An Approach To The Temporal & Spatial Evolution Of Income Gaps Between Urban And Rural Areas In Shandong Province

Since the beginning of the reform and opening-up in 1978, China’s economy has maintained rapid growth for 30 years, which lead to the rapid growth in national income and the improvement of residents ’living level. However, due to the urban-rural dual structure, the high growth in economy and the developing urban-rural difference has appeared together. Urban and rural incomes grew unevenly. As the bigger province in economy and population, Shandong province is also facing the growing income gap between urban and rural residents.In this paper, I manage to apply the doctrines of Marxist theory of income distribution, Lewis dual economic structure theory, Schultz human capital theory, Myrdal regional income inequality theory and Kuznets inverted U-shape theory to probe into the rules and their causes of regional income differentiation. Through summarizing the current study literatures of urban-rural income gap, I try to analyze income gap between urban and rural residents of Shandong Province in the two dimensions of time and space and the evolution of the characteristics of factors or causes. Finally I make a few policy recommendations which learn from previous experience to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents in Shandong Province.In the time dimension, the paper use the qualitative analytical method to analyze the evolution features the income gap between urban and rural residents in Shandong from 1984 to 2013, and then use time-series analysis method to analyze the economic growth, urban-rural dual economic structure and financial education expenditure of urban and rural residents how to affect the changes in income disparity. Conclusions of the study:Shandong urban-rural income gap which measured by the ratio between the real income of urban and rural and the urban and rural Gini coefficient presents the basic trend of rising waves, and showing a significant characteristics in different stage. As the secondary industry’contribution in economic growth of Shandong is biggest, and the expense of education between the urban and rural area is uneven.which lead to the economic growth, urban and rural economic structure and financial education spending are positively correlated with the income gap between urban and rural residents.On the spatial dimension, the paper uses the qualitative analysis method and Autocorrelation analysis to study the spatial pattern evolution and causes of 17 cities in Shandong from 2004 to 2013. Conclusions of the study:The pattern of the income gap between urban and rural residents keeps the high in the West and the low in the East for a long time. The income gap between urban and rural residents shows the globally weak spatial correlation when a city is the spatial units, but in the east the cities have emerged an obvious agglomeration characteristics analyzed by local autocorrelation analysis method; the cause of this spatial pattern is different industrial structure around the cities.According to the results of my analysis on the evolution of the characteristics in the time and spatial dimensions, the paper proposes that we should optimize the industrial structure, adjust the urban and rural economic structure, make a harmonious development of urban and rural education, accelerate industrial transfer between backward areas and developed areas, encourage the development of private economy and other countermeasures to narrow income gap between urban and rural residents.