The Influence of Human Capital Factor Towards Urban-Rural Divide in Mainland China--Taking Guangdong Province and Sichuan Province as Examples

• Main Authors: Hau-Shiang Wang , 王皜翔
• Other Authors: Ching-Yu Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/13935945739998372028

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 政治經濟學研究所 === 97 === Since Mainland China has opened the policy of economic reform, its urban-rural divide has kept expanding and it causes an instable status of the society and economics. This essay takes human capital accumulation as the independent variable which possesses both influences of increasing urban economic growth and restricting rural development. The purpose of this research is to collect the strike of the urban-rural divide on human capital accumulation in Mainland China toward the urban-rural divide on urban-rural residents’ incomes, and analyze the effects of the human capital factors toward urban-rural residents’ incomes divide under the radical change of the industrial structure. This research found that it exists an extreme imbalanced situation of education expenditure, educational level (including education years and diffusion), and education system which leans towards cities and towns. The educational gap between cities and countryside becomes the main reason causing the urban-rural divide on human capital accumulation, and moreover, it keeps reinforcing urban-rural residents’ incomes divide. The urban-rural divide on human capital accumulation is also the profound factor that surplus labor in rural areas cannot transfer to the cities, and the rural residents’ incomes cannot be raised. This research chooses Guangdong Province and Sichuan Province as the representative regions of the western and eastern Mainland China to have case analysis, and it is found that both provinces are superior to rural areas in education conditions. Urban-rural educational divide is the radical factor to enlarge the urban-rural divide on human capital accumulation, and it infers that the imbalance of human capital increases the urban-rural residents’ incomes divide from proof of Human Capital Theory and Screening Hypothesis. Moreover, rural village labor’s lack of human capital accumulation causes its low quality, and it is also the main reason to obstruct surplus labor in rural areas from transferring to other industries. Hence, under the radical change of the industrial structure, human capital factor will once again strike the urban-rural divide.