A Comparative Study On China's Inter-provincial Human Development Index

Over the past 30 years since the reform and opening-up, China has made enormous achievements in economic growth, and thus the people's living standards have been improved significantly. Nevertheless, the unbalance of development among regions and provinces is remarkable. Under the background of practicing the scientific concept of development, building a well-off society, and constructing a harmonious society, it is necessary to promote balanced economic and social development, increase the comprehensive inter-regional development levels, step onto the sustainable development track, and gradually enhance the general and development quality of the Chinese nation.This dissertation measures and compares changes to China's inter-provincial human development using the HDI composed of life expectancy, educational attainment and GDP per capita as proposed by the UNDP. China is a developing socialist country with rapid economic growth but unbalanced regional development. Based on the Statistical Yearbook 1990 and 2005, this dissertation calculates and analyzes China's inter-provincial HDI, and makes a comparative study on changes to its inter-provincial HDI in the past 15 years.The original single index of GDP per capita has now developed into a paradigm of over three indexes to measure the economic and social development of a country or region. The Human Development Report 1990 proposed to capture the changes to the human development level of a country or region from the following three perspectives: long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and decent standard of living. A long and healthy life is indicated by life expectancy at birth; access to knowledge, by adult literacy and school enrollment; a decent standard of living, by GDP per capita. These three indexes are significant to the rise of the human development level.China's rapid economic and social development is also reflected in the rise of its human development level. China's human development index rose from 0.634 for 1990 to 0.777 for 2005. The latter is close to the standard of high human development countries. Nevertheless, China's inter-provincial development is unbalanced, with big disparities among eastern, middle and western regions. This dissertation analyzes changes to the inter-provincial human development of China from three perspectives: inter-provincial disparities in life expectancy, educational attainment index and economic development.In terms of the regional disparities in human development indexes, we have recognized the following factors for disparities in China's human development: a. economic development is the major factor for the regional disparities in human development indexes. The rise in the human development level is unrealistic without rapid economic development; b. since the reform and opening-up, the preferential economic policies implemented by the Chinese government for the eastern regions have also aggrandized the regional disparities in human development; c. geographical location has been and is now still playing an impressive role. It is of particular importance. Without harmony between humans and nature, the human development level would not rise; d. the urban and suburban dual economy imposes a deep impact on China's social development. In building a harmonious society and increasing the general human development level, we must reduce the urban and suburban disparities and promote the urban and suburban coordinated economic and social development; e. the development of the minority areas affects the improvement of the whole nation. The rise in the human development level of the minority areas is crucial to China's national prosperity and strength; f. along with the economic development, attention should be paid to the inclusive development of education, health and medical services. Both the economic development and the social development should be promoted in order to increase the general human development level of China.Finally, this dissertation discusses profoundly about the changes to China's inter-provincial human development and puts forward some policy proposals: a. control population growth and increase life expectancy; b. improve population qualities, establish a scientific and rational education system, and endeavor to turn a country with a large population into a country with abundant human-resource; c. promote the economic growth, increase the income per capita, keep a harmonious market order, and raise the standard of living; d. reduce the urban and suburban disparities, strengthen the government's macro-control over population growth, industrial distribution, town scale and the like during the process of urbanization, and speed up the development of urbanization; e. promote the coordinated development of all regions and balance regional economic development; f. foster and practice the scientific concept of development, and realize sustainable development.