Sustainable Development of Rural Household Economy by Qinghua Shi & Yan Gao

Author:Qinghua Shi & Yan Gao
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811527470
Publisher: Springer Singapore

5.2.3 Development Imbalance of Household Economy at Different Life Cycle Stages

5.2.3.1 Development Imbalance of Household Economy at Different Ages

Human life is limited, and so is the life of a household. In this limited life cycle, it is inevitable that economic development must involve both rise and fall. As a special economic organisation, the economic growth and development of a household will be influenced by its life cycle. In the beginning and at the end of the life cycle, the income level must be low, while in the middle stage of the life cycle, the income level is certainly high. In general, an inverted ‘U’-shape curve is the best description of the economic cycle of a rural household. The starting stage of a household life cycle is when the householder is about 30 years old, the middle stage is when the householder is between 30 and 50 years old, and the late stage is when the householder is more than 50 years old. Influenced by the periodic law of rural household life cycle, household income generally presents the pattern of a low level in both ends and a high level in the middle, and the income growth peak usually appears when the householder is between 35 and 45 years old. Therefore, the life cycle law of rural households is also an important reason for the imbalanced economic development of rural households, and such a reason will not be impacted by human intention. According to the rural household data in the ten villages in Zhejiang (Table 5.7), the changes in rural household income generally correspond to the life cycle law. The households have the highest per capita income when their householders are between 30 and 40 years old, followed by those with householders between 40 and 50 years old, and then come those whose householders are between 50 and 60 years old. Newly established households and old households have the lowest income. In terms of income growth, between 1995 and 2000, of the observed villages in the ten villages, the annual growth rate was at the highest of 13.52% for households with their main labourers between 30 and 40 years old, followed by households with 40–50-year-old labourers at the annual rate of 9.09%, and those with labourers younger than 30 years old at an annual growth rate of 4.38%. Households with labour aged 50–60 and aged over 60 had the annual growth rates of 1.00 and 3.44% respectively. After 2000, the order of income growth rate changed slightly. From 2000 to 2002, the higher growth rates occurred in rural households whose householders were the oldest or youngest, i.e. above 60 and below 30 years old, and their average growth rates were 21.07 and 10.24%. Slower growth occurred for households at the golden stage of the life cycle, 11.03% for households with their main labourers aged 30–40 and 1.01% for those with their main labourers aged between 40 and 50. Such a result is mainly due to the sharp decline of household operation in 2002.

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