dataset to make regression, finding out the evidence to prove that the human capital significantly influence the residents'income mobility. It is thus clear that, from the angle of view of the income dynamics, the rural areas'low-income group still have a very great quantity of mobility. However, the rural areas'low-income group is partly"hidden" by the low income line is lower. By contradiction, the urban areas'low-income group has fell into the state of sustainable low-income: the low-income state of low-income group exhibit an obvious"state dependence". The effect for anti-poverty of the education investment and healthy investment is good, but the effect of working experience (the general working experience) for anti-poverty is not good for both the urban and rural areas. The return of higher education investment for the rural areas is higher than that of urban areas, but owning a medical insurance for anti-poverty have a better effect than the one of rural areas. Moreover, because of the difference in the poverty"state dependence", the return of human capital investment is better in urban areas than that in rural areas.Chapter 5 is the justification of the theoretical assumptions in chapter 2. By regressing of CHNS dataset, I justify the state-relieving effects of existing poor-friendly policy, which provides an important reference for poverty-relief policy. The regression shows that for the influence of"apparent sustained low income", there is a clear distinction of poor-friendly policy effects on the urban and rural samples. Urban low-income citizens remarkably reduce the occurrence possibility of low income, thus, compared to human capital investment, poor-friendly policy offers a direct improvement of income condition for the policy recipient. Contrarily, there isn't low-income state-dependent in rural areas. Benefitted from institutional changes and returns of previous human capital investment, rural low-incomers experience high income mobility. For the trend of low-income"recessive", the poor-friendly policy doesn't exhibit the due function for the low-incomers in the rural areas. They cast off low income mainly from institutional changes in the Reform.Chapter 6 concludes this paper and based on the empirical analysis, I propose the policy suggestions. Also I put forward the expanding direction for the future research.Possible creative points of this paper include:Firstly, by using several indexes to measure the urban-rural income mobility in china, this paper remedies defect of single index and conclusion inconsistence in the previous research. Furthermore, through comparative analysis of urban-rural samples, I summarize the dynamics of income mobility of urban-rural areas which offer a meaningful reference for the income distribution policy.Secondly, this paper put forwards assumption about the factors influencing citizenship income mobility from the aspect of human capital investment: human capital theory of income mobility defined by the bisection method of"low income/high income". And the provides the justification. Based on this, I explore the real effects of poor-friendly policy on low-income.In the last, this paper adopt dynamic analysis in the income distribution research, which provides a useful tool revealing the real state of the income inequality in urban and rural areas also offering a theoretical basis for poor-friendly policy.