Social Transformation and Chinese Experience by Peilin Li

Author:Peilin Li [Li, Peilin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology, Business & Economics, Development, Social Classes & Economic Disparity, Rural, Research
ISBN: 9781317480808
Google: zC4lDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-03-16T03:25:32+00:00

Urbanization lags behind nonagriculturalization and industrialization

Urbanization is marked as the population flow from the rural to the urban areas. Current urbanization levels are measured by permanent residents in urban areas, which count people who registered as rural residents who live in the cities for more than half a year.

In 2011, more than 51.3 percent of the total population in China lives in urban areas, 690 million out of 1,345 billion. But at the end of 2011, rural population is registered as 0.935 billion, which means among current 690 million urban residents there are only 410 million who hold urban household registers and another 280 million who hold rural household registers. The latter group consists mostly of migrant workers and their families who have stayed in cities for a long period of time. They are at most “peri-urbanized” because they are not entitled to institutional benefits such as employment opportunities, children’s education, medical care, social security, and housing to the same degree as the urban residents. They are marginalized. According to 2010 national census data, there are 260 million in floating the population in China.

Regions where the floating population exceeds ten million include Canton (3.68 million), Zhejiang (1.99 million), Jiangsu (1.82 million), Shangdong (1.37 million), Shanghai (1.27 million), Sichuan (1.17 million), Fujian (1.11 million), and Beijing (1.05 million). A great majority of the floating population are “periurbanized” migrant workers and their families.5

Chinese urbanization rate (the proportion of urban population in the total population) lags far behind industrialization rate (the proportion of industrial added value in GDP). The ratio between urbanization rate and industrialization rate is too low—1.09 in 2010. The correspondent ratio in the United States is 4.1 – that is, the degree of urbanization is 4.1 higher than industrialization, 4.11 in France, 4.09 in England, 2.64 in Germany, and 2.48 in Japan. In the BRICS countries, the ratio of urbanization rate to industrialization rate in Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and India are 3.22, 1.97, 1.38, and 1.15, respectively, all higher than that in China (Zhou, 2011).

Consequently, a remarkable characteristic of Chinese structural transformation is that industrialization, nonagriculturalization, urbanization, and household registration system lags behind one after another. On one hand, just like nonagriculturalization lags behind industrialization, transition in employment lags behind economic structural transformation. In 2011, the added value of agriculture declined to about 10 percent of GDP, but workers in agriculture constituted 38 percent of all employees. In other countries with similar industrialization rate, the proportion of workers in agriculture is below 25 percent. On the other hand, urbanization lags behind nonagriculturalization and urbanization rate (51 percent) grows slower than nonagriculturalization rate (38 percent). Lastly, household registration system lags behind urbanization in that 30 percent of the total population with urban household register is much lower than 50 percent of urbanization rate.

Table 6.4 National floating population distribution

Total Floating Population (0.26 billion) Number of Provinces and Regions Floating Population in Provinces and Regions

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