By Cheng Yu & Ruan Rongping

Research Report Vol.20 No.4, 2018

In 2017, the task force of “Chinese People’s Livelihood Survey” of the Development Research Center of the State Council conducted household surveys of people’s livelihood concerns in 8 provinces — Hebei, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Fujian, Sichuan, Heilongjiang, and Jiangsu, obtaining a total of 9,896 valid questionnaires, of which 53.47% were urban samples, and 46.53% rural ones. It was discovered from the survey that with the improvement of people’s living standard and the efforts to ensure people’s livelihood, the ratio of urban and rural respondents satisfied with their family life and social environment was improving steadily. However, due to the low starting point of rural development and social security, there was still a big gap between rural respondents and urban residents in terms of income, medical care, pension, and living environment security. Weak income growth, inadequate medical care and old-age security, and uncomfortable living conditions of rural residents had greatly constrained the full improvement of rural residents’ lives. The imbalance between urban and rural development had become a prominent manifestation of the major social contradictions in China in the new era. In view of the above-mentioned problems in rural areas, proactive and effective measures should be taken to address the inadequacies in rural people’s livelihood, improve the level of rural people’s livelihood security, and support the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

I. The Income Growth of Rural Residents was Sluggish

1. Middle and low-income rural respondents were faced with a greater risk of income decline, and the income growth of agricultural workers was weak

The risk of income decline was great for rural residents, of whom lower-middle income groups in rural areas were faced with a greater risk of income decline. The 2017 survey showed that the average monthly income of the rural respondents decreased by 22.60% y/y, 6.37 percentage points higher than that of the urban respondents. 28.05% of the rural respondents thought that their household income fell from the previous year, 9.18 percentage points higher than that of the urban respondents. In general, the average income of rural residents was growing faster than that of urban residents, mainly driven by the income growth of middle-income and high-income rural residents. The proportion of the rural respondents whose household income was more than RMB 100,000 was 29.82%, 15.18 percentage points higher than that of the rural respondents whose household income was less than RMB 50,000. However, underlying the overall increase in the average income of rural residents was a problem of income decline among a larger proportion of low-income groups in rural areas. The proportion of the rural respondents with household incomes below RMB 50,000 or between RMB 50,000 and 100,000 who thought their incomes would fall was 31.72% and 26.75% respectively, 7.96and 10.38 percentage points higher than that of the urban respondents in the same income segment respectively (see Figure 1).

The income level of agricultural workers was low, compounded by sluggish income growth. The average monthly income of the rural respondents engaged in full-time or part-time agricultural employment was RMB 1,422.89, while the average monthly income of non-agricultural employment respondents was 2.77 times that. The average annual per capita income of rural households of those engaged in full-time or part-time agricultural employment was RMB 13,900, while the average annual per capita income of households not engaged in agriculture was 2.13 times that. Moreover, respondents engaged in agriculture in rural areas believed that their average monthly income decreased by 23.98% y/y, and 32.63% thought that their household income would decrease, which was significantly higher than that of the urban respondents and rural non-agricultural workers. At the same time, the possibility of their income growth was obviously smaller. The proportion of their average monthly income growth y/y and the proportion of these respondents who thought that their personal monthly income increased y/y and who thought their annual household income would increase was only 12.92% and 17.17%, respectively, obviously lower than that of the urban respondents and rural non-agricultural workers (see Table 1).

2. Non-agricultural employment was unstable, and rural households lacked security for their primary income

Non-agricultural employment had become the primary source of income for rural households. As can be seen from Figure 1, the proportion of the rural respondents choosing wage income and non-agricultural operation income as their primary household income was 61.70% and 6.96% respectively. That is to say, nearly 70% of the households surveyed in rural areas had non-agricultural employment as their first source of income. In contrast, the contribution of agricultural operation to the income of rural households was not significant, with only 24.12% of the rural respondents choosing the income of agricultural management as their primary source of household income. About 5% of the rural households surveyed had various types of relief as their main income (see Figure 2).

Rural residents were faced with a greater risk of reduction in non-agricultural employment opportunities. With regard to the employment situation of the respondents of agricultural household registration, 53.19% of the respondents were engaged in non-agricultural employment either full-time or part-time, of whom 39.80% were engaged in non-agricultural employment full-time. The proportion of agricultural household registration respondents engaged in non-agricultural employment full-time who did not sign labor contracts reached 49.46%, 21.47 percentage points higher than that of respondents of urban household registration engaged in non-agricultural employment. This meant that nearly half of the non-agricultural workers with agricultural household registration did not have effective job security and their jobs were unstable. Among non-agricultural workers, the proportion of respondents with agricultural household registration and engaged in self-employed activities, temporary work in non-fixed units, private enterprises or individual industrial or commercial households was 26.55%, 14.22% and 31.86% respectively, 10.39, 4.33 and 4.82 percentage points higher than those in cities and towns respectively. 6.23% of non-agricultural workers with agricultural household registration reported that their wages were in arrears in the previous year, 3.30 percentage points higher than those with non-agricultural household registration in cities and towns.

Non-agricultural workers with agricultural household registration were faced with a greater risk of reduced job opportunities. As can be seen from Table 2, the proportion of non-agricultural workers with agricultural household registration who believed that their workload had decreased was 18.50%, 8.64 percentage points higher than those with non-agricultural employment and urban household registration, and the proportion of their workload increase was also 11.44 percentage points lower than those with non-agricultural employment and urban household registration. Migrant workers did not see significant reduction or increase in their workload. Moreover, rural areas of poor counties were exposed to an even more prominent risk of a decline in non-agricultural employment opportunities. The proportion of non-agricultural employment respondents in poverty-stricken counties whose workload decreased was 4.06 percentage points higher than the proportion of those with increased workload. The instability of non-agricultural employment as the primary source of income led to greater uncertainty and volatility risk in the household income of rural residents. The slow growth of non-agricultural employment opportunities also resulted in the lack of support for the income growth of rural households.

II. Rural Medical Care and old-age Security were Inadequate

1. The level of medical insurance in rural areas was low, and rural respondents had more worries that they could not afford to consult a doctor

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