China's Surplus Agricultural Labour Force: It's Size,Transfer, Prospects for Absorption and Effects of the Double-Track Economic System*

The commune economy had two basic characteristics: one was its three-grade pyramid-type structure of organisation which integrated government administration and economic management; and the other was its “self-sufficient” and “closed-door” character. Under this system farmers had no free choice about their occupation and place of residence. With the collapse of the commune system, institutional reorganisation of China's rural economy occurred. Farmers had more choice now about their production, their occupation and place of residence based on the development of a modern commodity and market economy. In this process of institutional reorganisation, transfer of surplus agricultural labour is a key factor. The concept of the agricultural labour surplus is discussed and discussions in English of this concept and associated theory and policy are reviewed. With reform of rural economy and improvement of agricultural labour productivity, the quantity of surplus labour in rural China has increased. Greater labour absorption is required in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, but particularly in non-agricultural sectors. In China, several impediments to transfer of surplus agricultural labour still exist. The transfer of surplus agricultural labour in contemporary China occurs in the context of a nationwide “double-track” economic system (a market-oriented economic system harnessed to a centrally planned and controlled economic system) and a “dual economy” in which modern industries exist alongside a traditional indigenous agricultural economy. Income gains provide the main motivation for farmers to transfer to non-agricultural activities. It is the income difference between farming and non-farming activity, not whether the marginal labour productivity in farming is zero that is important. By building and developing free or open markets one provides a suitable climate for labour transfer and migration. In the absence of free or open markets, farmers have little free choice. The continuing system of household registration is a serious institutional barrier to transfer or migration by farmers. Furthermore, the system of equal farmland contracts also hinders the process of transfer or migration. This might be overcome by allowing the transfer of rights to use farmland and facilitating “part-time” transfer of agricultural labour. Withdrawal of “surplus labour” from farming can cause grain output to drop. This can occur because if “better” farmers leave agriculture, the quality of farm labourers as a whole declines and because of a rigid price system which discriminates against agricultural products. While current transfers of surplus agricultural labour in China may well have increased income inequality between rural residents and between regions, if there had been greater freedom of migration this might have resulted in less income inequality. To the extent that market reform in China has resulted in greater freedom of economic choice, it appears to have increased the level of production obtained from China's limited resources. This is not to say that the market system will result in a perfect solution even though the economic results can be expected to be much superior to the commune system adopted in the past by China.     

Agricultural labour and the incidence of surplus labour: experience from China during reform

This paper contributes to the pool of studies of rural underemployment and revisits a number of estimates of surplus agricultural labour in China. The study is devoted to the conceptualization, identification and measurement of surplus at regional, provincial and national levels by a stochastic frontier functional specification. The analysis indicates that the existing size of agricultural surplus labour is still significantly large with the continued practice of the household registration system and China's WTO membership.     

我国农业劳动力供求状况与粮食安全

目前我国农业劳动力的供给为18099万人,需求为17247万人,农业剩余劳动力为852万人,剩余比例为4.71%,可见,目前我国农业已基本无剩余劳动力。进一步调查发现,劳动力的这种供求状况对农业生产影响很大,对粮食安全构成了威胁,主要表现为耕地撂荒、弃粮从经、降低复种指数和粗放经营等。因此,人们对明天"谁来种地"的担忧并非杞人忧天。     

安徽省建筑劳务输出的现状及对策

安徽是我国人口大省之一,做为欠发达地区和农业大省,每年约有1800万剩余劳动力亟需寻求出路。近年来,安徽省劳务输出发展强劲,尤其是具有传统优势的建筑劳务输出规模迅速扩大,对解决农村富余劳动力具有重要意义。本文从人力资源和市场管理的理论出发,结合实际工作经验,通过比     

农村剩余劳动力转移的现状、问题与政策选择

我国农村劳动力的剩余主要是相对于传统的粮食种植业和原始的农业生产方式而言的。解决农村劳动力剩余的关键是实施剩余劳动力的转移,这也是“三农”问题的核心。实施劳务输出产业化,规范城市劳务市场,加快农业产业化进程,实施土地流转是解决这类问题的现实选择。     

A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa,China and the Lewis Model

The paper compares the economic progress of two countries, South Africa and China, in relation to the Lewis model. These economies are chosen because they have interesting similarities and also interesting differences. At the start of economic reform in China and with the advent of democracy in South Africa, both countries had surplus labour: they were at the first, labour-surplus, stage of the Lewis model. It is shown that, since then, South Africa has continued to experience surplus labour: the unemployment rate has risen. By contrast, China’s labour market is shown to have tightened, and there is evidence that China has entered the second, labour-scarce, stage of the Lewis model. The difference lies in their growth rates. There are sections explaining why the South African economy has grown slowly and why the Chinese economy has grown rapidly, in relation to the growth of their labour forces. The Lewis model provides an enlightening framework for explaining how widely the fruits of economic development can be shared.     

The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China

The paper examines the contentious issue of the extent of surplus labour that remains in China. China was an extreme example of a surplus labour economy, but the rapid economic growth during the period of economic reform requires a reassessment of whether the second stage of the Lewis model has been reached or is imminent. The literature is inconclusive. On the one hand, there are reports of migrant labour scarcity and rising migrant wages; on the other hand, estimates suggest that a considerable pool of relatively unskilled labour is still available in the rural sector. Yet the answer has far-reaching developmental and distributional implications. After reviewing the literature, the paper uses the 2002 and 2007 national household surveys of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to analyse and explain migrant wage behaviour, to predict the determinants of migration, and to examine the size and nature of the pool of potential rural–urban migrants. An attempt is also made to project the rural and urban labour force and migration forward to 2020, on the basis of the 2005 1% Population Survey. The paper concludes that for institutional reasons both phenomena are likely to coexist at present and for some time in the future.     

African agricultural productivity and the transatlantic slave trade: evidence from Senegambia in the nineteenth century

Agriculture has played a central role in Africa's long‐term economic development. Previous research has argued that the low productivity of African economies has posed significant challenges to African efforts to produce an agricultural surplus or to develop commercial agriculture. Low agricultural productivity has also served as a key explanation for the transatlantic slave trade, on the basis that it was more profitable to export humans overseas than to grow and export produce. However, the field has suffered from a lack of comparable empirical evidence. This article contributes to this field by presenting quantitative data on historical land and labour productivity in Africa, from a case study of the agricultural productivity of Senegambia in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on five key crops, our results suggest that both land and labour productivity was lower in Senegambia than it was in all other parts of the world for which we have found comparable data. This article thus lends support to claims that stress ecological factors as one of the main determinants of Africa's historical development.     

Resources,household decision making and organisation of labour in food production among small-scale farmers in southern Zambia

This article examines the production context of small-scale farm households in the Choma District in southern Zambia. Factors associated with differential access to production assets among the households are analysed. In addition to this, patterns of household decision making and the social organisation of labour in agricultural production are documented. The study findings show that farm size, a proxy for wealth or social status, accounted for significant differences in the level of ownership and access to production assets. The study also highlights the importance of labour and livestock in the production strategies of small-scale farmers. The data from this study on decision making and the social organisation of labour confirm the importance of gender roles in agricultural production.     

Villages where China's ethnic minorities live

This paper investigates how ethnic minorities in rural China are faring compared with the ethnic majority. The village is the unit of analysis and large surveys for 2002 are used. Minority villages in northeast China are found to have a somewhat better economic situation than the average majority village, but minority villages in the southwest are clearly faring worse. Industrialisation, inputs in agricultural production, stock of human capital of the labour force, wage level on the local labour market as well as indicators of path dependency are all found to affect the economic situation of a village. Location is the single most important circumstance working against a favourable economic situation for minority villages in the northwest and particularly the southwest. Low village income results in long-distance migration for many ethnic minorities, but for some minorities their ethnicity hinders migration.     

Changes in Chinese Competitiveness in Major Food Products: Implications for WTO Membership

Chinese entry to the WTO in December 2001 marks a new phase in agricultural trade, both nationally and globally. After a context review of Chinese agriculture and WTO-related policy issues, this paper first uses a Balassa index approach to examine China's relative competitiveness in some major food products over the period since 1985, followed by an analysis of price-cost ratios and production cost structures for these products. It is found that China has revealed comparative advantages in meat products but disadvantages in cereals. With limited land resources, its production and trade competitiveness has declined despite rapid substitution of capital for labour, due to a marked rise in relative labour price in agriculture. In the long run, it is expected that WTO membership will boost Chinese agricultural trade, but its impact on competitiveness will probably depend more on production costs, and will differ between crops and animal products.     

缩小城乡收入差距的建议

近几年来,由于我国城乡居民收入差距逐步扩大,为有效的解决我国城乡收入差距,本文提出从发展农业产业化,提高农业生产率、有序组织农业剩余劳动力的转移,增加农民收入,进一步发挥农村工业对安置农村剩余劳力的重要作用、从根本上入手,解决农民负担过重的问题、破除城乡二元体制,根本消除城乡差别的建议,来缩小城乡收入差距。     

A Counterfactual Analysis on Unlimited Surplus Labor in Rural China

Using a counterfactual analysis approach, the present paper examines a host of conventional wisdoms relating to issues of farmer, the countryside and agriculture, which are believed to be all originated from the existence of mass surplus laborers in China. When analyzing various sources of statistics, evidence shows that there is no longer a large pool of surplus laborers in rural China as most people believe. Based on this counterfactual result, all related events, such as the direction of agricultural technological changes, the level of comparative productivity of agricultural labor, and the degree of rural-urban income gap must be reconsidered.     

我国农业经济发展水平及其影响因素实证研究

农业经济发展与农业生产自然制约条件、农业人力资本投入、农业生产资本投入、农业生产技术、农业经济的市场作用、农业生产条件制约因素等密切相关.本文选取反映农业经济增长的13个指标,对其1980-2012年的时间序列运用主成分回归分析与其误差修正模型,研究我国农业经济发展全要素生产率及影响我国农业长期经济发展与短期经济发展的因素.结果表明,影响我国农业长期与短期经济发展的主要因素按影响力大小依次为农业生产条件、市场作用、自然制约条件、农业生产资本、农业生产技术、人力资源.     

中部地区农村富余劳动力"就地转移"模式研究

中部地区是我国“二元经济”结构较为突出的区域,大量农村富余劳动力需要转移。本文通过分析中部地区农村劳动力转移面临的困境和区域经济特点,提出了通过农村城镇化、工业化、农业产业化、农民工返乡创业等途径实现中部地区富余劳动力“就地转移”模式。     

The direct impact of the relocation of farm labour on Chinese grain production

The shift from collective to household-based farming and the move towards a market economy have increased the opportunity cost of grain production and caused a withdrawal of labour from grain farming in China. Since Chinese grain production is important to both China and the world, there are concerns about whether such a farm labour relocation will have a destructive impact on China's grain production. The previous production function studies ignored the effects of changes in labour quantity and quality on grain production. Using recently available sample survey data on Chinese farm households, this paper incorporates production function analysis with human capital analysis to examine the direct impact of the relocation of farm labour on China's grain production. It has found that the relocation of farm labour has not harmed the Chinese grain production in general, but its impact varies across regions with different factor endowments that affect the choice of farming technology.     

Price elasticities of key agricultural commodities in China

We estimate a simultaneous equations model of Chinese agricultural markets for wheat, rice, corn, pork, and poultry meat. Elasticities are estimated for consumption, feed demand, production, stocks demand, and foreign demand or supply faced in China. While commodity models are estimated using ITSUR in a single commodity simultaneous equations framework, an AIDS model of food demand is estimated using ITSUR as a system covering all commodities. Results fall within the wide range of results from previous studies, and are quite reasonable magnitudes. China has market power in the trade for all five commodities under study.     

Labor productivity and migration in Chinese agriculture A stochastic frontier approach

The authors use a stochastic frontier approach with an endogenous error specification to measure China's agricultural labor requirement. They measure a significant apparent labor surplus, but find that it is correlated with factors that affect the incentives of farmers to leave the land. Thus their findings support the hypothesis that declines in the agricultural labor force are not adequately measured, whereas their surplus estimates are generally consistent with other studies using other approaches. The measured surplus ranges from 35% to 40% of the labor force, with significant differences by region. By 1995, there were perhaps 120 million farmers who were either in fact or potentially better employed elsewhere.     

主要农业自然灾害对我国粮食安全影响的实证研究

粮食问题一直是我国政府和全社会关注和研究的热点问题,而农业自然灾害又是粮食问题不可忽视的重要方面。农业自然灾害究竟在多大程度上影响我国粮食综合生产能力,我国农业自然灾害抵御能力的评价及其在多大程度上能够保障粮食生产的稳定性、供给的安全性仍值得研究。论文围绕主要农业自然灾害对我国粮食综合生产能力的影响分析,对各种主要农业自然灾害对粮食生产能力的影响程度分别进行了实证分析,并提出相应的对策建议。     

农村剩余劳动力的就业问题

在我国,农村大量剩余劳动力的存在是一个不容忽视的事实,本文对影响农村剩余劳动力就业因素进行了分析,认为解决问题的关键不仅在于农业和农村本身,还在于积极推进城市化,引导劳动力合理流动,发展劳动密集型的产业和中小企业。