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on China |
| By: | Dollar, David |
| Abstract: | China has been the most rapidly growing economy in the world over the past 25 years. This growth has fueled a remarkable increase in per capita income and a decline in the poverty rate from 64 percent at the beginning of reform to 10 percent in 2004. At the same time, however, different kinds of disparities have increased. Income inequality has risen, propelled by the rural-urban income gap and by the growing disparity between highly educated urban professionals and the urban working class. There have also been increases in inequality of health and education outcomes. Some rise in inequality was inevitable as China introduced a market system, but inequality may have been exacerbated rather than mitigated by a number of policy features. Restrictions on rural-urban migration have limited opportunities for the relatively poor rural population. The inability to sell or mortgage rural land has further reduced opportunities. China has a uniquely decentralized fiscal system that has relied on local government to fund basic health and education. The result has been that poor villages could not afford to provide good services, and poor households could not afford the high private costs of basic public services. Ironically, the large trade surplus that China has built up in recent years is a further problem, in that it stimulates an urban industrial sector that no longer creates many jobs while restricting the government ' s ability to increase spending to improve services and address disparities. The government ' s recent policy shift to encourage migration, fund education and health for poor areas and poor households, and r ebalance the economy away from investment and exports toward domestic consumption and public services should help reduce social disparities. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Rural Poverty Reduction,Pro-Poor Growth and Inequality,Inequality,Health Monitoring & Evaluation |
| Date: | 2007–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4253&r=cna |
| By: | Chi, Wei; Li, Bo |
| Abstract: | Using 1987, 1996, and 2004 data, we show that the gender pay gap in the Chinese urban labor market has increased across the wage distribution, and the increase was greater at the lower quantiles. We interpret this as evidence of the “sticky floor” effect.We use the reweighting and recentered influence function projection method proposed by Firpo, Fortin, Lemieux (2005) to decompose gender pay differentials across the wage distribution. We find that the gender differences in the return to labor market characteristics, also known as the “discrimination effect” or “unexplained gender pay gap”, contribute most to the increase in the overall gender pay gap. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux method allows us to further decompose the gender pay gap into the contribution of each individual variable. We find that the “sticky floor” effect may be associated with a particularly low paid group of female production workers with relatively less education working in non-state owned enterprises. |
| Keywords: | glass ceiling; sticky floor; gender pay gap; wage distribution; Influence Function |
| JEL: | J3 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3544&r=cna |
| By: | Felix Salditt; Peter Whiteford; Willem Adema |
| Abstract: | China is currently in the process of developing the largest pension system in the world, and it is doing this at a time of unparalleled economic and demographic transition. The central government has followed a step-by-step approach to develop a system that can accommodate a rapidly aging society within a rapidly growing, but still largely underdeveloped economy. This paper analyses how far the process of creating a national old age insurance system had proceeded by the end of 2006. It provides a detailed description of this system and an assessment of to what degree it has so far achieved ?its primary goal of social security for more people? (Chinese Government, September 2006)... <BR>La Chine est en train de mettre en place le plus grand système de retraite au monde, ceci à une époque de transition économique et démographique sans précédent. Le gouvernement central a suivi une approche graduelle pour créer un système qui puisse faire face à une société vieillissante dans une économie galopante et encore pour une bonne part sous-développée. Ce document montre jusqu'où le processus de création d'un système d'assurance national pour les personnes âgées a pu aller jusqu'à la fin de 2006. Il présente une description détaillée de ce système et évalue dans quelle mesure il a atteint au jour d'aujourd'hui « son objectif premier qui est la sécurité sociale pour plus de personnes » (Gouvernement chinois, septembre 2006)... |
| JEL: | H55 J11 P36 |
| Date: | 2007–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:53-en&r=cna |