Rank, income and income inequality in urban China

While some workers in China attain senior professional level and senior cadre level status (Chuzhang and above), others attain middle rank including middle rank of professional and cadre (Kezhang). This aspect of the Chinese labour force has attracted surprisingly little attention in the literature, a fact which this paper aims to rectify. We define various segments of the urban population in work-active ages and use data from the Chinese Income Project (CHIP) covering eastern, central and western China for 1995 and 2002. For 2002, persons of high rank make up 3% and persons of middle rank make up 14% of persons in work-active ages.Factors that affect a person's likelihood of having high or middle rank are investigated by estimating a multinomial probit model. We find that education, age and gender strongly affect the probability of being employed as a worker of high rank. There is relatively little income inequality among workers of high rank as well as among workers of middle rank. Mean income and household wealth per capita of highly-ranked workers developed more favorably than for other segments of the population studied, and personal income is more polarized by segment in 2002 than in 1995. Workers of high rank, and to a lesser degree, workers of middle rank, are among the winners in economic terms while the increasingly large category of non-workers is the losers. Rates of return to education have increased but income function analysis indicates that this provides only a partial explanation for the increased favorable income situation for workers of high and middle ranks.     

Inequality of opportunity and income inequality in nine Chinese provinces, 1989–2006

While there is a large and growing body of research describing and analyzing changes in the Chinese income distribution, researchers have paid considerable less attention to inequality of opportunity. The aim of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap in the literature. The two main questions addressed empirically for the first time in a Chinese context are: to what extent are individuals’ incomes and individual income differences due to factors beyond the individual's control (in Roemer's terminology “circumstances”) and to what extent are they due to outcomes of the individual's own choices (“effort”). What is the relationship between income inequality and inequality of opportunity?For this purpose we use data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey collected from nine provinces during the period 1989 to 2006. The CHNS has detailed information about incomes and other factors enabling us to construct a host of circumstance and effort variables for the offspring.We find that China has a substantial degree of inequality of opportunity. Parental income and parents' type of employer explain about two thirds of the total inequality of opportunity. Notably, parental education plays only a minor role implying that parental connections remain important. The results show that the increase in income inequality during the period under study largely mirrors the increase in inequality of opportunity. Thus, increased income inequality does not reflect changes in effort variables, or expressed differently, increased income inequality has not been accompanied by a decrease in inequality of opportunity.     

Economic growth and income inequality in the Asia-Pacific region: A comparative study of China,Japan, South Korea,and the United States

This paper builds an inequality-growth-redistribution nexus, and applies the Engle–Granger two-step ECM approach to estimate the long-run and short-run relationships between inequality and growth for four economies: China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Our estimation results support the S-shaped curve hypothesis relating GDP per capita to inequality with different starting points for the four economies. For the reverse relationship, we find a positive causal relationship for China, Japan, and the United States, indicating that increased income inequality spurred economic growth. In addition, we find mixed results on the effect of trade openness on inequality and growth. Trade openness reduced inequality in the United States and Japan, worsened it in China and had no significant effect in South Korea. In the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, exports provided an impetus to economic growth for Japan. As for redistribution, although fiscal redistributive measures reduced inequality in Japan, they played no major role in the other three countries. With regard to the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, all countries except for China show a negative effect of fiscal redistribution on GDP per capita.     

Trade liberalization and income inequality: The case for Pakistan

Trade liberalization policies have been adopted by many developing countries to increase economic growth and reduce poverty. While the positive relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth is generally well accepted, the impact of trade liberalization on poverty and income inequality is still unclear. The objective of this paper is to use real data and real trade agreements of the state of Pakistan, to examine the predictions made by trade models about the impact of trade liberalization on income inequality. To illustrate, the impacts of several alternative bilateral and regional free trade agreements are simulated on household income and income inequality in Pakistan. The results show that trade liberalization does not always lead to a decline in income inequality in the short run. Trade agreements that do improve income equality, favor agriculture and often hinge on a decline in urban and non-farm household income. In the long run, changes in income equality are more positive, suggesting that efforts might best be applied towards improving the mobility of labor and capital.     

Nonlinear income variance profiles and consumption inequality over the life cycle

In contrast to many other countries, consumption inequalities in Japan are not constant over household age but increase from around middle age—a fact first highlighted by Ohtake and Saito [Ohtake, F., Saito, M., 1998. Population aging and consumption inequality in Japan. Rev. Income Wealth 44, 361–381]. Given this information, we examine whether this phenomenon is consistent with the standard precautionary saving model developed by Carroll [Carroll, C.D., 1997. Buffer-stock savings and the life cycle/permanent income hypothesis. Quart. J. Econ. 62, 1–56]. Specifically, we investigate: (1) the degree of age dependence of idiosyncratic income risks; and (2) the importance of age dependence for the evolution of inequalities in consumption predicted by the household model of Carroll (1997). We find a strong age dependence of income risks, which creates a nonlinear age–variance profile of income, and the standard precautionary saving model is consistent with the observed consumption inequalities as long as we take the nonlinearity in age–variance profiles of income into account.     

Local fiscal multipliers and population aging in Japan

This study examines how the effectiveness of fiscal policy depends on population aging. To this end, this study estimates the local fiscal multipliers in Japan. Results suggest that the estimated local fiscal multiplier on output is larger in non-aged areas than aged areas, and that the effects on the number of workers are not statistically significant in either area type. Additionally, the multipliers on private investment are only higher than one in non-aged prefectures. Results also indicate that the multiplier generated by an increase in government investment is larger than that in government consumption. These results indicate fewer slack resources in aged areas that can be mobilized in response to increased government spending.     

Divergence or convergence?: Income inequality between cities,towns and villages in Japan

Researchers have emphasized different aspects of income inequality, including the statistical evidence of interregional per capita income convergence (following the economic growth theory) and the increase in individual income inequality. This study clarifies these issues, by analyzing the interregional income inequality of cities, towns and villages data in Japan from 1986 to 1999. The results of this empirical analysis show that the interregional income inequality decreases in the 1990s, in spite of the increase in individual income inequality.     

Describing and decomposing post-apartheid income inequality in South Africa

This paper describes the changes in inequality in South Africa over the post-apartheid period, using income data from 1993 and 2008. Having shown that the data are comparable over time, it then profiles aggregate changes in income inequality, showing that inequality has increased over the post-apartheid period because an increased share of income has gone to the top decile. Social grants have become much more important as sources of income in the lower deciles. However, income source decomposition shows that the labour market has been and remains the main driver of aggregate inequality. Inequality within each racial group has increased and both standard and new methodologies show that the contribution of between-race inequality has decreased. Both aggregate and within-group inequality are responding to rising unemployment and rising earnings inequality. Those who have neither access to social grants nor the education levels necessary to integrate successfully into a harsh labour market are especially vulnerable.     

Income growth, inequality and poverty reduction: A case study of eight provinces in China

This paper examines the growth performance and income inequality in eight Chinese provinces during the period of 1989–2004 using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It shows that income grew for all segments of the population, and as a result, poverty incidence has fallen. However, income growth has been uneven, most rapidly in coastal areas, and among the educated. A decomposition analysis based on household income determination suggests that income growth can largely be attributed to the increase in returns to education and to the shift of employment into secondary and tertiary sectors.     

Macroeconomic implications of population aging: Evidence from Japan

Population aging is an important feature of Japan’s economy, which since 2006 has become a super-aged society. Changes in the age distribution of the population have important macroeconomic implications. Using annual data for 1960–2015, this study tests whether population age shares have long run influences on domestic saving, domestic investment, real GDP, inflation, the fiscal balance, and the current account balance. Cointegration is found between each macroeconomic variable and the demographic variables, which is a key finding of the analysis. The main empirical findings from the long-run cointegrating equations are that the effects of demographic change on the macroeconomic variables are statistically significant and quite strong. Alternative variants of the United Nation’s population projections provide further evidence of the importance of the demographic changes for Japan’s macroeconomic future. This study finds that future trends of key macroeconomic variables are not monotonic, but rather that long swings in the demographic factors produce a mixture of moderate growth periods and episodes of GDP stagnation.     

Migration and household investment in rural China

In this paper, we demonstrate how household investment is affected by participation in migration in rural China. We both describe investment patterns across different regions of China and by households with different experiences with migration. We then describe a set of hypotheses about the relationship between migration and investment, and test the hypotheses using household data that we collected in rural China in 2000. We find that in areas with median incomes that are more than twice the poverty line, migration is associated with investment in housing and other consumer durables that is 20% higher than the average. We find no evidence of a link between migration and productive investment.     

The inequality of nutrition intake among adults in China

This paper constructs a multidimensional Theil Index to estimate and decompose the inequality of nutrition intake among the adult population in China. Using 1991–2009 China Health and Nutrition Surveys (CHNS), this paper features two major findings. First, we show that the nutrition inequality has remained small in contrast to the large and increasing inequality in population income. Second, using Theil decompositions and Oaxaca–Blinder (O-B) decompositions, we find that, unlike income inequality, nature factors (such as age and gender) and regional factors play a more important role than socioeconomic factors in nutrition inequality. This finding provides a plausible explanation to the different time trends of nutrition inequality and income inequality. Moreover, it suggests that policies that aim to reduce the socioeconomic disparities may not automatically transfer to closing the gap in nutrition intake, which in turn is a potentially important determinant of population health and the long-term economic development.     

老龄化中国人口红利实现的可能性与途径探讨

本文首先简要回顾了有关老龄化社会的人口红利效应的相关研究。近而,利用抽样人口数据,本文预测了未来75年我国人口规模与结构的变化趋势,指出在未来的大部分年份里,从第一人口红利的角度看,人口结构很可能将对中国经济增长起负面作用;而解决未来养老问题并实现第二人口红利的关键是：从当前开始即在充分就业的前提下实现持续的、有效的资本积累。一个重要的、可行的资本积累方式就是建立积累制的养老金计划。     

现阶段人口老龄化未影响我国养老保险

我国人口已经进入老龄化阶段,但我国养老保险覆盖群体不符合人口老龄化中"老年人口的比重提高"这一根本特征;随着养老保险覆盖面的扩大和缓冲群体的消失,未来人口老龄化必将影响我国养老保险。与人口老龄化相提并论的养老保险基金问题,是由隐性成本引起的,与人口老龄化没有必然的联系。在人口老龄化没有影响养老保险时做好准备,对应对养老保险覆盖群体老龄化有积极意义。     

Trade liberalization and wage inequality: Evidence from Korea

This paper investigates the heterogeneous income distribution effects of trade liberalization using Korean survey data from years of 2000–2015. Following the Stolper-Samuelson theorem most of previous research studying the effects of trade liberalization on wage differences focus on workers’ characteristics (e.g., skilled or unskilled) while heterogeneity within the same worker group has not been yet substantially investigated. To fill this gap, this paper provides empirical evidence of wage inequality across firms within the same group of workers caused by trade liberalization, potentially implied in the new-new trade models with firm heterogeneity. Employing a difference-in-differences (DID) specification, we find that the wages of unskilled workers in Korea have increased since its FTAs with more advanced countries, such as members of EU and the US, came into effect, while the effects on the wages of skilled workers are negative but not statistically significant. We also show that wage effects are heterogeneous across firms within unskilled and skilled worker groups, while the positive effects are statistically significant and largest for unskilled workers in medium-large sized firms. These findings are in line with both traditional and new-new trade models.     

Education expansion,assortative marriage,and income inequality in China

In this paper, we study the pattern of assortative marriage in China since 1990 and its impact on income inequality. The results indicate that men in China are increasingly likely to marry women of similar education levels. We calculate the counterfactual income inequality that would prevail if marriages were randomly matched in terms of education. In 2005, China's overall Gini coefficient of household income per capita would decline from 0.512 to 0.476 if marriages were randomly matched. In urban areas, assortative marriage in education increased the Gini coefficients from 0.321 to 0.338 in 2009. The decomposition exercise shows that the rising returns to education contribute most to the increase in income inequality in urban areas between 1990 and 2009, while the change in marriage assortativeness plays a minor role.     

Changing labor-force gender composition and male-female income diversity in Singapore

This paper traces the employment trends by gender in various industries, occupational groups, and educational levels in the city-state of Singapore. Over the years, Singapore’s female labor-force participation rate has increased as a result of rising educational attainment. At the same time, income inequality among the females has increased, while male-female income inequality has decreased. This paper explores the gender wage gap at various occupational and educational levels. It is found that the gender wage gap has been reduced over the period 1975–1999. This paper also finds that because of a lack of sufficient childcare facilities and unavailability of part-time work, women who leave the labor market to start families face certain obstacles when trying to re-enter the workforce.     

中国非永久乡城迁移的福利分析

本文运用福利经济学的分析工具,阐述了农村劳动力非永久乡城迁移是在既定的约束条件下的一种理性选择。比较了不迁移、非永久迁移和永久迁移之间的福利差别,从而明确非永久迁移比不迁移的福利大,而从长远来看,应引导农村劳动力向永久性迁移转变。     

Migration,Education and Rural Development: Evidence from China 2000 Population Census Data

There has been a concern that the growth of towns has been stalled recently and with it, the creation of non-farm jobs in rural industries. This study uses 2000 census tabulations to look at this issue by examining in-migration in towns in three provinces in China, Zhejiang, Henan, and Sichuan. In addition to the diversified patterns of town in-migrants revealed in these provinces, this paper finds that town in-migrants generally possess higher levels of educational attainment than those of the local population in towns, especially in the less-developed western and central provinces of Sichuan and Henan. There is also evidence that as towns themselves grow wealthier, such as in Zhejiang, better educated people in rural areas were likely to shift their jobs from the farm to non-farm sector in towns nearby, instead of leaving the countryside to migrate to other provinces. Labor markets in towns in less-developed western and central provinces were more flexible in accommodating in-migrants, whereas in the coastal province of Zhejiang, labor markets tend to become segregated between migrants and the local population.     

新疆区域内人口迁移现状及效果评价

人口迁移对区域经济和社会发展将产生重要影响,需要统筹考虑。本文根据第六次全国人口普查新疆数据,以新疆南疆、北疆和东疆地区为研究单元,从迁移数量、性别、年龄、受教育水平、职业、迁移流向和迁移原因等七个方面分析了新疆区域内人口迁移的现状,即区域内迁移人口呈现“北多南少”的态势、净迁移人口中女性人口多于男性人口、中青年人口是新疆区域内迁移人口的主体、迁移人口教育水平呈现“北高南低”的态势等,同时认为务工经商和随迁家属是区域内人口迁移的主要原因;最后对新疆区域内人口迁移的效果进行了评价。