Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Surplus agricultural labour
Another of the project studies (Wang, Chapter 5, and Wang 2002) argued
that a major reason for the widening rural-urban income gap since 1991
was the excess supply of labour n agrculture. Ths excess supply results
in low labour productivity—much lower than in the industrial and tertiary
sectors—and slower growth in incomes. As a result of the slower productivity
growth and the excess of labour in agriculture, the agricultural share of
GDP fell from 51 per cent in 1952 to only 14 per cent by 2002, while the
share of agricultural workers in the total work-force declined only from 84
per cent n 1952 to 50 per cent n 2002. The share of the rural populaton
in the national total declined even more slowly—from 85 per cent in 1953
to 61 per cent n 2002. The excess supply of labour n agrculture has been
attrbuted n large part to the restrctons on the movement of people from
rural areas to cities, accompanied by discrimination in the form of denial
of access to housing, education, job training and health facilities.
Because of the development of rural industries, the sources of rural
household income have changed remarkably. In 1990, the agricultural share
of rural household incomes was 74 per cent. By 2002, this share had fallen
to 47 per cent. The development of the rural industrial sector—particularly
the township and village enterprise (TVE) sector—was very important in
providing opportunities for diversification of rural household incomes.
Employment in the TVE sector increased from 28 million to 135 million in the
period 1978-96, accounting for more than one-quarter of the rural labour
force (Wang and Duncan, Chapter 4, and Wang and Duncan 2003). Despite
this, the number of farmers has increased and there appears to be more
surplus agricultural labour than ever. The diversification of rural household
incomes varies greatly between the major geographical regions, with the
share of off-farm ncome n rural households n the coastal regon about
75 per cent but about only 25 per cent in the western region. Moreover,
the rural-urban income disparity has widened most in the western region:
between 1980 and 2000, the rural/urban income ratio fell from 54.4 per
cent to 43.2 per cent in the eastern region, from 49.5 per cent to 40.1 per
cent in the central region, and from 44.9 per cent to 30.4 per cent in the
western regon.
