Research On Rural Residents’ Consumption Structure In Henan Province Since Reform And Opening-up

The Chinese people of all ethnic groups have achieved remarkable success under thecorrect leadership of the communist party of China since the reform and opening to theoutside world. The development of economy and society is rapid, but consumption abilityis insufficient and seriously restricts the sustainable development of national economy. Inorder to achieve further growth of the national economy, it is necessary to expand domesticdemand. One of the focuses of expanding domestic demand is to improve the level ofconsumption of rural residents, because rural residents account for the majority of thepopulation in our country. Henan province is a big agricultural province, thus studying itsrural residents’ consumption structure has important meaning and representative.According to these, this paper is written to study the problems of consumption structure ofrural residents, find out the changing rules and the existing problems, and provide a certainbasis for further expanding domestic demand.In this paper, writer systematically researched the consumption structure of ruralresidents in Henan province since the reform and opening up from two angles--dynamicand static. The study of the consumption structure of rural residents in Henan province wasmainly from the following two parts. Firstly, use the method of dynamic to analyze thechange of rural residents’ consumption structure of Henan province, and find out thechanging rules. This part includes six aspects, such as the investigation of rural residents’per capita income and changes in the average propensity to consume, the inspection of theEngel’s coefficient, the survey of food and clothing consumption, the investigation ofresidential consumption, the survey of household appliances and service consumption, theinspection of culture education entertainment products and services for consumption.Secondly, use static analysis method, through the contrast of the Henan rural and town inHenan province, the national rural, rural residents’ consumption structure in Jiangsuprovince to find the differences between the rural residents’ consumption structure ofHenan province and other parts in China, then find out its unreasonable points. This partaims to find out the problems existing in the consumption structure from two aspects----the whole and part. It also analyzes the influence factors of the consumption structureof rural residents in Henan province from three aspects, such as the economic factors,economic factors, and the influence factors of different categories consumption. In this paper, some conclusions are drawn. Since reform and opening-up, Henan ruralresidents’ income has enhanced unceasingly, while the Engel’s coefficient has beendeclining unceasingly. People’s life has reached the stage of high level well-off standard ofliving and the consumption structure is more and more reasonable. With the rationalizationof the consumption structure, the happiness of Henan farmers strengthens continuously,but it still has a big gap compared with desire and happiness is not strong. Although Henanrural residents’ consumption structure is continuously optimized, the current consumptionstructure is not reasonable enough overall, which mainly displays in several aspects. Forexample, the Engel’s coefficient does not adapt to the residents’ income level, consumerspending for living is in higher proportion, and the consumer spending on cultureeducation entertainment is in relatively low proportion. Henan rural residents’ consumptionstructure is influenced by many factors like economy and non-economic. It mainly hasseveral aspects, including the level of economic development, farmers’ personal incomelevel, market factors, national policy, the rural population, and consumption psychologyand consumption habit. Among these factors, the farmers’ personal income level is themost decisive factor.There are some innovations in this article. The author combines residents’consumption structure with the level of happiness, and finds the relationship between theconsumption structure and the residents’ well-being. The author also finds that the Engel’slaw can not be applied to the consumption structure of rural residents in Henan provinceafter2000, because the conclusion got from it has a large gap to the reality.