Research On The Gap Between Urban And Rural Development And Its Influencing Factors At Provincial Level In China

In the new phase of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way and marching towards the second centenary goal,the existence of urban-rural development gap still seriously hinders the progress of high-quality development.It is a major challenge we are facing at present to accelerate the narrowing of the gap between urban and rural development,to keep rural areas from lagging behind in the process of development and to let the vast majority of people share the achievements of modernization development.The wheels of common prosperity are rolling forward.Throughout the new century,the country has paid more and more attention to the coordinated development of urban and rural areas,so the long-term dynamic monitoring and comparison of the urban-rural development gap is very critical.It is urgent to measure and analyze its impact reasonably.First of all,based on the connotation and compilation method of the recognized comprehensive indicator of human development index,this paper compiled the urban and rural HDI and its sub-index of each province or region in China from 2000 to 2020,so as to construct the urban-rural development gap index and sub-index,and then try to realize the new exploration and more credible and comparable quantitative reflection of the statistical measurement of the provincial urban-rural development gap in China.Further,the compilation results and their change characteristics were analyzed from time series changes,regional differences σ-Convergence and β-Convergence,covariance PAC and LMDI.This paper discussed the absolute gap between urban and rural development and the triggers for change in the gap.Finally,based on the measured urban-rural development gap index,the paper took the provincial panel data of China from 2000 to 2020 as a sample,and used the traditional panel model and the spatial econometric model respectively to explore the positive and negative factors that may affect the provincial urban-rural development gap.The study found that:(1)The provincial urban-rural development gap in China had an obvious space-time evolution law,showing a downward trend.The regions with large gap were mainly concentrated in the west,while the urban-rural development gap in the eastern regions was generally relatively smaller.(2)The urban-rural development gap index of each region showed obvious convergence characteristics over time,and the greater the gap,the faster the gap was reduced.There was a certain catch-up effect,but the convergence characteristics of the sub-gap index were different.(3)After 2010,the urban-rural education gap had become the most critical cause leading to the urban-rural development gap in China,and the urban-rural income gap was the most important driving factor to improve the urban-rural development in China.(4)The gap between urban and rural development at the provincial level had a significant spatial spillover effect.The main influencing factors were the level of industrialization,per capita GDP,and social security and employment expenditure accounting for the proportion of fiscal expenditure.From the research conclusions,this paper put forward the following suggestions: First,accelerating the narrowing of the urban-rural development gap in western provinces should be paid more attention.Second,Accelerating the narrowing of the urban-rural development gap in western provinces should be in a more important position.Third,it is necessary to continue to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas and effectively improve the health level of farmers.Fourth,the coordinated development of urban and rural areas among regions should be firmly promoted,in addition,we should closely focus on economic development and social security to help urban and rural integration.