Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas 9789811955037, 9789811955044, 9811955034

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic Minority Areas: Challenges, Problems and Countermeasures
1.1 Speeding up the Development of Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas: A Critical Step for China’s Modernization Drive
1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building a Moderately Prosperous Society Among China’s Ethnic Minorities and in Ethnic Minority Areas
1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas Since the 21st Century
1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas
1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building a Moderately Prosperous Society among Ethnic Minorities and their Areas
2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas
2.1 Current Situation in Ethnic Minority Areas
2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas
2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population and Causes of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas
3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction and Development in Rural Ethnic Minority Areas
3.1 Research Background and Problems
3.2 Research Strategies and Data Sources
3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors Influencing the Satisfaction Evaluation of the Performance of the Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction Programs
3.4 Conclusion, Discussion and Suggestion
4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas
4.1 Survey Data and Research Methods
4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas
4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas
4.4 Brief Conclusions
5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural School-Age Children in Ethnic Minority Areas
5.1 Data Sources
5.2 Description and Analysis of the Current Situation of Rural Basic Education in Ethnic Minority Areas
5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural School-Age Populations in Ethnic Minority Areas
5.4 Conclusion and Discussion
6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Countermeasures
6.1 Research Background and Problems
6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Current Situation of Employment of College Students in these Areas
6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Their Effects
6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates in Ethnic Minority Areas
6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas
7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural Residents Toward the Mobile Population and Migrants in Ethnic Minority Areas
7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses
7.2 Data Sources and Sample Distribution
7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis
7.4 Main Conclusion and Discussion
8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences in the Housing Values of Households in the Counties of Ethnic Minority Areas
8.1 Literature Review
8.2 Research Data and Methods
8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis
8.4 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications
9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas
9.1 Functions and Principles of Social Security in Anti-poverty
9.2 Construction of Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas and Its Anti-poverty Effects
9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security on Poverty Reduction in Ethnic Minority Areas
9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas
9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas
9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas
10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological Civilization Construction in China’s Ethnic Minority Areas
10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas
10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction in Ethnic Minority Areas
10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological Civilization in Ethnic Minority Areas
11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang
11.1 Literature Review
11.2 Analysis of Research Data
11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty Among Different Ethnic Groups of Different Regions in Xinjiang
11.4 Causes and Analysis of the Widening Income Gap in the Rural Areas of Xinjiang
12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma in Tibetan Ethnic Areas in the Border Areas Among Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet
12.1 Literature Review
12.2 Survey Data and Statistical Description
12.3 Poverty in Daka Township
12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township
13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance and Constraints of the Effects in the Border Areas of West Yunnan
13.1 Reasons for Rural Social Assistance Reducing Poverty by Providing Basic Living Needs in Lancang County
13.2 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County
13.3 Constraints of the Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County
13.4 Research Implication and Suggestion
14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas
14.1 Ethnic Work and the Stability and Development of Ethnic Minority Areas Receiving Great Attention from the Party and the Government
14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas
14.3 Great Confidence of Urban and Rural Residents in Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects
14.4 Severe Challenges Facing Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects
14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Construction of a Moderately Prosperous Society
References

Citation preview

Yanzhong Wang Sai Ding

Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas

Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas

Yanzhong Wang · Sai Ding

Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas

Yanzhong Wang Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

Sai Ding Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

Translated by Xiaomei Tong Tianjin Foreign Studies University Tianjin, China

ISBN 978-981-19-5503-7 ISBN 978-981-19-5504-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4 Jointly published with China Social Sciences Press The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: China Social Sciences Press. Translation from the Chinese language edition: “中国民族地区全面小康社会建设研究” by Yanzhong Wang and Sai Ding, © China Social Sciences Press 2018. Published by China Social Sciences Press. All Rights Reserved. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

This book is the final result of the “Investigation and Research on Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas,” a research project on major national conditions by the CASS, and it is also the fruit of the efforts from all members of the research team. This project was initiated in 2016 and completed in 2017. Wang Yanzhong and Ding Sai, leaders of the team, led team members to conduct in-depth field investigations and large-scale questionnaire surveys in ethnic minority areas. This questionnaire survey, at the same time, is an integral part of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas in the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China under my charge. Through years of painstaking research and investigation, the members of the research team completed and published a batch of research results related to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas, and finally, this book was born. There are 14 chapters in this book. The authors of each chapter are as follows: Chap. 1: Wang Yanzhong etc.; Chaps. 2 and 3: Liu Xiaomin; Chap. 4: Ding Sai, Björn Gustafsson, and Hiroshi Sato; Chap. 5: Lv Lidan, Liu Xiaomin, and Chen Xinzhi; Chap. 6: Wang Yanzhong and Yuan Linjun; Chap. 7: Chen Xinzhi and Liu Xiaomin; Chap. 8: Ding Sai; Chap. 9: Wang Yanzhong, Long Yuqi, and Ning Yafang; Chap. 10: Zhang Shan; Chap. 11: Ding Sai; Chap. 12: Ding Sai, Pad-ma lhun-grub, and bkralo; Chap. 13: Ning Yafang; and Chap. 14: Wang Yanzhong and Ning Yafang. Wang Yanzhong and Ding Sai were responsible for the final compilation and editing. This project was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China and the fund for innovation projects and the research on national conditions of the CASS. We were guided and helped by Zhao Jianying, President of the China Social Sciences Press, and Ms. Yu Miao, responsible editor of the China Social Sciences Press, and

v

vi

Preface

cooperated with and received support from relevant departments of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS, as well as experts and scholars inside and outside the institute. I would like to express my gratitude! Beijing, China

Yanzhong Wang

Contents

1

2

3

Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic Minority Areas: Challenges, Problems and Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Speeding up the Development of Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas: A Critical Step for China’s Modernization Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building a Moderately Prosperous Society Among China’s Ethnic Minorities and in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas Since the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building a Moderately Prosperous Society among Ethnic Minorities and their Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . 2.1 Current Situation in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . 2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population and Causes of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

1

4

14 22

30 45 46 50 60

Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction and Development in Rural Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . 97 3.1 Research Background and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 3.2 Research Strategies and Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors Influencing the Satisfaction Evaluation of the Performance of the Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction Programs . . . . . 107 3.4 Conclusion, Discussion and Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

vii

viii

4

5

6

7

8

Contents

Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . 4.1 Survey Data and Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Brief Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural School-Age Children in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Description and Analysis of the Current Situation of Rural Basic Education in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural School-Age Populations in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Conclusion and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Research Background and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Current Situation of Employment of College Students in these Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Their Effects . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural Residents Toward the Mobile Population and Migrants in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Data Sources and Sample Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Main Conclusion and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123 125 126

137 143

147 149 150

154 165 169 169

171 190 204 210

217 218 226 229 241

Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences in the Housing Values of Households in the Counties of Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . 245 8.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 8.2 Research Data and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Contents

ix

8.3 8.4

Empirical Result and Its Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

9

Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Functions and Principles of Social Security in Anti-poverty . . . . 9.2 Construction of Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas and Its Anti-poverty Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security on Poverty Reduction in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . 9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological Civilization Construction in China’s Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological Civilization in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Analysis of Research Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty Among Different Ethnic Groups of Different Regions in Xinjiang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4 Causes and Analysis of the Widening Income Gap in the Rural Areas of Xinjiang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma in Tibetan Ethnic Areas in the Border Areas Among Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Survey Data and Statistical Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Poverty in Daka Township . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

271 276 281 285 291 298

304 313 313 340 355 363 364 366

367 372

377 378 379 383 387

x

Contents

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance and Constraints of the Effects in the Border Areas of West Yunnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Reasons for Rural Social Assistance Reducing Poverty by Providing Basic Living Needs in Lancang County . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 Constraints of the Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Research Implication and Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1 Ethnic Work and the Stability and Development of Ethnic Minority Areas Receiving Great Attention from the Party and the Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.3 Great Confidence of Urban and Rural Residents in Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4 Severe Challenges Facing Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Construction of a Moderately Prosperous Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

393 394 396 400 404

407

407

413

418

422

426

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Chapter 1

Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic Minority Areas: Challenges, Problems and Countermeasures

The research team of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has launched a study evaluating the progress of building a moderately prosperous society among ethnic minorities and in ethnic minority areas in China. The study is designed to better understand the development of ethnic minorities and the areas where they live since the beginning of the twentyfirst century, particularly during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, to summarize the achievements and experience of the work on ethnic minorities by deeply analyzing its current circumstances and to put forward countermeasures and suggestions for the future economic development of ethnic minority areas and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by determining the reasons for difficulties in the economic development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas. The study is mainly divided into the following aspects: the tremendous importance of accelerating the building of a moderately prosperous society among ethnic minorities and in ethnic minority areas, the overall evaluation, main progress and problems of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas and the countermeasures and suggestions for the problems.

1.1 Speeding up the Development of Ethnic Minorities and Ethnic Minority Areas: A Critical Step for China’s Modernization Drive As a unified multiethnic country characterized with a long history and vast territory but unbalanced regional development, China has taken on multiple tasks in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and achieving socialist modernization. In this context, China must advance both the rapid development of coastal areas and the leapfrog development of inland regions and ethnic minority areas; in addition to accelerating economic growth by taking economic development as the central task, it must also promote coordinated economic, political, social, cultural and ecological © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_1

1

2

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

advancement; and while keeping economic growth at a certain speed for a long period to achieve and surpass its goals, it must step up the transformation of the economic development mode to improve the quality and efficiency of economic growth. China has scored remarkable achievements in building a moderately prosperous society and in its socialist modernization drive through the rapid development over the decades since the reform and opening up. Despite all the gains, it has also accumulated many contradictions and problems. The acute contradictions and problems now facing China are the unbalanced development among different regions and between urban and rural areas and the failure to effectively make the fruits of development equally shared by all members of society. The overall development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas lags behind, thus intensifying the contradictions and problems mentioned above. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government, guided by the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics, have formulated and implemented a host of major strategic thoughts and initiatives to deepen reform, maintain stability and promote development. The 16th National Congress of the CPC in 2002 pointed out that China’s goal for the first two decades of the twenty-first century is to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The 17th National Congress of the CPC in 2007 further proposed “the new requirements for attaining the goal.” The 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012 clearly put forward “the goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.” The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC in 2013 adopted the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,” which not only reiterated that the goal should be achieved by 2020 but also further proposed “to build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious and to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.” Speeding up the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects thus play important strategic roles in China’s modernization drive. First, the realization of a moderately prosperous society throughout China depends on the realization of a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas. In 2010, the degree to which the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects had been achieved reached 80.1% in China, 88.0% in the Eastern region, 71.4% in the Western region and only approximately 70.0% in eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions predominantly inhabited by ethnic minorities— Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai. The western region, especially ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, falls far behind the eastern region and cannot even reach the national average level on aspects such as resources, ecological environment, local cultures and economic mix, turning out to be the crux of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide and thus posing a great challenge for the achievement of this goal. Lifting people out of the poverty line in many ethnic minority areas, particularly 14 contiguous poverty alleviation and development areas, is a top priority. To

1.1 Speeding up the Development of Ethnic Minorities …

3

some extent, the progress and level of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide are related to whether ethnic minority areas can accomplish the goal. Second, accelerating the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas is the key for realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. The new central leadership of the CPC repeatedly emphasizes that the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects cannot be achieved without the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, and the goal of realizing the Chinese Dream depends on 1.3 billion Chinese people among 56 ethnic groups to strive with one heart. Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is not the destination of China’s development but a goal in the process of building China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious. On this basis, making national rejuvenation a reality comes as a bigger, higher and greater goal and the greatest dream of the Chinese people since modern times. The Chinese Dream represents the long-cherished wish of several generations of Chinese people, demonstrates the overall interests of both the nation and the people and remains the common aspiration of every Chinese. The Chinese Dream is about the country, the nation and the people. In pursuing this goal, the CPC endeavours to lead all the Chinese people to work together, with every part and ethnic group involved, and its realization calls for the unremitting efforts of every Chinese from every ethnic group. Third, quickening the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas is the basis and fundamental task of ethnic work in a new era. As a multiethnic country with a long history, China has a wealth of experience and lessons in handling ethnic issues. Particularly since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the CPC has not only, for the first time in Chinese history, achieved political equality among ethnic groups and established socialist relations among them based on equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony but also made remarkable progress in boosting reform, opening up and economic, social and cultural development in minority areas. The fundamental reason for such notable progress in China’s work on ethnic minorities is the integration of ethnic work into China’s socialist modernization. Some minority areas have developed an overall system for ethnic work, under which ethnic work serves as the guidance for the work of the Party and relevant government authorities, greatly bolstering the reform, development and social stability of those areas. As the Party’s top priority in governing and rejuvenating the nation, development is the key for solving all our country’s problems. Being fundamental to the achievement of “unity among all ethnic groups for common prosperity” and crucial to the management of challenges and problems in minority areas, accelerating the economic and social development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas is the main task of current ethnic work. Last, boosting the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas is the pillar of strong border defense, good neighborly relations and stability and prosperity in border areas. China is one of the countries with the longest borders, the most neighbors and the most complicated border situation in the world. Of China’s 22,000km land border, 19,000 km, 90% of the total, traverses ethnic autonomous regions.

4

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

China’s land, which involves six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and 107 border ethnic regional autonomous banners (autonomous counties), borders 14 countries. The vast border areas where China’s minority groups concentrate and a large number of cross-border ethnic groups inhabit form a compact habitation for minorities in China. Those cross-border ethnic groups, with similar languages, cultures and religions, have frequent exchanges both in and outside China. Neighboring regions are the first-hand external barrier for China to maintain its social stability and national harmony. As the neighboring environment can directly affect China’s domestic environment and development strategy all long, ensuring neighboring security is the major task of neighboring diplomacy. A peaceful and stable neighboring environment is the fundamental prerequisite for China to successfully realize socialist modernization. Our land border can be safe and secure with the stability of ethnic regions in border areas and the harmony in ethnic relations. Accelerating the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas not only promotes stability and harmony and prosperous development of the ethnic regions in the border areas but also advances the openness and cooperation between China and its neighbors, creating an international neighboring environment that fits rapid and stable development. To a certain extent, speeding up the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas and further creating an amicable, secure and prosperous neighborhood is an important foundation for China’s diplomatic strategy and neighboring security strategy, as well as an essential part of China’s own development strategy.

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building a Moderately Prosperous Society Among China’s Ethnic Minorities and in Ethnic Minority Areas By 2020, building a moderately prosperous society in all respects across the country, as China’s strategic goal, is currently the central task for the modernization of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Compared with the eastern coastal area and even the central provinces in China, ethnic regions, despite great achievements made in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, face arduous difficulties and challenges. The following discussion will be made in three aspects. 1. Under the “Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects,” it is difficult for ethnic minority areas to attain the common goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects In accordance with the plans made by the CPC Central Committee, the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) developed the indicator system to release monitoring reports on the progress of building a moderately prosperous society on an irregular basis. According to the “2011 Statistical and Monitoring Report on the Progress of Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in China” published by the NBS, the degree to which the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects had been achieved reached 80.1% nationwide in 2010,

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building …

5

20.5% higher than that in 2000 and registering an average annual increase of 2.05%. In the Eastern region, the degree was 88.0% in 2010, which could, if the current growth rate stands, secure the goal ahead of schedule. In the western region, whose starting point for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects was rather low, the degree rose to 71.4% in 2010 compared to a mere degree of 53.2% in 2000, amounting to an average annual increase of only 1.82%. The increase in China’s eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 1.8% per year, slightly lower than the average level of the whole western region. Following the average increase rate of the monitoring indicators of building a moderately prosperous society in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects throughout the country is attainable. Although the goal was even harder to achieve in the face of the definite slowdown in the national economy since the beginning of the second decade, a rise of 12% (approximately 60% of the average growth rate range of the previous decade) within ten years is still possible. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, when growth in the national economy was slowing (an average increase of 8.2%), the economic increase of the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions still outpaced the average increase nationwide (approximately two percent higher), which is conducive to narrowing the gap between the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the rest of the country in building a moderately prosperous society and to speeding up the fulfillment of the targets required by a moderately prosperous society in the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. The crux lies in the unbalanced regional development in China. The trend that the disparities among the ethnic minority areas and the Eastern region and even the country on average in economic and social development are widening has not been thoroughly reversed. Consequently, it is still rather arduous for the Central and Western regions, ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in particular, to fulfill the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Following the average increase rate in the first decade of the twenty-first century, ethnic provinces and autonomous regions can achieve approximately 89% of all the monitoring indicators of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, roughly attaining the level of the Eastern region in 2010. Following the national average increase rate that equals 90% of the average increase rate in the first decade (the average level of the first decade), ethnic provinces and autonomous regions can achieve approximately 87% of all the monitoring indicators, just approaching the average level of the Eastern region in 2010. Following the national average increase rate (60% of the increasing range of the first decade) in the second decade, ethnic provinces and autonomous regions can only achieve 83% of all the monitoring indicators in 2020, slightly higher than the national average level in 2010. Even if the ethnic minority areas can outpace the whole country in economic growth indicators by two percentage points from 2011 to 2013, or calculated in accordance with 122% of the average increase rate in the first decade in building a moderately prosperous society nationwide, these areas can only achieve approximately 91% of all the monitoring indicators in 2020. In the

6

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

face of the economic microenvironment that undergoes major changes, there is a small possibility of reaching the increase rate mentioned above. In addition, different ethnic provinces and autonomous regions differ greatly in the progress of building a moderately prosperous society. In 2010, Inner Mongolia lagged behind the national average level by merely 0.5 percentage points, registering the smallest gap; Guangxi 7.7 percentage points, the second smallest gap; another six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions more than 10 percentage points, and over 17 percentage points for Qinghai, Xinjiang, Guizhou and Tibet (see Table 1.1). Based on the abovementioned increase rate, it is only possible for Inner Mongolia to fulfill the indicator tasks measured by the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects, while it is almost an impossible task for other provinces and regions. As a result, it will be rather difficult for ethnic provinces and autonomous regions to fulfill the grand goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. If ethnic minority areas fail to develop by leaps and bounds or make proper adjustments to their indicator system based on the new situation in the second decade of the twenty-first century, it will be rather possible for these areas to fail to fulfill the indicator tasks of finishing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. If so, the quality of a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide will be affected to a certain extent, even though the country fulfills its indicator tasks as a whole. 2. Following the Development and Life Index (DLI), ethnic minority areas are confronted with increasing difficulties in narrowing the development gap and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects In 2013, the NBS released the DLI for the years 2000–2012. The DLI aims to monitor the economic development, livelihood improvement, social progress, ecological Table 1.1 Gap between the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the country on average in the realization degree of building a moderately prosperous society and the six aspects 2010 Realization Economic Social Quality Democratic Cultural Resources degree development harmony of life legal education and system environment Inner −0.5 Mongolia

7.4

6.2

−7.3

−2.5

−7.8

−8.3

Guangxi

−7.7

−18.9

−8.7

−3.6

−0.8

−8.8

11.2

Guizhou

−17.4

−24.5

−21.1

−15.6

−8.4

−15.0

−7.7

Yunnan

−12

−22.4

−21.7

−18.8

0.1

12.3

−1.4

Tibet

−17.2

−23.4

−20.2

−28.3

−5.0

−22.9

16.6

Qinghai

−18.3

−15.5

−25.2

−22.7

−10.4

−15.4

−18.1

Ningxia

−14.1

−14.4

−12.5

−13.2

Xinjiang

−17.9

−16.4

−22.3

−22

−5.2

−9.3

−28.5

−15.1

−16.0

−12.6

Source Calculated in accordance with relevant monitoring indicators published by the NBS

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building …

7

construction, scientific and technological innovations of all regions as a whole and guide development onto the path of improving the quality, benefits and wellbeing of the people. The DLI evaluation indicator system comprises six aspects, including economic development, livelihood improvement, social progress, ecological construction, scientific and technological innovations and public comments (the last has not been carried out now), with 42 indicators in total, and the coverage of the second-level indicators is much broader. The compilation and calculation of DLI mainly draw experience from those of the Human Development Index (HDI) used by the United Nations. Each indicator’s evaluation index, which usually ranges from 0 to 100, is calculated based on the upper and lower thresholds of indicators, and the classification index and the total index are compiled in accordance with the weight of indicators. The DLI reflects all 23 s-level indicators in the monitoring system for building a moderately prosperous society except the Gini coefficient. This change is made out of the considerations for the new situations emerging in regional economic and social development, especially the new requirements set by the 18th National Congress of the CPC to highlight the improvement of people’s lives. In February 2013, the NBS released the DLI for 2000–2011, and in December 2012, the DLI released the DLI for 2012, which provides more comprehensive and convenient statistics for us to study and evaluate the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas. According to the two Statistical and Monitoring Results of the Development and Life Index (DLI) released by the NBS since the twenty-first century, the 11th FiveYear Plan period in particular, the DLIs of the Eastern region, the Central region and the Western region increased tremendously, registering a growth of 25.18%, 23.50% and 24.04%, respectively, compared with the year 2000. The index of the eastern region, the highest, was 71.57%, and those of the central and western regions were 60.35% and 58.22%, respectively, in 2012. Different from the index of building a moderately prosperous society, the increasing range of the DLI of the western region was smaller than that of the eastern region but larger than that of the central region, which means that the gap between the western region and the eastern and central regions in the DLI conspicuously narrowed. Meanwhile, as the development base of the western region is low, given nearly the same increasing range, the western region will develop at a faster speed. From 2001 to 2012, the average annual increases in the DLI of the eastern, central and western regions were 3.68%, 4.20% and 4.54%, respectively, and the western region achieved the most rapid average increase rate, which was 123% of that of the eastern region and 108% of that of the central region. If the average growth rate of the previous 12 years stands, during the eight years from 2013 to 2020, the DLIs of all regions nationwide are expected to increase two percentage points each year, and the DLIs of the Eastern, Central and Western regions will have reached approximately 88%, 76% and 75%, respectively, by 2020. If the DLI of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions equals that of the Western region, it will have reached approximately 75%. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the increasing range of DLI has tended to decline, among which the Eastern region underwent a more drastic decline (the growth rate from 2010 to 2012 accounts for 89% of that from 2001 to 2012), and the growth rates of

8

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

the Western and the Central regions were slower than those of the 11th Five-Year Plan period but still faster than the average increase rate from 2001 to 2012 (114% and 102%, respectively) (see Table 1.2). In consideration of the abovementioned fact and based on evaluations, the DLIs of the Eastern, Central and Western regions can be adjusted to approximately 86, 76 and 77% by 2020. In this way, the DLI gap among different regions nationwide will be further narrowed, and the DLI of the Western ethnic minority areas will reach approximately 80% of all indicators. The development of the Western region, especially the ethnic minority areas, will become more simultaneous with that of other regions in the country. However, the whole country will be confronted with a widening gap in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and although the gap is very common nationwide, the Central and Western regions are faced with wider gaps and therefore greater pressure to attain the targets and tougher tasks. Among all the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, only the DLI of Inner Mongolia is slightly higher than the average level of the Western region, and the DLIs of the other seven provinces and autonomous regions still lag behind the remaining provinces and regions of the country (see Table 1.3). With such a wide gap, it is impossible to achieve the overall improvement of DLI by leaps and bounds, and it is difficult to fulfill the current targets of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Table 1.2 Average annual growth rate of DLI of all regions in China 2001–2012. Unit: % Average annual growth rate from 2001 to 2012

Average annual growth rate during the 10th Five-Year Plan period

Average annual growth rate during the 11th Five-Year Plan period

Average annual growth rate since the 12th Five-Year Plan period

Eastern region

3.68

3.26

4.27

3.28

Central region

4.20

3.35

5.02

4.27

Western region

4.54

3.40

5.44

5.17

Inner Mongolia

4.28

3.82

4.85

3.99

Guangxi

4.27

4.02

4.53

4.27

Guizhou

5.43

4.83

5.72

6.21

Yunnan

3.92

1.83

5.26

5.88

Tibet

4.44

3.54

5.29

4.57

Qinghai

4.38

3.46

4.47

6.46

Ningxia

4.61

3.85

5.67

3.89

Xinjiang

4.44

2.8

5.83

5.15

Source The National Statistical Society of China and the Research Institute of Statistical Sciences of the NBS: the “2012 Statistical and Monitoring Results of the Development and Life Index (DLI)” (December 31st, 2013), the website of the NBS

32.29

31.97

31.11

31.37

31.06

30.92

Ningxia

Qinghai

Xinjiang

2002

32.51

33.58

34.33

33.72

34.99

31.01

38.3

37.73

36.8

39.59

49.72

2003

34.67

34.95

35.41

34.94

36.25

31.97

39.15

38.73

37.58

40.61

51.2

2004

34.35

35.43

36.86

36.39

37.15

33.23

40.01

40.36

38.57

41.8

52.73

2005

35.49

36.82

37.89

35.8

38.79

36.29

42.42

43.15

40.4

43.45

54.45

2006

37.17

38.91

40.09

38.82

39.58

37.24

43.86

45.38

42.1

45.54

56.9

2007

39.90

39.81

43.28

39.88

42.96

40.17

46.34

50.21

45.44

48.42

59.61

2008

41.54

41.01

44.90

40.94

44.69

41.19

47.64

49.67

47.07

50.3

61.62

2009

44.46

42.93

46.68

43.4

47.77

44.4

51.09

52.39

50.05

53.19

64.49

2010

47.12

45.82

49.92

46.32

50.13

47.93

52.93

54.69

52.64

55.51

67.1

2011

49.42

48.68

50.80

47.85

52.95

51.21

54.33

56.85

55.43

58.04

69.38

2012

52.10

51.93

53.88

50.65

56.2

54.07

57.55

59.14

58.22

60.35

71.57

Source The National Statistical Society of China and the Research Institute of Statistical Sciences of the NBS: the “2012 Statistical and Monitoring Results of the Development and Life Index (DLI)” (December 31st, 2013), the website of the NBS

33.79

32.1

35.42

30.09

Yunnan

Tibet

29.55

28.66

Guizhou

36.64

36.51

35.78

34.83

Inner Mongolia

Guangxi

35.31

38.39

36.85

34.18

Central region

2001

47.98

2000

46.39

Western region

Eastern region

Table 1.3 Development and life index of the three regions and the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2012. Unit: %

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building … 9

10

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

3. The officials and the masses in ethnic minority areas are generally confident in and partially worried about building a moderately prosperous society in all respects According to the field investigations and questionnaires made by the 16 subprojects of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century” project team of the CASS in 2013, the officials and the masses in ethnic minority areas highly support the strategic goal of building a moderately prosperous society, and generally speaking, they are confident in fulfilling that goal in the region. Of the 5,404 questionnaires for urban and rural households, 87.4% are very confident and confident; of all the 1,132 questionnaires for officials, 85.4% are very confident and confident. The masses are more optimistic than the officials. Of course, 11.3% of the masses and 12.1% of the officials lack confidence in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and there are only a very few officials and masses showing no confidence (see Table 1.4). The confidence of the officials and the masses in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the region should be valued and encouraged, and their opinions about the difficulties in attaining that goal or the reasons for their lack of confidence should be taken seriously. From the perspective of the masses, their confidence is mainly affected by the following factors: the slow pace of income growth (70.8%), unsatisfactory living conditions (35.4%), insufficient infrastructure (33.8%) and poor implementation of supportive policies (29.9%). Officials share the same view with the masses with regard to the first factor; that is, 69% of the officials hold that the slow pace of income growth is the main reason for the lack of confidence. The second, third and fourth reasons for the officials’ lack of confidence are insufficient infrastructure (50.8%), the poor implementation of supportive policies (34.9%) and the unsound social security system (37.4%). Based on what has been mentioned above, the masses hold that the main problems to be settled or their main suggestions are to speed up local economic development (61.8%), accelerate infrastructure construction (37.3%), put in place the central government’s policies (27.9%) and expand local employment (25.0%); local officials hold that the main problems to be solved are to speed up local economic development (68.3%), accelerate infrastructure construction (44.6%) and improve education level (26.7%). Based on the data monitoring and surveys and analyses of the abovementioned three aspects, the second decade of the twenty-first century is the critical period for ethnic minority areas to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, promote regional development and improve people’s living standards. The strategic goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects across the country can be fulfilled by 2020. The officials and the masses in ethnic minority areas are confident in the realization of the goal, which demonstrates their wish to keep pace with the whole country in regard to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. However, objective data show that it is almost impossible for ethnic minority areas to reach the goal set by the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in the time remained. In fact, since the new era, especially the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the fact that the

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building …

11

Table 1.4 Confidence of the officials and the masses in ethnic minority areas in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020

Gansu

Official

Mass

Total

Guizhou

Official

Mass

Total

Inner Mongolia

Official

Mass

Very confident

Confident

Unconfident

Impossible

Total

Sample size (person)

30

47

1

0

78

Proportion (%)

38.5

60.3

1.3

0

100.0

Sample size (person)

79

249

33

10

371

Proportion (%)

21.3

67.1

8.9

2.7

100.0

Sample size (person)

109

296

34

10

449

Proportion (%)

24.3

65.9

7.6

2.2

100.0

Sample size (person)

25

125

34

5

189

Proportion (%)

13.2

66.1

18.0

2.6

100.0

Sample size (person)

162

859

221

9

1,251

Proportion (%)

12.9

68.7

17.7

0.7

100.0

Sample size (person)

187

984

255

14

1,440

Proportion (%)

13.0

68.3

17.7

1.0

100.0

Sample size (person)

40

66

14

3

123

Proportion (%)

32.5

53.7

11.4

2.4

100.0

Sample size (person)

192

391

110

5

698

Proportion (%)

27.5

56.0

15.8

0.7

100.0 (continued)

12

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

Table 1.4 (continued)

Total

Qinghai

Official

Mass

Total

Xinjiang

Official

Mass

Total

Yunnan

Official

Very confident

Confident

Unconfident

Impossible

Total

Sample size (person)

232

457

124

8

821

Proportion (%)

28.3

55.7

15.1

1.0

100.0

Sample size (person)

26

46

8

2

82

Proportion (%)

31.7

56.1

9.8

2.4

100.0

Sample size (person)

66

228

42

12

348

Proportion (%)

19.0

65.5

12.1

3.4

100.0

Sample size (person)

92

274

50

14

430

Proportion (%)

21.4

63.7

11.6

3.3

100.0

Sample size (person)

93

232

34

8

367

Proportion (%)

25.3

63.2

9.3

2.2

100.0

Sample size (person)

347

820

72

15

1,254

Proportion (%)

27.7

65.4

5.7

1.2

100.0

Sample size (person)

440

1,052

106

23

1,621

Proportion (%)

27.1

64.9

6.5

1.4

100.0

Sample size (person)

58

179

46

10

293

Proportion (%)

19.8

61.1

15.7

3.4

100.0 (continued)

1.2 Overall Evaluation of the Progress of Building …

13

Table 1.4 (continued)

Mass

Total

Total

Official

Mass

Total

Very confident

Confident

Unconfident

Impossible

Total

Sample size (person)

219

1,109

135

19

1,482

Proportion (%)

14.8

74.8

9.1

1.3

100.0

Sample size (person)

277

1,288

181

29

1,775

Proportion (%)

15.6

72.6

10.2

1.6

100.0

Sample size (person)

272

695

137

28

1,132

Proportion (%)

24.0

61.4

12.1

2.5

100.0

Sample size (person)

1,065

3,656

613

70

5,404

Proportion (%)

19.7

67.7

11.3

1.3

100.0

Sample size (person)

1,337

4,351

750

98

6,536

Proportion (%)

20.5

66.6

11.5

1.5

100.0

Source The questionnaire database of 16 counties of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century” of the Institute of Ethnology of the CASS

economic and social development of China has embarked on a new phase and the new requirement that the approach to development should be transformed clearly point out that GDP is not the sole criterion for development and the assessment of officials, nor the growth rate and data and indicators. These new outlooks on development and new assessment methods relieve local officials and masses of the efforts to pursue scientific and comprehensive development that aims at improving people’s living standards, which is beneficial to the overall advancement of the progress of building a moderately prosperous society.

14

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas Since the 21st Century Since the twenty-first century, the all-around development in ethnic minority areas on aspects of politics, economy, society, culture and ecology has been promoted with the implementation of the strategy for large-scale development of western China, a series of state-level regional development strategies for ethnic minority areas and a series of supportive preferential policies for various fields including finance, revenue, investment, culture, education, technology, talent training, poverty alleviation and social security. In ethnic minority areas, the regional development and the improvement of people’s livelihood have been faster than those in the Eastern region, the Central region and the national average level, and the progress of building a moderately prosperous society has shown an accelerating trend during the 10th and 11th Five-Year Plan periods and the first half of the 12th Five-Year Plan period. In some fields, the gap between the level of ethnic minority areas and the national average level has begun to shrink. 1. Gaining surpassing momentum in the economy in ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and achieving leapfrog development in some areas During the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006–2010), double-digit rate increases were seen in the GDP and fiscal revenue of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions every year, which were higher than the national average. The GDP of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions had an average annual growth rate of 13.1%; the regional GDP per capita reached RMB 18,014. The per capita disposable income of urban residents was RMB 14,070, and the per capita net income of farmers was RMB 3,931, an increase of RMB 5,328 and RMB 1,654, respectively, over 2005. Since 2002, the economic growth rate of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has maintained first place in the country for eight consecutive years, and its regional GDP has risen from the 24th to the 15th place in the country. In terms of the “economic development” indicator of building a moderately prosperous society, the realization degree of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2010 varied between 51.6 and 83.5%, compared with 36.4 and 46.5% in 2000, an average annual increase from 1.37 to 3.7 percentage points, respectively. From 2000 to 2010, Inner Mongolia sprung up with an average annual increase of 3.7 percentage points (the national average annual growth was 2.58) in its realization degree of “economic development.” From 46.5% in 2000 to 83.5% in 2010, from lagging behind the country to exceeding the national average by 7.4 percentage points, rapid economic growth became the major factor for narrowing the gap between Inner Mongolia and the whole country in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. From the perspective of the national macro development framework cycle, the growth rate of the realization degree of “economic development” in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions during the 11th Five-Year period was faster than that during the 10th Five-Year Plan period. From 2010 to 2011, with the exception of Tibet, the

1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous …

15

growth rate of the other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was faster than that during the 11th Five-Year Plan period. Among them, Guangxi, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Ningxia achieved growth ranges from 2.7 to 3.1 percentage points (see Table 1.5). This was a positive development trend. It is worth noting that some ethnic areas, such as Lijiang, Jiuzhaigou and Kashgar, with the support of their local industries, such as special economic zones, distinctive tourism, and the ethnic handicraft industry, not only got out of poverty and achieved leapfrog development in the economy but also made significant progress in industrialization, urbanization, and economic and social structural transformation. 2. Keeping pace with the whole country in the development of the democratic legal system and keeping the society harmonious and steady in general The democratic legal system is an important parameter of social and political civilization, revealing the degree to which the rule of law and civil rights is realized. This index includes two monitoring indicators: the satisfaction of citizens with their own democratic rights and the social security index. From the realization degree of the “democratic legal system,” the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions held the percentage from 78.5 to 92.8% in 2010, an average annual increase from 0.8 to 2.34 percentage points compared with the percentage from 58 to 84.8 in 2000. From 2000 to 2010, the growth rates of all the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions were higher than the national average except for Guangxi and Guizhou. In 2010, the development progress of the “democratic legal system” in Yunnan, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia exceeded 90% (see Table 1.6), approaching or even achieving the national average. The development of a democratic legal system in ethnic minority areas has contributed to the systematic and legal guarantee of building a moderately prosperous society, especially with some areas whose democratic legal system features strong local characteristics. It has also played an economic role in protecting the legal rights of ethnic minorities and maintaining social harmony and stability. The period of rapid economic development was also a period of rapid changes and adjustments of the interest pattern and social structure. With various social contradictions being intricate, those involving ethnic and religious problems also occurred frequently. Among the rapid developments, maintaining harmonious individual and ethnic relations and maintaining a safe and stable social environment constituted the prerequisite and basic guarantee for advancing a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas. From the realization degree of “social harmony,” the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions saw fluctuations between 57.3 and 88.7% in 2010, a respective average annual increase from 0.98 to 2.83 percentage points compared with 22.1 to 69.3% in 2000. The eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions kept the same pace as the whole country in the progress of achieving “social harmony.” Most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions achieved a greater growth rate in the degree of achieving “social harmony” during the 11th Five-Year Plan period than in the 10th Five-Year Plan period. The growth rate was even higher from 2010 to 2012 than that during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (see Table 1.7).

76.1

2.06

3.1

2010 83.5

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

Source According to relevant monitoring indicators published by the NBS

69.1

73.1

2008

2009

2.2

1.1

57.2

54.7

51.4

49.1

66.6

2007

46.2 47.6

60.6

44.6

43.8

42.9

41.7

40.7

Guangxi

63.4

62.4

46.5

Inner Mongolia

2005

58.2

2004

Western region

2006

54.4

56.3

2002

2003

50.3

52.2

2000

2001

National total

1.96

1.08

51.6

49.4

46.8

45

43.5

41.8

40.2

39.4

38.3

37.5

36.4

Guizhou

53.7

52.0

Yunnan

1.69

1.04

52.7

51.6

49.6

47.5

45.5

44.3

43.4

42.4

42.4

40.7

39.1

Tibet

2.06

1

60.6

57.6

53.5

52.5

51.2

50.3

50.1

49.3

48.3

45.9

45.3

Qinghai

2.0

1.24

61.7

59.7

56.4

55.6

53.5

51.7

50.5

48.7

47.3

45.9

45.5

Ningxia

1.88

0.98

59.7

58.3

55.5

53.8

51.7

50.3

49.4

48.1

47.9

46.7

45.4

Xinjiang

Table 1.5 Realization degree of the “economic development” indicator among the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

16 1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

93.6

0.16

1.6

2010

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

Source According to relevant monitoring indicators published by the NBS

91.1

93.1

2008

2009

0.64

0.96

92.8

93.3

91.6

90

89.9

2007

89.6 91.2

85.6

87.7

85

84.2

82.6

84.8

Guangxi

88.4

91.1

79.2

Inner Mongolia

2005

83.7

2004

Western region

2006

82.5

82.4

2002

2003

84.8

82.6

2000

2001

National total

1.02

0.58

85.2

84.5

84.3

83.2

82.7

80.1

80.3

78.5

78.1

75.2

77.2

Guizhou

93.7

90.2

Yunnan

3.69

0.99

88.6

75.6

86.0

72.2

75.1

70.2

65.8

63.6

73.7

75.2

65.2

Tibet

2.2

0.44

83.2

81

80

77.7

74.7

72.2

70.8

70.4

63

68.9

70

Qinghai

2.86

1.5

88.4

84.3

81.5

82.5

76.8

74.1

73.3

71.9

70.8

71.3

66.6

Ningxia

3.14

0.96

78.5

79.5

76.4

74.3

70.2

62.8

66.7

64.5

64.4

58.5

58

Xinjiang

Table 1.6 Realization degree of the “democratic legal system” indicator among the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous … 17

82.5

1.06

3.94

2010 88.7

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

Source According to the relevant monitoring indicators published by the NBS

76

77.7

2008

2009

5.26

0.4

−1.62 3.88

61.4

59.1

52.3

54

43.7

35.1

21.9

21.9

24.1

28.7

33.1

Guizhou

73.8

69.1

67.4

64.1

72.1

2007

54.4 53.8

62.8

52.2

54.1

55.6

59.1

62.5

Guangxi

67.6

74.1

69.3

Inner Mongolia

2005

59.9

2004

Western region

2006

57.1

56.3

2002

2003

57.5

59.6

2000

2001

National total

60.8

53.5

Yunnan

2.0

3.2

62.3

65.1

67.5

58.0

71.1

52.4

58.4

42.9

49.4

16.7

36.7

Tibet

2.58

−0.62

57.3

50.8

50.5

50.1

41.1

44.4

46.8

51.8

51.7

52.4

47.5

Qinghai

3.9

−1.56

70

60.1

57

58.4

44.2

50.5

58.8

57.4

56.3

55

58.3

Ningxia

Table 1.7 Realization degree of the social harmony indicators among the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

5.78

1.84

60.2

58.4

48.7

48.7

37.1

31.3

29.8

27.4

24

25.3

22.1

Xinjiang

18 1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous …

19

3. Continuously improving the living standards and quality of mass of all ethnic groups Since the 11th Five-Year Plan, China has further advanced social construction focusing on people’s livelihood, which has greatly improved the living standards of people of all ethnic groups. From the “quality of life,” the realization degree was from 58.1 to 82.8% in 2010, a respective average annual increase from 1.94 to 2.84 percentage points from the 32.5 to 55.5% in 2000, which was consistent with the progress of improving the “quality of life” of people of the whole country. During the 11th Five-Year Plan period, except for Guangxi and Xinjiang, the degree of improvement in the “quality of life” in the other six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions grew faster than that during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (see Table 1.8). From 2011 to 2012, except for Guangxi, the growth rates in the other seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions surpassed those during the 11th Five-Year Plan period. The growth rates in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet reached 5.2 to 5.5 percentage points, showing a trend of accelerating development. In 2011, among the eight ethnic minority provinces and autonomous regions, the realization degree of the improvement of the “quality of life” indicator all reached or exceeded the average annual growth rate, which was necessary to achieve a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020 as scheduled. This stated that the country has adopted measures to improve people’s livelihood in ethnic minority areas and has achieved good results. 4. Rapid development of culture and education The development of culture and education not only reveals the soft power and human capital strength of a nation but also reflects the inclusiveness and openness of a society. The “cultural education” indicators include three monitoring indicators: the proportion of the added value of cultural industry in GDP, the proportion of residents’ cultural, educational and entertainment expenditure in household consumption expenditure, and the average years of schooling. From this perspective, the realization degree of the “cultural education” indicator in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions reached from 45.1 to 80.3% in 2010, a respective average annual increase from 0.22 to 1.58 percentage points (see Table 1.9) compared with the 35.1 to 51.2% in 2000. The average annual growth range of Qinghai, Guizhou, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi was higher than or close to the national average. In 2010, the degree of realizing “cultural education” reached 80.3% in Yunnan, 20.1 percentage points higher than the national average. This is a remarkable result of Yunnan Province’s implementation of the strategy of strengthening the province through ethnic culture. Its basic practices and experience deserve attention. During the 10th Five-Year Plan period, most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accelerated the development of “cultural education.” The average annual growth rates of Qinghai, Guizhou, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi were higher than the national average (0.94%). During the 11th Five-Year Plan period, the cultural and educational development indicators of most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions increased to varying degrees, but the average annual growth rate was slightly lower than the national average.

86.4

2.64

2.98

2010 79.1

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

Source According to the relevant monitoring indicators published by the NBS

80

83.7

2008

2009

2.54

2.92

82.8

81.2

77.2

74.8

78.4

2007

70.1 71.9

71.5

64.2

62.1

59.8

57.9

55.5

Guangxi

75

75.2

50.7

Inner Mongolia

2005

67.7

2004

Western region

2006

62.9

65.5

2002

2003

58.3

60.7

2000

2001

National total

2.86

2.18

70.8

66

61.2

60.4

58.5

56.5

52.9

51.5

49.8

46.9

45.6

Guizhou

67.6

64.5

Yunnan

3.63

1.50

58.1

54.1

48.6

46.1

43.7

40.0

38.6

37.1

36.5

35.8

32.5

Tibet

2.3

2.26

63.7

61.3

58.3

56.1

54.5

52.2

47.9

46.5

46

43

40.9

Qinghai

Table 1.8 Progress of the “quality of life” indicator in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

2.6

2.02

73.2

69.9

67.9

65.1

62.5

60.2

57.8

55.1

53

51.8

50.1

Ningxia

1.86

2.02

64.4

62.2

59.8

59.5

57.1

55.1

51

49.6

47.4

46.6

45

Xinjiang

20 1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

63.7

60.2

61

64.1

2006

54.5

1

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

59.2 0.28

1.5

Source According to the related monitoring indicators published by the NBS

68

0.94

2010

56.6

66.1

2009

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

54.2

65.3

64.6

2007

2008

57.8

62.2

63

53.4

52.7

51.3

50.3

Guangxi

2004

61.8

2003

50.4

Inner Mongolia

2005

59.1

60.9

2001

2002

58.3

2000

National total

0.72

1.7

53

47

50.3

50.4

48.9

49.4

49.3

47.9

45.4

43

40.9

Guizhou

80.3

78

Yunnan

0.11

1.89

45.1

53.6

52.3

48.6

46.5

44.6

43.6

41.9

39.8

37.0

35.1

Tibet

1.06

1.98

52.6

51.8

51.3

52.1

49.4

47.3

45.5

44.7

42.8

39.8

37.4

Qinghai

0.5

1.64

58.7

59.5

59.7

59.5

57.8

56.2

57.5

54.1

52.8

49.2

48

Ningxia

Table 1.9 Realization degree of the “cultural education” indicator in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

−0.08

0.24

52

50.3

50.5

51.8

51.8

52.4

52.3

55.3

54.0

51.9

51.2

Guangxi

1.3 Great Progress in Building a Moderately Prosperous … 21

22

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

5. Paying more attention to ecological civilization construction Ethnic minority areas are vast, rich in resources, and fragile in the overall ecological environment. Many parts of these areas are ecological security barriers for the country. With the speeding up of development, tremendous pressure on resources and environmental protection has emerged in ethnic minority areas. In the process of accelerating economic development, more emphasis has been placed on ecological and environmental protection, and significant results have been achieved in ecological construction. From the perspective of the “resources and environment” indicator, except for Ningxia, the realization degree in the other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions all remained over 60% in 2010, and Tibet and Guangxi reached 94.8 and 89.4%, which were much higher than the national average (78.2%); Yunnan, Guizhou, and Inner Mongolia achieved 76.8, 70.5 and 69.9%, respectively; Qinghai and Xinjiang achieved 60.1 and 65.6%, respectively (see Table 1.10). As the national ecological compensation mechanism is improved, ecological protection is strengthened, and the industrial structure is upgraded, the ecological environment in ethnic minority areas will be further improved. In short, in a dozen years since the implementation of the strategy for large-scale development of western China, especially during the 11th Five-Year Plan period, the building of a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas has generally progressed smoothly, with various monitoring indicators showing a significant upward trend. This period is one of the periods in which ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas realized the fastest economic and social development, the greatest changes in urban and rural appearance, and the most benefits for the masses of all ethnic groups. It laid a solid foundation for ethnic minority areas to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. The overall gap between the level of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas and the national average level is still obvious, and the trend of widening the gap has not yet been contained Although the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas has accelerated and has been faster than the Eastern region and the national average level since the twenty-first century, especially during the 11th Five-Year Plan period and the first half of the 12th Five-Year Plan period, restricted by factors such as the development base, the overall gap has not been narrowed significantly but has even become wider in many aspects, including the indicators of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas and even the indicators of improving people’s livelihood. Obvious differences still exist in the development level between ethnic minority areas and the Eastern region and the national average (see Tables 1.1 and 1.11).

86.5

84.2 86.6

70.6

2006

83.5

0.9

Source According to the related monitoring indicators published by the NBS

1.74

The 11th Five-Year Plan period

0.6

89.4

78.2

0.82

2010

89

76.8

2009

The 10th Five-Year Plan period

87.5

72.6

75.2

2007

2008

84.9

67.7

86.8

87.9

69.5

69.9

Guangxi 81.9

2004

67.2

2003

Inner Mongolia 57.1

2005

64.6

66.3

2001

2002

65.4

2000

National total

1.04

1.52

70.5

69.2

68

66.5

64.3

65.3

62.1

62.5

60.9

59.8

57.7

Guizhou

76.8

77.2

Yunnan

Qinghai

0.06

0.06

60.1 0.82

94.8

57.9

57.7

59.4

59.6

59.8

58.7

57.9

58.4

52.8

55.7

−0.08

95.0

94.3

94.5

94.8

94.5

94.5

94.3

94.5

93.9

94.9

Tibet

2.18

−2.28

49.7

45.3

41.1

38.8

38.3

38.8

38.7

37.2

53.1

50.7

50.2

Ningxia

1.4

0.56

65.6

62.6

63.2

58.7

58

58.6

55.6

57.4

53.3

53

55.8

Guangxi

Table 1.10 Realization degree of the “resources and environment” indicators in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions 2000–2010. Unit: %

1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous … 23

24

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

Table 1.11 Gap in the development and life index between the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and other parts of China in 2012. Unit: % Development Economic Livelihood Social Ecological Scientific and life development improvement development construction and index technological innovation Eastern Region

71.57

81.77

75.71

69.75

72.82

47.20

Northeast 62.04 Region

75.86

67.67

68.22

62.61

16.66

Central Region

60.35

65.74

66.04

68.16

65.83

19.64

Western Region

58.22

66.73

61.81

66.45

62.07

18.02

Inner 59.14 Mongolia

76.31

62.63

65.01

63.23

7.97

Guangxi

57.55

63.97

62.49

65.61

66.98

10.74

Guizhou

54.07

62.17

58.22

65.47

58.92

6.89

Yunnan

56.20

63.03

58.64

69.92

63.19

7.89

Tibet

50.65

58.02

54.70

68.95

48.80

3.03

Qinghai

51.93

64.39

58.51

62.80

46.95

6.99

Ningxia

53.88

66.89

61.17

61.03

50.93

9.79

Xinjiang

52.10

65.86

63.38

57.18

46.23

6.14

Source The National Statistical Society of China and the Research Institute of Statistical Sciences of the National Bureau of Statistics: the 2012 Statistical and Monitoring Results of the Development and Life Index (DLI) (December 31st, 2013), the website of the NBS

As shown in Table 1.1 and the analysis of the internal indicator, in terms of the indicators of economic development, social harmony, quality of life, cultural education, and resources and environment, some of China’s eight ethnic provinces have met or exceeded the national average level in one indicator, but others are significantly behind the level in other indicators. In view of the fulfillment of the six indicators in the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2010, economic development and cultural education were the weak links in the progress, and resources and environment also restricted the advancement of the goal. The backwardness of ethnic minority areas was basically due to their slow economic growth, and the gap in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects between these areas and other parts of the country was mainly due to their different economic growth pace. In terms of “per capita GDP,” a significant subindicator in the “economic development” indicator, Inner Mongolia was up to the standard of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, but the other seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions saw the degree of reaching the standard achieving less than 60%. Specifically, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Ningxia saw the degree reaching between

1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous …

25

50 and 60%, Tibet and Yunnan saw less than 50%, and Guizhou saw only 32.3%, which was the lowest rate. For Guizhou, two-thirds of the scheduled time passed, but only one-third of the target was completed. Obviously, it is a great challenge to accomplish the target with the remaining time. With respect to “the proportion of the expenditure on R&D in GDP,” the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions saw the degree reaching less than 60%. With regard to “the proportion of the added value of the tertiary industry in GDP,” Guizhou and Tibet achieved or basically reached the standard, but the other six provinces and regions saw the degree ranging from 60 to 89%, and the development of some of them was still unstable. In terms of “the proportion of urban residents,” Inner Mongolia achieved or basically reached the standard, but Guangxi, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan and Qinghai saw the degree reaching between 60 and 89%, and Guizhou and Tibet less than 60%, still lagging behind the standard. In this context, there is still a long and hard way to go before the eight provinces and regions all reach the standard in 2020. With respect to “average years of schooling” in the “cultural education” indicator, the eight provinces and regions made the greatest achievement. Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang achieved or basically reached the standard, but the other six provinces and regions saw degrees ranging from 60 to 89%, still falling behind the standard. As to “the proportion of the added value of the cultural industry in GDP,” Yunnan came up to the standard, but the other seven provinces and regions saw the degree achieving less than 60%, which was both behind the national average and far from the standard. For “the proportion of the expenditure on cultural, educational and entertainment services in household consumption,” Inner Mongolia saw the degree reaching between 60 and 89%, and the other seven provinces and regions saw less than 60%. Overall, “cultural education” is an important factor that severely affects the building of a prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas. Concerning “environmental quality” in the “resources and environment” indicator, Guangxi was up to the standard, but the other seven provinces and regions saw the degree ranging from 60 to 89%, still falling behind the standard. In relation to “energy consumption per unit of GDP,” except for Tibet, which was not developed, Guangxi saw the degree reaching between 60 and 89%, and Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Qinghai and Guizhou saw it less than 60%. Regarding “per capita disposable income” in the “quality of life” indicator, which is also an important factor that sets back the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in the eight provinces and regions, inner Mongolia came up to the standard, but the other seven provinces and regions saw the degree reaching less than 60%. Regarding the “mortality rate and average life expectancy of children under five,” Inner Mongolia came up to the standard, but Guangxi, Yunnan, Ningxia and Qinghai saw the degree reaching between 60 and 89%, and Tibet, Guizhou and Xinjiang saw it below 60%. In terms of the “urban–rural income ratio” in the “social harmony” indicator, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang achieved or basically reached the standard, but Qinghai and Tibet saw the degree reach between 60 and 89%, and Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Ningxia saw less than 60%. With respect to the “coefficient of variation in regional economic development,” Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Yunnan and Guizhou achieved or basically reached the standard, but Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai saw the degree reaching less than 60%.

26

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

In Table 1.11, the DLI in the eight provinces and regions seems to be closer to the index of building a moderately prosperous society but still generally lags well behind that of the national average and the Eastern region. In many classification indicators, the eight provinces and regions have a huge gap with other parts of China, especially in the scientific and technological innovation index. In terms of the index, Guangxi saw the degree reaching 10.74%, being the highest of the eight provinces and regions, but still lagging 5.92, 8.9 and 7.28 percentage points behind the average levels of the Northeast, Central and even Western regions, respectively, and 36.46 percentage points behind the Eastern region. 2. Varied factors affecting the sound economic and social development in ethnic minority areas and these areas’ inability to solve development problems (1) Problems faced by ethnic minority areas in balancing economic development and ecological protection during undertaking industries transferred from the Eastern region and in their industrialization progress Industrialization in ethnic minority areas is still transitioning from the initial to the middle stage, and undertaking industries transferred from other parts of China and abroad is in line with both the objective law of economic development and the western development strategy in the 12th Five-Year Plan. At the same time, in accordance with national deployment, priority should be given to the key development areas in the Central and Western regions in taking on major projects in energy and mineral resources and those relying on importing resources by land transportation. Most ethnic minority areas have rich resources but fragile ecology, and as national ecological security barriers, many of them are under great pressure to protect the ecological environment. In this context, ethnic minority areas are facing a dilemma of balancing resource development, economic development and environmental protection, and balancing economic development and ecological protection is a prominent and tricky task. To gain development, ethnic minority areas have to develop industries and even undertake some backward industries transferred from the Eastern and Central regions. In this case, they require more capital and technology investment, which are often the scantest to protect the ecological environment. At present, China’s laws on the benefit sharing of resource development in ethnic minority areas and the ecological compensation mechanism are imperfect. For example, given the lack of greater effort to protect the ecological environment in pursuing economic growth, ethnic minority areas are following the old way of developing the economy at the cost of the environment adopted in developed regions. (2) Insufficient infrastructure, backward industrial structure and difficult transformation of the economic development model As ethnic minority areas are vast, the investment in infrastructure there is far from enough, especially when there are additional requirements during the period of opening wider to the outside world and building the Silk Road Economic Belt. In addition, as a wide range of ethnic minority areas are restricted and prohibited from development according to the national plan for developing functional zones and

1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous …

27

the area of national nature reserves in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accounts for 82.37% of China’s total, there is insufficient land area that can be developed and constructed on a large scale. The boom of large-scale infrastructure construction in coastal areas of China is being cooled, while that in many ethnic minority areas has not yet arrived. In this case, the ethnic minority areas cannot improve infrastructure construction by themselves. Ethnic minority areas are characterized by vast mountainous areas, complex and diverse natural environments, limited improvement of water conservancy facilities and other agricultural infrastructures due to long-term inadequate investment, low material and equipment levels, backward agricultural public services and social services, and a low ability to transform, promote and apply scientific and technological achievements. In the process of industrialization and urbanization, problems such as the use of arable land for nonfarming purposes, the transfer of the agricultural labor force, and rural capital outflow have become prominent, which have resulted in the serious loss of agricultural production factors. In recent years, the price of domestic products has increased rapidly, agricultural production has entered a highcost and high-risk stage, and the marginal benefits of agricultural development have declined. It is difficult for the majority of farmers in ethnic minority areas to eliminate poverty only by virtue of agriculture. As an important part of the country’s animal husbandry, grassland animal husbandry is the basic industry of economic development in pastoral areas and the main source of herders’ income. As grasslands are the largest terrestrial ecosystem in China, the source of the main rivers and water source conservation areas, they figure prominently in the entire ecosystem. The issues of the modernization of animal husbandry and grassland protection have become increasingly prominent. China’s pastoral areas are mainly distributed in ethnic minority areas, and in the pastoral and semipastoral areas, 268 counties (banners, cities) are located, accounting for more than 40% of the country’s land area, which is strategically important for the overall economic and social development of China. However, the overall deterioration of grassland ecology in China has not yet been fundamentally curbed, the extensive growth mode of grassland animal husbandry is unsustainable, the contradiction between the grassland management system depending on contracting and segmentation and the law of grassland ecology has become increasingly conspicuous, pastoral areas have many debts for developing infrastructure and social programs, and the improvement of herders’ living standards in pastoral areas is generally slower than that of people in agricultural areas. China’s building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in pastoral areas is still tricky. In addition, ethnic minority areas have witnessed unbalanced industrial structures, unreasonable ratios of heavy industry to light industry, underdeveloped nonpublic sectors and weak economic vitality and competitiveness. Ethnic minority areas in the western region are home to a large agricultural population, with a higher proportion of agricultural output value in GDP but a lower contribution of the agricultural sector to economic growth. With large poverty-stricken areas, ethnic minority areas are also faced with a high rate of ethnic minority population living in poverty, low level of urbanization and difficult transfer of surplus rural workers. As it is difficult to

28

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

upgrade the industrial structure in ethnic minority areas and the development of new industries, especially the service industry, is slow, the requirements for industrial transfer and industrial structure upgrading are unable to be met. (3) The heavy financial burden of ensuring people’s well-being and capital construction in ethnic minority areas Boasting a vast territory, ethnic minority areas in the western region have seen relatively high costs and expenses of public service, steady growth of spending on people’s well-being and a higher proportion of infrastructure construction expenditures than the national level. In 2012, spending on education, social security, medical care and housing security in eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accounted for 39.34% of fiscal expenditures, and expenditures on agriculture, forestry and water facilities and transportation accounted for 22.58%, 5.03 percentage points higher than the national average. Overall, spending on people’s well-being and infrastructure construction made up 61.92% of the total expenditure. In addition, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy stipulates that when higher-level state organs invest in ethnic minority areas in the Western region, supporting funds should be reduced or exempted, but in actual operation, most of the investments in these areas require a certain proportion of supporting funds, which has worsened the local financial situation. To obtain investment from higher-level state organs, many ethnic minority areas choose to borrow from banks, which has objectively led to a heavy burden of local debt and frustrated the development of the economy and public programs. Local government agencies are the state’s specialized agencies for the management and handling of public affairs in ethnic minority areas. As financial shortages in ethnic minority areas directly deter the implementation of policies of the Party and the state, improving the local financial situation is both a financial issue for local development and a political issue of great significance, which must be given special attention and assistance. (4) Ethnic minority areas face the poor implementation of the autonomy of economic and social development and of the ecological compensation mechanism as well as the lagging national price reform of energy resources With an area of 6.867 million square kilometers, the 12 provinces and autonomous regions in the western region, including the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, account for 71.4% of China’s total. The ethnic autonomous areas, which are mainly distributed in the western region, boast an area of 6.133 million square kilometers, accounting for 63.9% of China’s total. These regions are rich in resources such as minerals, energy and water conservancy, and some even predominate in countries with great development potential. However, these resources have long been underdeveloped for multiple reasons. First, the ethnic minority areas in the western region are hindered by capital, technology, market and ecology and thus are incapable of releasing and developing the potential of these resources; second,

1.4 Major Problems in Building a Moderately Prosperous …

29

the imperfect pricing system of resources, which indicates relatively low prices and environmental costs, promotes the extensive utilization of upstream and downstream industries and resource waste on the one hand, and transfers the due benefits of the birthplaces of resources on the other hand, resulting in the imbalance of both economic structure and regional development; third, the principle that “In exploiting natural resources and building enterprises in the ethnic autonomous areas, the state shall give due consideration to the interests of those areas” is not fully implemented, keeping these regions and local people from the priorities of exploiting and benefiting from local natural resources; fourth, the ecological compensation mechanism is not sound, bringing about that the ethnic minority areas cannot receive reasonable and effective compensation for their loss of development rights and interests in ecological protection. (5) Ethnic minority areas are hindered from further economic and social development by backward cultural education, deficient talent and weak scientific and technological innovation ability Since the reform and opening up, ethnic minority areas in the western region have suffered from serious talent shortages due to the trend of talent surging into the southern and eastern regions, impeding the construction of talent teams of ethnic minorities and local economic and social development. These regions now still suffer from talent shortages. Moreover, they are confronted with the inappropriate distribution structure of talent and the situation that the overall cultural competence of talent in those regions cannot reach the national average level. They also lack talent for the modern development of local traditional culture. There is a huge talent gap in agriculture and animal husbandry technology and engineering technology, and the talent of teaching and academic research, business management and high-level bilingual culture is extremely deficient. According to an interprovincial comparison study conducted in 2011, among all ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in China, only Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Yunnan rank middle in the comprehensive capacity of human resources, and Guizhou, Ningxia, Qinghai and Tibet even rank last, based on the analysis of basic human capital indicators, research and development capacity indicators and science and technology efficiency indicators.1 How to, with the help of policies, make the ethnic minority areas in the western region produce, retain and make good use of talent has become a key point for improving their comprehensive development capacity.

1

Pan Chenguang: The Report on the Development of Chinese Talents, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2011, pp. 68–70.

30

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building a Moderately Prosperous Society among Ethnic Minorities and their Areas 1. Further improving the indicator system for finishing building a moderately Pprosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas Against the backdrop that the assessment of the work of local governments is being gradually strengthened, the evaluation indicator stands for work orientation. As the focus of the whole Party, building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is the general objective for all regions in China to conduct work. In this sense, the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects is regarded as the work orientation and focus of all regions to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Consequently, it is of vital importance that the indicator system of building a moderately prosperous society is scientific. The “Statistical and Monitoring Plan of Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects” formulated in 2003 and revised in 2007 by the NBS specifies the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects, which involves six aspects and 23 indicators. The system, to some extent, is conducive to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all regions, but it possesses a major drawback, that is, it overemphasizes the function of economic growth. Since 2010, as China has given priority to shifting its growth model and improving the quality and performance of economic growth, the DLI, which contains more indicators and assesses more scientifically emerged. By comparing the two indicator systems, it can be noticed that the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects is inclined to be in line with local conditions and give full play to local advantages and avoid the development orientation that overemphasizes economic growth. The DLI can better capture the new requirements of the 18th National Congress of the CPC, such as improving people’s livelihood; it can more accurately reflect the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in all regions, especially in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, and reflect the reality of the economic and social development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas. For example, from 2001 to 2012, the average annual growth rate of GDP and per capita GDP of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was higher than the national average per capita level, and the DLI indicated that the average annual growth rate of these regions surpassed that of the Eastern and Central regions. However, according to the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects, the gap between the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, except for Inner Mongolia, and the rest of the country in building a moderately prosperous society was enlarging, which was a large deviation from people’s cognition. According to the DLI, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang were the most ecologically fragile regions in China, and the gap in the ecological construction indicator between the four regions and central China reached 17.03, 18.88, 14.9 and 19.6,

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

31

respectively, indicating that those regions were bearing most ecological construction pressure, which was basically in accordance with people’s cognition. Nevertheless, by the resources and environment indicator in the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects, Tibet was a region with the best resources and environment (from 2000 to 2010, its indicator remained at approximately 95%), which may not precisely assess Tibet’s potential for development and its ecological civilization construction work. The establishment of a scientific and technological innovation indicator conforms to the objective requirements of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and unveils the weak link of economic and social development of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. In addition, if replacing the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects with 80% of the DLI, the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020 can be finished in view of the four percent annual growth rate of the eight provinces and regions from 2001 to 2012. We suggest replacing the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects with DLI and improving the DLI with the guidance of “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform” approved at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC and with an eye on the needs and subjective and objective conditions of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas. To improve the DLI, some evaluation indicators in favor of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas should be established with the structure of the evaluation indicators mentioned above being preserved. (1) Establishing the contribution to the ecological protection indicator Neither the Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects nor the DLI involves ecological protection. Mostly located in border areas, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions from which large rivers flow embrace fragile ecological conditions. The ecological protection there is different from that in the Eastern and Central regions and can even greatly influence the whole country. For example, in these regions, the proportion of the national defense forests and national nature reserves that cannot be used for economic development is higher. These regions also lack strong fiscal transfer payments. More ecological protection indicators should thus be established and given more weight than ecological improvement and resource consumption, by which the contribution of ethnic minority areas to the ecological construction work of the whole country can be better captured, the country can, from the perspective of building ecological security barriers, input more to ethnic minority areas for ecological compensation, and the national sustainable development system and mechanism can be established. We suggest establishing the three indicators. The first is the indicator of the proportion of national nature reserves in China’s land area. The relationship between the proportion of areas restricted or prohibited from being exploited in the national plan for developing functional zones and local economic and social development should be given full consideration. We suggest establishing the indicator of the proportion of national nature reserves in a

32

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

province’s or an autonomous region’s area and endow the indicator with the same weight as that of the indicators of resource consumption, ecological improvement and environmental quality or even more. The second is the indicator of the assessment of water quality of the places where water inflows or outflows occur. The resource tax excludes water resources, but water resource protection is essential and should be stressed. The eight provinces and regions are the seat of the upper reaches of many large rivers, so ecological protection in these regions is critical to the lower reaches. Although there is the principle that people who pollute the environment are responsible for taking measures against pollution, the performance of protecting the environment and benefiting others should be assessed. Therefore, we suggest establishing an indicator for assessing the water quality of places where water inflows or outflows occur. The third is the air quality indicator. The proportion of days with different weather conditions, including those with PM2.5, in a year should be assessed to better reflect local environmental quality, manage air pollution, reduce smog and increase people’s wellness and quality of life. (2) Establishing the indicator of poverty reduction work and its contribution to poverty reduction There are 128 million people living under the national poverty line formulated in 2011 (the per capita net income of rural households is RMB 2,300 per year). The eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions possess the most people who live under the poverty line, the largest poverty area and the highest poverty headcount ratio. The majority of people living in contiguous poverty-stricken areas are in ethnic minority regions. The goal of building a moderately prosperous society cannot be fulfilled without poverty alleviation. Work concerning poverty relief and social welfare in ethnic minority areas can directly affect the progress of building a moderately prosperous society, and in fact, if the work gains good results, it will make the most remarkable and direct contribution to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide. In measuring the economic and social development of a country, not only should its highest and average levels be considered but also its lowest level—the living conditions of poverty-stricken people and the development of poverty-stricken areas. For the eight provinces and regions, development-oriented poverty alleviation serves as an important and long-term task. Hence, we suggest learning from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations and including development-oriented poverty reduction and its performance (contribution to poverty reduction) into one of the evaluation indicators. We suggest establishing the following indicators. The first is the indicator of the proportion of people lifted out of poverty in all poverty-stricken populations in provinces and regions. According to the overall goal of the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011–2020)” every year, the proportion of people lifted out of poverty in all poverty-stricken populations in provinces and regions should be divided into different grades with different scores. The second is the indicator of the improvement rate of poverty-stricken people’s living standards. According to the overall goal of the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011–2020),” the growth rate of per capita net income of rural residents living in

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

33

poverty-stricken areas is higher than the national average, the indicator of main fields in public service is approaching the national level, and the enlarging development gap between poverty-stricken people and the national average level is being narrowed. From the perspective of worldwide human development, poverty alleviation is an eternal mission. Therefore, measuring the improvement scope of poverty-stricken people’s living standards while centering on the improvement scope of income and public service is also meaningful. (3) Establishing the indicator of ethnic minorities’ development and relationship between ethnic groups Relevant studies show that since reform and opening up, ethnic minorities have generally burgeoned but are still trapped by aspects such as education, life expectancy, formal employment and income distribution. At present, these indicators are needed to comprehensively reflect the livelihood improvement of ethnic minorities and to assess the difficulties and problems faced by ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas on their way to building a moderately prosperous society. The ethnic minorities’ development indicator may be suitable for ethnic minority areas, but it will cover more areas as urbanization accelerates and more and more ethnic minorities flow to other areas. We suggest establishing the following indicators: the indicator of interethnic natural population growth and life expectancy in ethnic minority areas, which can reflect the effect of family planning policy and economic and social development, and the indicator of the interethnic income gap in ethnic minority areas, with which relevant supportive policies tailored to local and ethnic conditions can be adopted to achieve scientific development and narrow the gap. In addition, considering that most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are located in land border areas and tasked with the stability and security consolidation there, the contribution of indicators in the areas to the implementation of state functions shall be increased appropriately, for example, the proportion of local personnel engaging in the border security work to total local labor force and the proportion of expenditure on the local border security in the local finance. As it is a long-term task to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the determination of the indicators should follow the principle of being scientific, comprehensive, simple, feasible, sustainable and stable. It is less important how many indicators that seem beneficial to ethnic minority areas will be put into practice in the next few years. The key is to solve the development problems of ethnic minority areas by adopting feasible support policies and effective measures, thus promoting better and faster development. 2. Suggestions to speed up the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas (1) Improving the mechanism for ecological compensation and the restraint mechanism for resource development Ethnic minority areas are important ecological security barriers and strategic resource reserve areas. The protection of the ecological environment and the orderly utilization

34

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

of natural resources in the areas are related to China’s future sustainable development. There is a need to understand ecological protection from the perspective of overall national ecological security and strategy. Therefore, it is suggested to improve the mechanism for ecological compensation and strengthen the restraint mechanism for resource development. First, the mechanism for ecological compensation should be improved. At present, China has tailored a series of measures to protect ecosystems, such as turning marginal farmland into forest and returning grazing land to grassland. In addition, the central government has adopted fiscal transfers and other measures to indirectly provide ecological compensation. However, the limitation of these measures is that the beneficiary areas of ecological products, including the economically developed provinces and autonomous regions in the lower reaches of major rivers, do not directly contribute to ecological compensation. Establishing the mechanism for ecological compensation relies on not only the central government but also the beneficiary areas, which should undertake more responsibilities and effectively raise the enthusiasm of governments and people in ecological reserves. It is suggested to coordinate the interests of all parties and clarify the responsibilities and obligations regarding all relevant aspects of ecological protection based on the evaluation of the existing mechanisms and past experiences and to establish an operable quantitative system through scientific research. The responsibilities for ecological protection and ecological compensation should be made clear for the provinces and autonomous regions in the upper reaches and the beneficiary areas in the lower reaches of major rivers, respectively. Ecological protection should be combined with efforts to increase the incomes of farmers and herdsmen, and through diversified subsidies and incentives, economic compensation can be directly given to local farmers and herdsmen, which can ensure the stable income of local residents and thus arouse and improve the enthusiasm of farmers and herdsmen to protect ecosystems. Second, the restraint mechanism for resource development should be further strengthened. It is an important part of ecological protection work to effectively put an end to the disorderly exploitation and utilization of natural resources in key ecological areas, which means that ethnic minority areas should make adjustments and effectively strengthen the restraint mechanism for resource development. Four effective suggestions are as follows. (i) Ethnic minority areas should establish a benefit-sharing mechanism for resource utilization as soon as possible. It is necessary to coordinate the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy and its supporting rules and regulations with the specific laws and regulations on relevant resources, fully abide by the requirements of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy under the current legal framework and clarify the ways to share the benefits of resource development. (ii) The relevant departments of the State Council shall formulate specific measures to determine the minimum proportion of ethnic minority workers in the resource development enterprises to implement the requirement of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy that “when enterprises and institutions under the jurisdiction of a state organ at a higher level in an ethnic autonomous area recruit personnel in accordance with state provisions, priority shall be given to local ethnic

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

35

minority personnel.” Enterprises featuring high technological content should provide the necessary skill training and employment guidance for ethnic minority workers, gradually reaching the mentioned minimum proportion within five years. (iii) The National Ethnic Affairs Commission (NEAC) should work with relevant departments to formulate specific standards and measures related to compensation for resource export in ethnic minority areas to secure the implementation of the provision of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy on “granting benefit compensation to ethnic autonomous areas exporting natural resources.” (iv) The government shall raise the cost of resource development and tighten access to resource development through finance and taxation, thus curbing the disorderly utilization of resources in ethnic minority areas. (2) Implementing more preferential fiscal and tax support policies in ethnic minority areas Since the reform and opening up, China has gradually established a price mechanism in which the market plays a decisive role. However, there are still defects in the market system and the government management system, which comprehensively reflect supply and demand in the market, resource scarcity, the rights and interests of resource owners, the cost of environmental damage and other aspects. On the premise of establishing a nationwide unified market as soon as possible, more preferential fiscal and tax support policies should be implemented in ethnic minority areas. Therefore, the areas that lag behind in development can stand at a fair position in market competition. First, improving the system of resource taxes and fees and establishing a cost- and benefit-sharing mechanism are conducive to enhancing the self-development ability of ethnic minority areas. At present, the central government has made many preferential sharing ratios of resource taxes and fees for ethnic minority areas, but there is still a lack of more operational and specific plans. In terms of the interests between the resource development areas and the resource utilization areas (or resource users) and between the development enterprises and the local governments and residents, the sharing of both resource cost and resource benefit all remains imbalanced. From the perspective of resource scarcity and support for the development of ethnic minority areas, resource compensation fees and the tax rate of resources should be appropriately increased to conserve resources, thus motivating the economic structure to make adjustments and change the extensive growth mode. There are two suggestions. (i) The combined rate of resource compensation fees should be raised to approximately four percent. As the water resource cost of hydropower generation is equal to the coal and fuel cost of thermal power generation to a certain extent, hydropower generation should be greatly advocated; local protectionism in the power industry should be eliminated to effectively promote electricity generated by various resources to be connected to the local power grids through bidding, and the use of green energy should be encouraged to reduce pollution and energy consumption. (ii) The policies of “abolishing fees and replacing them with taxes” should be purged. This means that the unreasonable and illegal resource fees charged by the local governments and departments should be abolished, and the resource tax should be raised and imposed

36

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

according to “ad valorem rates.” The combined resource tax rate can be temporarily set at five to ten percent with reference to the tax rate of crude oil and natural gas. It should be noted that the tax rate of crude oil and natural gas is five to ten percent, which is lower than that of Russia and other countries, so it is less necessary to impose the combined resource tax at five percent temporarily, and the tax rate should be directly increased to ten percent as soon as possible. Second, the ecological compensation system should be improved, and a pilot environmental tax should be imposed for environmental protection and ecological restoration. In June 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), together with relevant departments, formulated the “Comprehensive Work Plan for Conserving Energy and Reducing Emissions,” clearly proposing to “do research on how to start imposing environmental tax.” In 2010, the State Council approved and transmitted the “Opinions on Deepening Economic System Reform in 2009” issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, which also mentioned that it is necessary to move quickly to clarify the system of environmental taxes and fees and conduct research on how to start imposing environmental tax. Two difficulties exist: how to coordinate environmental taxes with other tax reforms, such as resource taxes and value-added taxes, and how to coordinate environmental taxes with existing fees for the environment, such as pollutant discharge fees and the exploitation and protection fees of mineral resources. Difficulties do exist, but pilot environmental tax collection can be implemented in small areas according to the idea of “abolishing fees and replacing them with taxes.” Finally, the sharing ratio of taxes and fees related to the exploitation of mineral resources should be raised. The exploitation of mineral resources is both an industry with local advantages in ethnic minority areas and an important source of government revenue in ethnic autonomous areas. However, the tax allocation related to the exploitation of mineral resources is excessively biased toward the central government, not only limiting the improvement of the financial capacity of governments in ethnic autonomous areas but also having a certain negative impact on the relationship between the central and local governments and between the development enterprises and local ethnic minorities. The revenues of two major taxes, namely, value-added tax and corporate income tax, should be split 50–50 between the central and local governments. Business taxes should still be imposed by the subordination of enterprises and resource taxes by local governments. According to the “Provisional Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Resource Tax” revised by the State Council in 2011, ad valorem collection shall be implemented for crude oil tax and natural gas tax, and subsequently resource tax should be imposed on the development enterprises of coal and other mineral resources at ad valorem rates and the resource tax rate increased. The charging standard and sharing ratio of mineral resource compensation fees should be improved, which indicates that the fees should be split 20–80 between the central government and autonomous regions and that the local government accounts for more than 50% of the total compensation fees.

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

37

(3) Consolidating the foundation of development of agriculture and animal husbandry in ethnic minority areas and promoting the modernization of agriculture and animal husbandry In 2011, the output value of the primary industry in ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accounted for 15.26% of the national total, exceeding the population ratio in the country (13.85%) and the proportion of the output value of the secondary industry (9.05%) and the tertiary industry (7.99%). Therefore, it is necessary to attach importance to and strengthen the foundation of development of agriculture and animal husbandry in ethnic minority areas. First, consolidating the foundation of agricultural development in the areas. In doing so, there are three specific suggestions in the following. (i) The focus should be on improving agricultural infrastructure and equipment in ethnic minority areas. First, the building of farmland irrigation and water conservancy should be strengthened, especially the small and medium scale that is suited to the conditions of mountain (hill) areas, and the five small water conservancy projects should be constructed and upgraded in light of local situations, such as small water cellars, small pools, small reservoirs, small pump stations and small water channels in the mountain (hill) areas of ethnic minority areas. The large-scale key water conservancy projects by the country and the funds of these projects shall be weighted toward ethnic minority areas. At the same time, the five rural small water conservancy projects are given more financial and technical support as well as preferential loans. Second, the land consolidation and the upgrading of low- and medium-yield farmland, including projects such as land leveling, soil improvement, soil fertility improvement, farm machinery roads and farmland forest networks, should be stepped up to increase the acreage of high-standard farmland that produces good yields in times of drought or excessive rain. Third, based on the reality of ethnic minority areas and industrial demand, the service system for spreading agricultural technology in rural areas should be pushed forward, and stronger moves should be made to promote the development of industrial technology systems for modern agriculture and the widespread use of small agricultural machinery suitable for mountain (hill) areas. (ii) Ethnic minority areas should vigorously develop agriculture with local advantages and establish a well-organized system of agricultural production and operation. First, the support policies for ethnic minority areas should be increased, which can promote and rely on leading agricultural enterprises to drive farmers to build agricultural bases with the characteristics of local ecology, resources and environment. Efforts should be made to accelerate the development of industrial systems for agriculture that combine production, processing and sale, especially the convenient, efficient and low-cost logistics networks of agricultural products. Second, efforts should be made to support and guide the development of agriculture and specialized farmer cooperatives with innovative forms in ethnic minority areas and facilitate flows of factors of agricultural production (such as land) in an orderly and steady manner, thus optimizing the resource allocation and output of agricultural factors and improving market competitiveness. (iii) The government should promote the development of basic public services in rural areas. In impoverished areas mostly inhabited by ethnic minorities

38

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

and mountainous areas, it is necessary to improve a new type of specialized agricultural service that is based on public service institutions and combines public welfare services and business services and specialized services and comprehensive services. Support policies should prioritize solving urgent problems such as safe drinking water, the rebuilding of dilapidated houses and the improvement of the environment and public health in rural areas. Second, deepening the management system for modern animal husbandry and blazing a path for the development of animal husbandry in ethnic minority areas. From the perspective of the output value, the importance of animal husbandry in the areas seems to have declined. However, grassland, the largest terrestrial ecosystem in China, is the birthplace of major rivers and water source conservation areas, playing a critical role in the ecosystems. Therefore, during the development of modern animal husbandry and the exploitation of grassland resources in pastoral areas, a balance needs to be kept between the increases in grain output and rural incomes for farmers and herdsmen and the protection of national ecological security. The overall deterioration of the grassland ecological environment has yet to be fundamentally addressed, the extensive growth mode of grassland animal husbandry remains unsustainable, and the grassland management system violates the ecological laws of grassland to a certain extent. To solve these problems, efforts should be made to deepen the reform based on the actual situation in pastoral areas and develop infrastructure and social programs in accordance with the spirit of reform proposed by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC. The three specific suggestions are as follows. (i) The government should strengthen the construction of grassland ecology and restore the ecological balance. Priority should be given to ecologically vulnerable areas in which through the implementation of major ecological construction programs and the combination of engineering and management, the comprehensive management of grassland ecology should be strengthened to promote the restoration of steppe vegetation. In addition, efforts should be intensified to support ecological migration and the building of permanent housing for herdsmen in pastoral areas, ensuring the production and living conditions of relocated herdsmen. (ii) The government should improve the grassland management system and encourage the building of pastoral cooperatives. The special laws of animal husbandry production and grassland ecology should be deeply understood, and the grassland contracting and operating system should be further improved. New systems such as joint management and specialized cooperatives should be actively encouraged based on the voluntariness principle, and the mode of production and management that conforms to the characteristics of grassland ecology should be explored through practices such as the operation of contiguous grassland to prevent various reforms in pastoral areas from simply copying rural reform measures. (iii) The government should develop various forms of management and improve public services in pastoral areas. In view of current grassland animal husbandry, industries with local advantages should be supported on the premise of protecting grassland ecology, for example, the development of high-quality animal husbandry, the orderly exploitation of mineral resources, the popularization of ecological animal husbandry, the development of modern logistics services, and the expansion of grassland cultural industry and tourism. A more

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

39

proactive employment policy should be implemented, and the vocational training for herdsmen turning to other industries should be strengthened to increase their employability. Pastoral areas should enhance their capacity to provide public services and further improve the infrastructure construction of social undertakings such as education, medical care and culture, which will gradually realize the integration of urban and rural public services and thus offer all-round support for the development of pastoral areas. (4) Accelerating infrastructure construction and building greater capacity for sustainable economic and social development The investment in infrastructure construction in ethnic minority areas is large per capita, with substantial funding from the government. However, the investment per unit area is far behind that of the Eastern region and the national average level. Ethnic minority areas have complex terrain with wide mountainous areas and small flat lands, making the investment cost high but the utilization ratio low. Due to the lack of large funds for construction, market-based financing capacity and adequate supporting funds, the areas are lagging behind in transportation, telecommunication and information infrastructure, which becomes the bottleneck that restricts local economic and social development. With no quick and complete solution to the insufficient infrastructure in ethnic minority areas, the government has to give long-term preferential treatment to the infrastructure construction in the areas in both funds and policies on the basis of the overall planning and framework of national economic development to pursue the development of ethnic minority areas and the enduring peace and stability in the country. The construction of the infrastructure framework should be accelerated, and bottleneck projects should be accomplished as soon as possible. Local supporting funds should be measured and calculated prudently. For ethnic minority areas that have no ability to provide fund support, the government should implement a package of solutions instead of forcing them to offer funds. Work-relief programs, technical assistance and other measures that allow full play to local labor resources can be adopted. Priority and support should be given to the infrastructure construction of ethnic minority areas from the perspective of national security strategies. Both state policy support and development assistance from other provinces and municipalities for ethnic minority areas should be weighted toward infrastructure construction as a way to help the areas to build greater capacity for sustainable economic and social development. Efforts should be intensified to alleviate poverty, and methods for developmentorientated poverty reduction should be innovated. To comply with the country’s requirement of “promoting the development and poverty alleviation in contiguous impoverished regions,” resources for poverty eradication should be organized, a batch of poverty alleviation funds should be concentrated to build local infrastructure and public services, and regular industrial projects should be cut down. The government should integrate the training resources of different sectors at the county level and offer area-based training for local rural workers to enhance their vocational skills and capacity to find jobs in other places and help rural migrant workers become employed in neighboring areas.

40

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

(5) Promoting industrialization, urbanization, transformation of the growth model and upgrading and transformation of the economic structure according to local conditions Although China has entered the middle or late stages of industrialization and urbanization on the whole, most ethnic minority areas remain only at the middle stage of industrialization and the initial stage of urbanization. Industrialization, urbanization and IT application are the sure path for ethnic minority areas to realize development and modernization, but the development road of coastal regions is not necessarily copied by all the ethnic minority areas. The areas should advance modern industries in compliance with market rules, learn from the experience and lessons of the industrialization and urbanization of coastal regions, and then formulate and implement a development road with local characteristics to industrialization and urbanization according to the practical conditions of the counties, cities or areas. First, industrial parks should be built, preparing for industrial transfer and growing local resource development and high-tech industries. Industrialization in ethnic minority areas should avoid over decentralized distribution and adhere to the strategies of planning beforehand, setting environmental protection thresholds and prioritizing employment. Particular attention should be given to environmental protection and the employment of local residents in the development of local resources. Any industries that are not eco-friendly and sustainable would rather be sifted out than be fostered to seek fast growth. The second is supporting and developing the ethnic handicraft industry, combining economic development with the protection of ethnic culture and the transfer of surplus labor force, and involving local ethnic minorities in the growth of the modern economy. Ethnic minority areas should follow the development strategies of implementing regional planning beforehand and transforming and upgrading the main industries. With vast regional markets and distinctive ethnic characteristics, the traditional handicraft industry needs to be supported, developed and protected. Each area shall select some special industries based on local features to establish relevant development funds, manufacturing bases and marketing centers. The application of modern scientific technologies in traditional industries is encouraged. The protection system for inheritors and handicraft arts should be improved according to the principle of protecting “intangible cultural heritage”, and regional ethnic brands should be cultivated. Third, boosting distinctive tourism. Some ethnic minority areas with rich natural and cultural tourist resources have already shaken off poverty as a whole through tourism and have driven the development of surrounding areas. It is an important way for ethnic minority areas to achieve strides in development. Tourism development should start with early planning and then gradually promote industrial upgrading. The cultivation of talent for tourism should be strengthened, the tourism market order should be improved, the ethnic culture should be protected and a sustainable development road should be adopted.

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

41

Fourth, moderate urbanization should be promoted that is suited to local conditions and fostering a model of integrated development across urban and rural areas. Urbanization should be pushed forward actively and appropriately by relying on leading cities in ethnic minority areas, especially on counties, key towns and townships and industrial parks. Urbanization should be recognized as a long-term historical process during which unrestricted urban sprawl and the blind pursuit of size and speed must be avoided. The strategy of integrated urban–rural development should be followed. Basic urban public services should be ensured to cover all permanent residents more rapidly. Progress should also be made in regional population integration by granting permanent urban residency to people who have moved to cities from the countryside, thus helping them enjoy the same access as urban residents to public services and urban civilization. With the extension of basic public services and urban civilization to rural residents, the gap between urban and rural areas is gradually narrowing. Fifth, deepening reform in all aspects and giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and the government’s effective role in remedying market failures. The government in ethnic minority areas, however, remains an “allround” government to a great extent because of the unsound market mechanism. Local governments should keep deepening the reform of the economic management system and the administrative system based on the central government’s deployment and local context, thus allowing the government, market and society to play their own role and further promoting the integration of reform, development and social stability. (6) Developing education, cultivating talent and enhancing the quality of the work force and the comprehensive competence of public officials The lagging economic and social development in ethnic minority areas highlights the underlying problems of backward education and a shortage of various talents. To realize the goal that ethnic minority areas will enter the moderately prosperous society together with the rest of the country, special support policies should be adopted to accelerate the educational development in those areas, and effective measures should be implemented to build up the team of talent in science, technology and other fields. First, the NEAC should play an essential role in training all types of personnel in ethnic minority areas. The responsibility to implement and improve talent policies is greatly shouldered by the 20 member institutions under the Central Coordination Group for Talent Work (CCGTW), yet the NEAC under the State Council is not among them, which is neither favorable to the improvement of policies and measures targeting the training of various skilled personnel of ethnic minorities and in ethnic minority areas nor to the full execution of the Party’s policies on ethnic affairs. It is advisable to incorporate the NEAC into the CCGTW and assign it the duty to cultivate all types of talent of ethnic minorities and in ethnic minority areas. Meanwhile, work should be strengthened in the training of public officials in ethnic minority areas and the preservice training of officials sent to assist the areas. The NEAC should also be responsible for educating, guiding and training officials sent to ethnic minority areas from all government departments in terms of policies on ethnic affairs and knowledge about ethnicity and religion. The Commission should

42

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

strive to help officials and talent to develop an accurate understanding of ethnicity and promote the full implementation of the interethnic relationship’s principles of equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony. Second, sustainable economic and social development in ethnic minority areas depends on the cultivation of talents of all types. Local governments at all levels should play a greater role in talent planning by establishing a medium- and longterm plan for the education, training and introduction of talent. As the counties of ethnic minority areas are lagging behind in economic growth and have difficulty getting the badly needed personnel, the focus of talent policies should be on training talent who are urgently wanted locally, such as personnel in social work, people with practical skills in rural areas and highly skilled personnel, and on building a better management team of Party and government officials. Based on such a strong foundation, the condition of human resources can be further improved by combining the cultivation of local personnel with the introduction of talent. Particular emphasis should be placed on developing and appointing officials of ethnic minorities with trust and confidence in practical work to make them the core forces in the modernization of ethnic minority areas. Third, basic education should be strengthened, and compulsory education should be fully implemented, especially in areas where ethnic minorities live in compact communities with increasingly higher quality and better effects. Basic education remains fundamental to the building of talent of ethnic minorities and in ethnic minority areas. Governments at all levels should invest more in basic education to improve education infrastructure, raise the salaries and benefits of teachers in remote ethnic minority areas, and improve policies and measures related to the guarantee for salary and social security. More investment should also be put into the professional skill training of teachers. The training system that covers all teachers should be improved and put into active practice. Fourth, primary-level officials in ethnic minority areas should enhance their comprehensive qualities. They should not only be adept at managing ethnic and religious affairs and implementing relevant policies but also make solid efforts to tackle the genuine problems confronting ethnic minority masses in development. Primary-level officials should undergo more training to boost their competence and learn ethnic minority languages. For officials long working at the primary level, they should also participate in more training in Party consciousness and principles and state policies to have a better grasp of the policies and a stronger management ability. Ethnic minority officials not from the local areas should also receive more language training, thus enabling the management personnel to keep informed of allround information about local areas and strengthen their capabilities to connect to the masses. (7) Advancing the silk road economic belt and opening wider to the outside As the frontal zone of opening up in border areas in China, ethnic minority areas should ensure the full implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s thought on building the Silk Road Economic Belt. The Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road should be advanced to help form an all-round opening up

1.5 Suggestions for Speeding up Building …

43

structure, according to the “Decision on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms” adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC and the “Directives on Accelerating Development and Opening up in Border Areas” issued by the State Council in early 2014. First, expanding the construction of cross-border roads and communication infrastructure and strengthening the capacity of ethnic minority areas for opening up and large-scale logistics. Ethnic autonomous regions enjoy approximately 90% of China’s land border, but the exports and imports in goods there only account for some two percent of the national total volume, and the number of international tourists and the foreign exchange earnings from international tourism only account for four to five percent of the national total. These figures are completely out of proportion with the resources, population and economic potential of the regions. The coastal regions in China have already adopted a strategy of all-around opening up, and ethnic minority areas should also increase their capacity for and their level of opening up. The construction project of major roads should be accelerated in border areas, and the obstacles of the key projects in the construction of special economic zones and development and opening up pilot zones in the western region should be removed more quickly in particular. All departments of the State Council should coordinate further with each other and decrease examination and approval procedures to expedite the construction. Ethnic minority areas share land borders with neighboring countries and thus have close people-to-people exchanges with them. These advantages should be fully leveraged. In line with the government’s directive of “policy coordination, connectivity of infrastructure, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and closer people-to-people ties,” the areas should enhance coordination and exchange with bordering nations and help make the opening up in border areas a new supporting point for China’s all-around opening-up structure. The second is deepening the reform of the investment regime, improving the investment environment and attracting more foreign investment. Although foreign investment in ethnic minority areas has grown at a rapid growth since the twenty-first century, it remains lower than the national average level, accounting for a smaller share of the country’s total foreign investment. To ethnic minority areas, foreign investment means not merely capital, technology and management but, more importantly, the market force that can alone drive the development of modern industries and the transformation and upgrading of the economic structure in the areas. More efforts should be made to attract foreign investment, which is significant for the economic growth of ethnic minority areas. To deepen the reform of the investment regime, all fields can be open to foreign capital only if no harm comes to national security and the ecological environment. Ethnic minority areas should accelerate the shift of the government’s functions and improve public services, thus creating a loose and favorable environment for both foreign and domestic investment. Third, we fully leverage the advantages of geographic location, resources and ethnic culture to develop transit trade and international tourism. Ethnic minority areas should become the strategic passageway for China’s energy and other resources. By implementing the strategy of opening up in a new era, the unimpeded flows of goods, capital and information are to be achieved. A new type of opening up, based

44

1 Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in Ethnic …

on commercial logistics in border areas and promoted by cross-border mobility, is to be developed, and exchanges, coordination and cooperation between China’s border areas and neighboring countries are to be enhanced.

Chapter 2

Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

China is a unified multinational country with 56 nationalities. According to the sixth national population census, the 55 ethnic minorities have a combined population of 133,792,200, which makes up 8.49% of the national total. Ethnic autonomous areas account for 64% of China’s land area, with most areas of the Western region and the border areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. This basic dimension of the Chinese context determines that the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas plays an extremely important role in the overall economic and social development of the country. Being influenced by factors such as the natural environment and ecology, history, culture and population distribution, ethnic minority areas become underdeveloped areas in China and the main battlefield with the toughest task of poverty alleviation in China. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially since 2000, the central government, based on the actual condition of ethnic minority areas, has formulated and implemented a series of special policies to support the economic and social development of ethnic minority areas. Regarding poverty alleviation policies and project funding, the central government has always given priority to ethnic minority areas. From 2006 to 2013, the central government funding of poverty alleviation in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions increased from RMB 5.15 billion to RMB 16.6 billion, with a total of RMB 75.84 billion among the eight years, accounting for 40.6% of the national total investment.1 With the support of governments at all levels and people from all walks of life and the arduous efforts of officials and masses in ethnic minority areas, the rural economy in these areas has developed in an all-around way, the basic needs of rural residents have been basically met, and rural poverty has decreased significantly. According to the poverty line of that time, the number of people in poverty in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions decreased from 31.44 million in 2000 to 18.13 1

Ethnic Policies Office in the NEAC: Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/6/1/art_143_228926_51.html).

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_2

45

46

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

million in 2015. However, there were still many difficulties in the battle against poverty in ethnic minority areas. At the end of 2015, the poor rural population in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accounted for 32.5% of the country’s rural poverty, nearly twice the proportion of the rural population in the country’s total population; the poverty headcount ratio in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 12.1%, 6.4 percentage points higher than the country’s rural areas.2 The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC set out to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and made it clear that by 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line will have been out of poverty, and poverty is eliminated in all poor counties and regions. This shows that poverty alleviation of the poor in rural areas is the greatest challenge for ethnic minority areas to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and it also affects and restricts the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide by 2020. There are still more than three years to 2020. How can all rural residents living below the current poverty line be lifted out of poverty as scheduled in more than four years? This is the research subject of the book. To seek countermeasures for eliminating poverty as scheduled in ethnic minority areas, the book investigates the diversity of rural poverty in ethnic minority areas, explores the specificity and complexity of poverty in ethnic minority areas and the regional heterogeneity inside ethnic minority areas, analyzes the reasons for poverty, evaluates the effectiveness of anti-poverty policies implemented in ethnic minority areas, better understands the current poverty and grasps new challenges of poverty reduction in ethnic minority areas and new challenges in anti-poverty. Thus, this book possesses important academic value and practical significance. In the following, the diversity and causes of poverty in ethnic minority areas will be investigated from the macro and micro perspectives.

2.1 Current Situation in Ethnic Minority Areas Ethnic minority areas are generally divided into the Southwestern ethnic region and the Northwestern ethnic region. The former includes Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Tibet. This mountainous region, with karst landscapes and complex terrain, being rich in natural resources and densely populated, is facing severe challenges of rural poverty in rural areas that are dominated by mountain agriculture. The latter includes Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. With the main terrain of plateaus, basins and mountains, this region, from which most of China’s large rivers originate, is vast and sparsely populated. However, low rainfall and drought are the main natural features of this region. Grasslands and pastures in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang 2

China Statistical Yearbook 2015 edited by the NBS, “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014” edited by Economic Development Department of the NEAC, March 9th, 2017. http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_225897.html, calculated in accordance to relevant statistics.

2.1 Current Situation in Ethnic Minority Areas

47

and Qinghai are the three most important pastoral areas among the six major pastoral areas in China and the major animal husbandry bases in China. The Southwestern and Northwestern ethnic regions share similar natural conditions, ecological environments, natural resources and industries. Thus, they face similar development dilemmas and many common factors that lead to poverty. From an overall perspective, ethnic minority areas have the following features. First, the landform pattern of ethnic minority areas is complex. China’s major basins, deserts, canyons, water towers and ecologically vulnerable zones are located in ethnic minority areas, which leads to a fairly fragile ecological environment. These areas have become the major ecological barriers in China. The eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions have a land area of 5.67 million square kilometers, accounting for 59.1% of the country’s land area. Plateaus and mountains account for more than 80% of the total area of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. Second, ethnic minority areas, where ethnic minorities account for a relatively high proportion of the local population, with a rich and colorful ethnic culture, are inhabited by ethnic minorities. According to the sixth national population census, 56 nationalities, including Han, Mongolian, Zhuang, Hui, Tibetan, Uygur, Tujia, Miao, and Kirgiz, permanently reside in ethnic minority areas. The number of ethnic minorities accounts for 37.5% of the total population in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. Mongolian accounts for 2.4%, Zhuang for 8.4%, Hui for 2.7%, Tibetan for 2.3%, Uygur for 5.3% and Tujia for 0.4%. Third, ethnic minority areas are rich in natural resources, possessing both farmland and grassland. As strategic reserves for the country’s long-term development, ethnic minority areas have abundant mineral resources, among which large reserves of coal, petroleum, rare earths, iron, nickel, gold, salt and gems are possessed. Fourth, ethnic minority areas have a long land border with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Located in such an important strategic position, these areas connect China with Middle Asia, Western Asia, and ASEAN and serve as a gateway for opening up. China has a land border of 22,000, 19,000 km of which is in ethnic minority areas. A total of 107 of the country’s 136 border counties (banners, cities and municipal districts) are ethnic autonomous areas. Ethnic minorities make up 48% of the overall border population of 22 million. Fifth, the economic development of ethnic minority areas has remained relatively high since the beginning of the 21st century. However, due to a low starting point, the aggregate economy is still small. According to statistics, from 2000 to 2015, the GDP of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions increased from RMB 870.033 billion to RMB 7,473.636 billion, calculated at a comparable price, an average annual growth of 11.72% and 2.2 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate during the same period.3 Especially from 2011 to 2015 (the 13th Five-Year Plan period), the total output value of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous 3

All figures, tables and data in this chapter, without otherwise specified, are based on and calculated from the relevant statistics of the NBS which include “national data”, China Statistical Yearbook (2005–2015), China Statistics Abstract (2006–2015), Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2015, China Yearbook of Poverty Alleviation and Development (2011–2015), “NEAC: Monitoring

48

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

regions rose from RMB 5,166.424 billion to RMB 7,473.636 billion, calculated at a comparable price, an average annual growth of 10.66%, 2.84 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate during the same period. However, because of being lagged behind from the beginning, the GDP of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions only made up 11.04% of the country’s GDP in 2015, RMB 192.336 billion higher than the GDP of Guangdong Province (RMB 7,281.3 billion). The total GDP of Tibet, Qinghai, and Ningxia were all below RMB 300 billion, ranking first, second, and third among the 31 provinces in the country, respectively. Sixth, with the growth of the economy and the improvement of self-development capability in ethnic minority areas, local fiscal revenues and expenditures increase year by year. The financial self-sufficiency rate increases slightly, but financial selfsufficiency capability is still inadequate. From 2001 to 2014, the local fiscal revenues and expenditures in ethnic minority areas increased from RMB 71.772 billion and RMB 200.531 billion to RMB 832.883 billion and RMB 2,219.173 billion, respectively. Calculated at current prices, the average annual growth rate was 20.25 and 21.7%. The fiscal self-sufficiency rate fluctuated from 35.79 to 37.53%. Seventh, the backward process of industrialization and urbanization in ethnic minority areas restricts surplus rural labor from being employed in secondary and tertiary industries, which thus restricts the broadening of channels for rural residents to increase their income. In 2014, the population of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 193,417,300, 105,073,700 of which were agricultural population, accounting for 54.33% of the total; the nonagricultural population was 88,343,600, 45.67% of the total, 9.1 percentage points lower than the proportion of the country’s nonagricultural population in the total population (54.77%). In other words, the urbanization rate in ethnic minority areas was 9.1 percentage points lower than the national average. In addition, research shows that the country was in the first half of the postindustrialization process in 2010. Among the ethnic minority areas, only Inner Mongolia was equal to the national average level of industrialization. Qinghai, Ningxia, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou were in the mid-stage of industrialization. Tibet and Xinjiang, which were still in the bottom half of the early stage of industrialization, had the lowest industrialization levels. Most of the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions have just stepped in the process of urbanization while the country has already been at the middle stage.4 Eighth, with rapid economic development, the income level of farmers and herdsmen in ethnic minority areas has increased greatly, and the relative gap with the country’s income level has narrowed, but the income level is still low. From 2006 to 2013, the per capita net income of rural residents in ethnic minority areas increased from RMB 2,504.2 to RMB 6,561.9, an average annual increase of 9.95%, 0.49 Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2011”, and the provincial and national economic and social statistics communiques in 2015. In addition, if not specified in this chapter, absolute numbers are calculated at current prices, and growth rates are calculated at comparable prices. The index values of “ethnic minority areas” are calculated by a weighted calculation of the corresponding index values of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. 4 Huang Qunhui: “Process of Industrialization in China: Stage, Characteristic and Prospect”, Economy and Management, Issue 7, 2013.

2.1 Current Situation in Ethnic Minority Areas

49

percentage points higher than the national average growth range, and the proportion of that in the country rose from 69.81 to 73.76%. Ninth, rural poverty in ethnic minority areas is widespread and difficult to conquer. Areas in poverty include 592 key counties in the country’s list of poverty reduction and development and 14 contiguous impoverished regions.5 Among these 592 counties, 232 are located in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, and 341 are located in ethnic autonomous regions. In addition, the 14 contiguous impoverished regions contain 680 counties, 330 of which are located in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, and 371 in ethnic autonomous counties. In 2014, according to the current poverty threshold (RMB 2,300, at 2010 constant prices), the rural poor population in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 22.05 million, making up 31.42% of the country’s rural population in poverty. The poverty headcount ratio reached 14.7%, 7.5 percentage points higher than the national average level. In summary, ethnic minority areas cover a large area in China. They are the source areas of the water system, ecological security barriers, areas with distinctive culture and rich resources, strategically important areas, underdeveloped areas in economy and society, and areas in extreme poverty.6 Although vast ethnic minority areas are located, they have inadequate arable land, poor and unproductive soil and seriously degraded grassland. With a vulnerable ecological environment, natural disasters occur frequently. Although ethnic minority areas possess rich resources, acting as the protector of China’s biodiversity and ecological security barriers, they are restricted in resource development on existing ecological and environmental conditions. Although they are the source areas of the water system and the origin of most of China’s large rivers, many provinces and regions in ethnic minority areas suffer from drought and water shortages, which seriously affect the production and life of local residents. Being areas with distinctive culture, ethnic minority areas embody various ethnic minorities and colorful ethnic cultures. However, the inherent customs, behavioral norms, and conventions of some ethnic minorities lead to their backward concepts, and after a long period of internalization, a unique culture of poverty forms in their mind, which further affects their production and living standards.7 As strategically important areas, ethnic minority areas, with a long land border, connect China with Middle Asia, Western Asia, and ASEAN and serve as a gateway for opening 5

Areas in poverty include key counties outside contiguous impoverished regions and the areas of national poverty alleviation and development, a total of 832 counties, among which 680 counties are located in contiguous impoverished regions, 592 are key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, and 440 key counties are located in contiguous impoverished regions. The NBS: “Rapid increase in residents’ income and overall improvement in people’s lives— residents’ income and living conditions since the 18th National Congress”, March 9th, 2017. (http://www.stats.gov. cn/tjsj/sjjd/201603/t20160308_1328214.html). 6 Policy Research Office of the NEAC: “Face-to-face Innovative Views of the Central Ethnic Work Conference” (January, 2015), the website of the NEAC, March 9th, 2017. (http://www.seac.gov.cn/ art/2015/6/1/art_143_228925.html). 7 Xiang Linglin and Deng Xiang, “Anti-poverty Dynamic Assessment of Western Minority Areas”, Guizhou Ethnic Studies, Issue 1, 2013.

50

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

up, and they also shoulder the significant task of defending and consolidating border areas. Being an underdeveloped area in the economy and society reflects the fact that, on the one hand, ethnic minority areas have fast economic development but a low starting point and small aggregate economy; on the other hand, the financial self-sufficiency capability in ethnic minority areas is quite low, the process of industrialization and urbanization is backward, and the income level of rural residents is relatively low. Being areas in extreme poverty, ethnic minority areas not only face problems of having a wide range of areas in poverty, sinking in extreme poverty, and being hard to eliminate poverty but also have a strong vulnerability to poverty and have difficulties in completely eliminating poverty. At present, lifting the rural poor out of poverty is the biggest shortcoming in the building of an all-around moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas, and it also largely affects and restricts the national goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas As mentioned above, ethnic minority areas are vast border areas, source areas of the water system, ecological security barriers, areas with distinctive culture and rich resources, strategically important areas, underdeveloped areas in economy and society, and the main battlefield for poverty alleviation. Then, the distribution and characteristics of rural poverty in ethnic minority areas will be briefly analyzed as follows. 1. Large population and wide range areas in poverty in ethnic minority areas Restricted by factors such as natural resource endowment, geographical environment, location conditions, and history and culture, ethnic minority areas have always been economically and socially underdeveloped, and the poverty problem is severe. According to statistics, in 2000, following the rural poverty threshold of that year, 31.44 million people in ethnic minority areas were in poverty (see Table 2.1), and the poverty headcount ratio was 23%, 12.8 percentage points higher than the national average. In accordance with the rural poverty threshold of 2015, 18.13 million people in ethnic minority areas were in poverty, and the poverty headcount ratio was 12.1%, 6.4 percentage points higher than the national average level. Obviously, poverty in ethnic minority areas has been greatly alleviated with years of government support. However, compared with the national level, ethnic minority areas still have a large population and a wide range of areas in poverty. According to the data in Table 2.1, the author drew Figs. 2.1 and 2.2 to further analyze the variation in rural poverty in ethnic minority areas from 2000 to 2015. From Figs. 2.1 and 2.2, the variation in the rural poor population and poverty headcount ratio in ethnic minorities can be divided into two parts. The first part shows that from 2000 to 2010, the number of people in poverty in ethnic minority areas decreased from 31.44 million to 10.34 million, a reduction of

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

51

Table 2.1 Distribution of the poor population and the poverty headcount ratio in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the country 2000–2015 Year Poverty Poor population (10,000 persons) standarda (RMB) Eight ethnic National Proportion provinces total of the and poor autonomous population regions of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Poverty headcount ratio (%) Eight ethnic National Higher provinces total ratio in the and eight autonomous provinces regions and regions than the national average (percentage point)

2000

865

3144

9422

33.4

23

10.2

12.8

2001

872

3077

9029

34.1

22.2

9.7

12.5

2002

869

2986

8645

34.5

21.5

9.2

12.3

2003

882

2771

8517

32.5

19.8

9.1

10.7 10.4

2004

924

2601

7587

34.3

18.5

8.1

2005

944

2338

6432

36.3

16.4

6.8

9.6

2006

958

2090

5698

36.7

14.6

6

8.6

2007 1067

1695

4320

39.2

11.8

4.6

7.2

2008 1196

1585

4007

39.6

11

4.2

6.8

2009 1196

1451

3597

40.3

12

3.6

8.4

2010 1274

1034

2688

38.5

8.7

2.8

5.9

2011 2536

3917

12,238

32.0

26.5

12.7

13.8 10.9

2012 2625

3121

9899

31.5

20.8

10.2

2013 2736

2562

8249

31.1

17.1

8.5

8.6

2014 2800

2205

7017

31.4

14.7

7.2

7.5

2015 2855

1813

5575

32.5

12.1

5.7

6.4

Note a

Since 1978, China has adopted three poverty standards, namely, the “1978 standard”, the “2008 standard” and the “2010 standard”, which represent different living levels, and the changes in the same standard between years mainly reflect different price levels. In this chapter, the “2008 standard” is adopted from 2000 to 2010, and the “2010 standard” is adopted from 2011 to 2014 from the Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2015, China Statistics Press, 2015 Source The data between 2000 and 2008 are compiled and calculated based on the relevant data in the Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2011. The data between 2009 and 2015 are from the Department of Economic Development of the NEAC: “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014”, March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_225 897.html, and “NEAC: Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2015” (April 11th, 2016), March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2016/4/11/art_31_251389.html

52

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Fig. 2.1 Rural poor population in ethnic minority areas and its comparison with the national total. Source The data between 2000 and 2008 are compiled and calculated based on the relevant data in the Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2011. The data between 2009 and 2015 are from the Department of Economic Development of the NEAC: “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014”, March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_ 225897.html, and “NEAC: Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2015” (April 11th, 2016), March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2016/4/11/art_31_251389.html

21.10 million. The proportion of people in poverty in the country’s rural population rose from 33.4 to 38.5% with an increase of 5.1 percentage points. The poverty headcount ratio in ethnic minority areas dropped from 23 to 8.7%, a reduction of 14.3 percentage points. The difference in the poverty headcount ratio between the ethnic minority areas and the national average decreased from 12.8 to 5.9 percentage points. It is shown that the people in poverty and the poverty headcount ratio in ethnic minority areas are constantly decreasing year by year, the gap in the poverty headcount ratio between the ethnic minority areas and the national level is also narrowing year by year, and the speed of narrowing poverty areas is surpassing the national average level. However, at the same time, the proportion of the poor population of ethnic minority areas in the country’s poverty shows an increasing trend. The second part shows that from 2011 to 2015, given the central government’s decision to substantially raise the poverty line in rural areas in 2011, the poor population and the poverty headcount ratio in rural areas across the country, including ethnic minority areas, increased significantly. In 2011, the average poverty headcount ratio

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

53

Fig. 2.2 Poverty headcount ratio in rural ethnic minority areas and its comparison with the national total. Source The data between 2000 and 2008 are compiled and calculated based on the relevant data in the Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2011. The data between 2009 and 2015 are from the Department of Economic Development of the NEAC: “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014”, March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/ 4/15/art_31_225897.html, and “NEAC: Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2015” (April 11th, 2016), March 9th, 2017, http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2016/4/11/art_31_251389.html

in rural China amounted to 12.7%, up 9.9 percentage points from 2010, and that in ethnic minority areas remained at 26.5%, an increase of 17.8 percentage points over 2010 and 7.9 percentage points higher than the national increase, which shows that ethnic minority areas not only had a large population living below the poverty line but also plenty of low-income people living close to the poverty line. As the poverty line increased, the number of people under the poverty line in ethnic minority areas grew much higher than the national average. In addition, from 2011 to 2015, the rural poor population in ethnic minority areas decreased from 39.17 million to 18.13 million year by year, a decrease of 21.04 million, and the proportion of the poor population of these areas in the national total dropped slightly from 32% in 2011 to 31.1% in 2013 and rose to 32.5% in 2015. Furthermore, the poverty headcount ratio dropped from 26.5 to 12.1%, and accordingly, the gap between the ratio of these areas and the national average dropped from 13.8 percentage points to 6.4 percentage points. These numbers show that given the strong support of the central government and governments at all levels, poverty in ethnic minority areas was steadily reduced during this period. In terms of the narrowing gap in the poverty headcount ratio between the ethnic minority areas and the national average, the narrowing speed of the impoverished area in this period was faster than the national average, promising to reverse the rising trend of the poor proportion in ethnic minority areas.

54

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

2. Considerable degree of overlap between poverty-stricken areas and ecologically vulnerable areas in ethnic minority areas Relevant studies at home and abroad show that poverty is often associated with fragile ecological environments. In China, people living under poverty lines are often in remote areas with harsh ecological environments. Consequently, the distribution of poverty-stricken areas highly coincides with that of ecologically vulnerable areas.8 As mentioned above, with complex topography, ethnic minority areas have large basins, extensive deserts, grand canyons, large water towers and ecologically vulnerable zones. In this context, the ecological environment is very fragile. Serving as important ecological security barriers of China, ethnic minority areas have seen natural disasters such as earthquakes, hail, gales, frost, dust, rainstorms, droughts, mudslides and landslides frequently occurring. For example, the karst mountainous area in the southwestern region, one of the four ecologically vulnerable zones, is distributed in Guizhou and Guangxi, the loess area in the northern region is in Ningxia and Qinghai, and the desertification area in the northwestern region is in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai. With high and steep terrain and large mountainous areas, these areas are characterized by harsh natural conditions, which easily lead to large-scale soil erosion. It is known that geographical and natural conditions directly affect the labor productivity and output levels of agriculture and have a great impact on rural poverty. Therefore, it can be concluded that the distribution of povertystricken areas highly coincides with that of ecologically vulnerable areas in ethnic minority areas. 3. The poor rural populations in ethnic minority areas are mainly ethnic minorities. In China, mainly inhabited by ethnic minorities, ethnic minority areas have concentrated poverty-stricken rural areas. According to the sixth national population census, ethnic minorities accounted for 37.5% of the total population of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. In 2014, the eight provinces and regions saw their rural poor population reach 22.05 million, accounting for 31.4% of the national total, and the poverty headcount ratio there remained at 14.7%, 7.5 percentage points higher than the national average. In addition, studies show that compared with the Han nationality in ethnic minority areas, ethnic minorities have a larger population living in poverty and deeper and more intensified rural poverty.9 For example, ethnic minorities make up 80% of the poor population in Guizhou and almost 100% of the extremely poor population. More than 90% of the poor population in the mountainous areas of southern Ningxia are ethnic minorities. Of the 23 border counties in 8

David W. Pearce and Jeremy J. Warford, “World without End: Economics, Environment, and Sustainable Development”, China Financial & Economic Publishing House, 1996; Wei Xiaowen, Zhu Xinlin: “A Research into the Anti-Poverty of Tibetan Farmers and Herdsmen from the Perspective of Environmental Resources”, Technoeconomics & Management Research, Issue 2, 2012. 9 Liu Xiaomin, “The Comparative Studies on the Poverty Problems of Rural Residents from the Ethnic Point of View: Taking Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan as Example”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 4, 2013.

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

55

Yunnan, 20 are impoverished counties where most of the population living in poverty are ethnic minorities. In Tibet, more than 90% of the 230,000 poor population with a per capita net income less than RMB 1,300 are Tibetans.10 In this sense, it can be said that the rural poor population in ethnic minority areas are mainly ethnic minorities. Furthermore, as the distribution of poverty-stricken areas highly coincides with that of ecologically vulnerable areas in ethnic minority areas and the spatial distributions of ethnic minority populations and local poor populations overlap with each other, the major reason why ethnic minorities are poorer than the Han nationality lies in the fact that they are mostly distributed in ecologically vulnerable areas with poor living conditions. In other words, the ethnic differences in rural poverty in ethnic minority areas largely come from regional differences. 4. Obvious vulnerability to rural poverty in ethnic minority areas Given the influence of such factors as the natural geographical environment, location conditions, and social and economic development level, rural residents in ethnic minority areas are directly confronted with various risks, including natural hazards, diseases, economic difficulties and international economic turbulence. Due to the lack of various abilities, people living in poverty are not strong enough to cope with risks, and thus their vulnerability to poverty is obvious. First, it can be seen from the above that with complex topography, ethnic minority areas have large basins, extensive deserts, grand canyons, large water towers and ecologically vulnerable zones. In this context, the ecological environment is very fragile. Some areas often encounter such natural disasters as droughts, floods, soil erosion, snowstorms, windstorms and freezing damage. For example, in the northwestern region, the Kashgar, Khotan Prefecture and Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang and the Xihaigu Prefecture of Ningxia have long suffered from a shortage of water resources. In the southwestern region, the Wuling Mountains and the rocky desertification regions in Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou, mostly located in karst areas featuring thin soil layers, have suffered from serious soil erosion and engineering-related water shortages. Facing the risks brought about by natural disasters, the poor are weak and unable to deal with them. The main reason is that when making a living depending on the weather, most poor people lack the ability to resist natural disasters. As a result, it is always the case that they can feed themselves well when getting a good harvest and fall back to poverty when natural disasters hit. For example, in the event of a natural disaster, the proportion of the population sinking back to poverty in the Southwestern and Northwestern ethnic minority areas is as high as 60%, and in some areas in the Northwestern region, the number of people falling back to poverty even exceeds that of people out of poverty.11 Second, due to the poor living environment, some ethnic minority areas have seen a high occurrence of serious endemic diseases. A considerable number of people 10

Li Junjie and Li Haipeng, “Review and Prospect of Development-Oriented Rural Poverty Alleviation Policies in Ethnic Minority Areas”, Minzu Tribune, Issue 5, 2013. 11 Huang Songwen, “Ideas on Anti-poverty in Western Ethnic Minority Areas”, Academic Forum, Issue 4, 2004.

56

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

have fallen into poverty or sunk back into poverty due to illness. Such diseases of the circulatory-respiratory system as tuberculosis, hepatic hydatid cyst, arthritis and compensatory ventricular hypertrophy are common in agricultural and pastoral areas in Qinghai, and the mortality rate of diseases and the incidence of infectious disease are high. Due to poor medical care and health services in the agricultural and pastoral areas of Qinghai and the limited income of local farmers and herdsmen, disease has been an important factor for farmers and herdsmen to become poor or sink back into poverty. In 2003, the proportion of the population becoming poor or sinking back into poverty due to illness in Qinghai stood at 56%. In recent years, as the government has vigorously supported the improvement of medical care and health services in agricultural and pastoral areas and new rural cooperative medical insurance has been popularized, the number of farmers and herdsmen who become poor or sink back into poverty due to illness has been reduced. In 2011, the proportion of the population becoming poor or sinking back into poverty due to illness in Qinghai dropped to 24.2%.12 Third, in the context of international economic integration, fluctuations in international and domestic market prices will affect poor households, which often lack the ability to deal with economic risks in ethnic minority areas. Furthermore, poor people do not have enough ability to resist various risks and to recover from the impact of these risks. For example, in the international financial crisis in 2008, the world economy fell into the worst recession since World War II. Impacted by reduced exports, the economic growth in the coastal areas of China slowed down, and a large number of labor-intensive industries shrank. As a result, abundant migrant workers had to return home. Many studies have shown that for members of poor rural families, going to cities to seek work is an important way to eliminate poverty. However, with low cultural competence and employability, most members of poor rural families work in industries and jobs with low technical requirements and low wages. Compared with other migrant workers, workers from rural poor families are the first to lose job opportunities due to the shrinkage of industries in the developed eastern coastal areas. For rural laborers with better family economic conditions, their own strong economic capital, human capital, and social capital have strengthened their ability to withstand risks, and even if they lose their jobs in the developed eastern coastal areas, they will start their own businesses or develop agriculture and animal husbandry with local features after returning home. For those from rural poor families who have lost job opportunities in cities and do not have the capital to start their own businesses after returning to their villages, their family income will be greatly reduced. As a result, the poor families (or the marginalized groups that have been lifted out of poverty) will become poorer (or sink back into poverty). In the investigation in Baishui Village, Kaitang Township, Kaili City of the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in 2011, the author learned that some migrant workers 12

Liu Xiaomin, “Poverty and Anti-poverty in Qinghai: Perspectives of the Rural Subsistence System”, Qinghai Journal of Ethnology, Issue 4, 2015; “The 10-year history of implementing the new rural cooperative medical system in Qinghai Province” edited by the Office of Health and Family Planning Commission of Qinghai Province.

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

57

returned from Guangdong and Shenzhen between 2008 and 2009 under the impact of the international financial crisis. With capital, some brilliant migrant workers started their own businesses soon after returning to their hometowns and ran them well. However, some migrant workers saw their families becoming poorer or sinking back into poverty after returning home. Of course, after so many years, especially now when Kaili City is seeing its economy growing rapidly, laborers are in huge demand there. Most of these returning migrant workers have joined the local labor force and business teams, which can improve their family incomes to a certain extent. It is precisely because of the high vulnerability to rural poverty in ethnic minority areas that the number of families sinking back into poverty is large. It is reported that 66.2% of the poor in rural China in 2008 were lifted out of poverty in 2009, but 62.3% of the poor population in 2009 were those who slip back into poverty.13 Given the concentrated distribution of the poor population in ethnic minority areas, the data can partly show the high proportion of the population sinking back into poverty in rural ethnic minority areas in 2009. 5. Rural poverty in some ethnic minority areas is characterized by ethnic minorityassociated poverty. Some scholars have defined ethnic minority-associated poverty in the classifications of poverty: in some ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority-associated poverty is caused by the living environment, production modes, lifestyle, culture, religions, customs and other historical reasons of one entire ethnic group. Ethnic minorityassociated poverty is mainly distributed in border areas and high and cold mountain areas in some ethnic minority areas in China. In reality, with a high probability of overlapping with poverty caused by regional development barriers and poverty caused by poor individuals’ lack of feasible ability, ethnic minority-associated poverty is mainly characterized by the unique lifestyle or cultural customs of an ethnic group.14 In addition, some studies argue that due to the inherent constraints of customs and culture, poverty-stricken areas in ethnic minority areas have gradually formed relatively independent living, social and economic circles during their historical development. The inherent behavioral norms and conventions of ethnic minorities have led to backward thoughts in ethnic minority areas, and after long-term internalization, a unique culture trapped by poverty has been formed, which further affects the economic development of ethnic minority areas and the improvement of people’s living standards.15 For example, in the past, the pastoral area of Zhiduo County in Qinghai basically had a single economic structure, namely, a pastoral economy, in which herders could 13

Fan Xiaojian, “China Poverty Alleviation Trend Emerging in Saddle since 2001”, October 18th, 2010, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-10/17/c_12668774.htm). 14 Wang Shuguang, “Declaring War on Poverty—China’s Poverty and Anti-poverty”, sketches and notes about the NPC and CPPCC, School of Economics Peking University, March 6th, 2014, http:// econ.pku.edu.cn/displaynews2.php? id = 15,381. 15 Xiang Linglin and Deng Xiang, “Anti-poverty Dynamic Assessment of Western Minority Areas”, Guizhou Ethnic Studies, Issue 1, 2013.

58

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

only rely on expanding the scale of livestock breeding through extended reproduction to meet the production and living needs of the new population. The theocracy based on Tibetan Buddhism is extremely exclusive and self-enclosed in the field of ideology, and the historical closure, backwardness and strong religious consciousness have made the production level in the pastoral area of Zhiduo County tremendously low, resulting in a high birth rate and mortality rate of both people and livestock and slow or even stagnant growth in population and the number of livestock.16 Surveys suggest that almost all herdsmen in Zhiduo County of Qinghai Province believe in Tibetan Buddhism, a religion that requires people to have a pure heart and few desires and pursue the afterlife. Buddhism has changed the outlooks on the world, life and values of the herdsmen, many of whom regard the religion as a way of life, identify with Buddhism spiritually, and see the afterlife being as important as current life or even value the former over the latter. Therefore, Buddhism has brought about some unfavorable factors for the development of animal husbandry and other industries. First, as monks do not marry and have children, they are generally supported by their families but do not engage in family production. In this way, the family labor force has been reduced, and much of the hard animal husbandry work has to be borne by women and the elderly, which has increased the family burden and limited the family’s labor production and income to a certain extent, thus affecting the growth of the local economy. Second, for practicing the “six transcendent perfections,” Tibetans have given a large amount of money to temples. With much cash gathering in temples, money available for circulation among the people has been reduced, which exerts a certain negative influence on local social and economic development. Third, Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes righteousness outweighing personal benefits and opposes seeking nothing but one’s own interests. “These doctrines, on the one hand, are of great help to purify the social atmosphere and improve personal moral cultivation, but on the other hand, they have resulted in a weak sense of business, little attention to economic benefits and a lack of understanding of economic laws in the Tibetan ethnic areas.” The generally low living standard of Tibetans is naturally related to this cultural atmosphere. According to the author’s survey in 2012, of the 282 self-employed entrepreneurs in Zhiduo County, only one is a herdsman with local household registration. At present, most of the businessmen in Zhiduo County are from Gansu Province, Sichuan Province and the Salar ethnic group in Qinghai Province, who generally have an entrepreneurial mindset. Among them, those who engaged in retail sales are mostly from Gansu, those who work on construction sites are usually Sichuan people, and those who run animal product businesses are basically the Hui and Salar people. Some Tibetans, however, would rather knock more heads and read more sutras for the sake of the afterlife than make money, no matter how miserably poor they are in this life. They also lack the ability to earn money and feel content with the state of poverty. Tibetans never care about the value 16

Research Group of Huazhong Agricultural University, “Study on Vigorously Developing the Economy in Counties and Coordinating Urban and Rural Economic and Social Development”, October 10th, 2012, the website of Qinghai Economic Information Net (http://www.qhei.gov.cn/ ghyfz/ghwx/fzzlx/201210/t20121010_231913.shtml).

2.2 Characteristics of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

59

forms of commodities but regard the use value of livestock, animal products and other commodities as a symbol of wealth. In many pastoral areas, it is common for herdsmen to measure their wealth not by money, which is the universal equivalent, but by the number of livestock and the apparel worn by hosts and hostesses, especially the latter’s clothes. This has greatly influenced the production cycle of grassland animal husbandry and the economic growth of pastoral areas and has led to the loss of economic ties with other industries and regions. Finally, the religious concept of “not killing and selling animals” prevails in the county. To this day, almost all herdsmen in the pastoral areas of Zhiduo County still seldom slaughter livestock by themselves and invite butchers to their homes instead to avoid killing with their own hands. In addition, the habit of raising “animals for mercy release” has been restored to a greater extent since 1978. A direct consequence of these traditional ideas and customs is that they greatly hinder the normal slaughter of livestock, especially the old and sick livestock that should be butchered as quickly as possible. Some scholars have found that the low slaughter rate is not only an important reason for the low production of grassland animal husbandry and the low incomes of herdsmen in Zhiduo County but also an unignorable cause of overgrazing, grassland degradation and desertification.17 6. Overall and long-term poverty of poor ethnic minority areas Poverty-stricken areas include 14 contiguous impoverished regions and 592 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development.18 Poor ethnic minority areas19 are basically characterized by overall and long-term poverty. According to the “List of Key Counties for National Poverty Alleviation and Development” and the “List of Counties in National Contiguous Impoverished Regions” issued by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, there are 666 priority counties for national poverty alleviation and development work, including 592 counties listed as “the main targets of national poverty alleviation in a new era” and 74 counties in Tibet, which were identified as the contiguous poor areas on the 4th Symposium on Work related to Tibet. Among them, 306 priority counties lie in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, 17

Zheng Haifeng, “Brief Analysis on the Noneconomic Factors Restricting the Economic Growth in Zhiduo County”, internal report, 2012 (Zheng Haifeng, an official in the Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development in Zhiduo County, with his comprehensive and deep understanding of the poverty problems in the pastoral areas in the county, has offered the author abundant insights and valuable materials. The author would like to express sincere thanks to him.); Chen Jinlin, “Humanistic Awareness and Social Impact of Tibetan Buddhism”, Academic Journal of Kangding Minzu Normal Junior College, Issue 6, 2005, also reprinted on the website of Ethnic Groups and Religions of China on November 23rd, 2014, http://www.mzb.com.cn/html/report/141124899-1. htm; Research Group of Huazhong Agricultural University, “Study on Vigorously Developing the Economy in Counties and Coordinating Urban and Rural Economic and Social Development”, October 10th, 2012, retrieved from the website of Qinghai Economic Information (http://www. qhei.gov.cn/ghyfz/ghwx/fzzlx/201210/t20121010_231913.shtml). 18 Office of Household Survey of the NBS: Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2016, China Statistics Press, 2016. 19 Poor areas located in ethnic minority areas.

60

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

accounting for 46% of the total. In addition, of the 680 counties in the 14 national contiguous impoverished regions, 330 are located in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, registering 48.53%. For example, the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture is one of the poorest prefectures in Guizhou, which is also a province in relatively severe poverty located in the southwestern ethnic minority areas. Most counties of the prefecture have always been in deep poverty for natural, historical and other reasons. Therefore, the 16 counties of the prefecture have mostly been identified as the poverty-stricken counties to which the government gave priority in poverty alleviation since China’s first identification of 331 counties as such in 1986. Currently, all the other 15 counties except Kaili city are listed among the priority counties for national poverty alleviation and development work and belong to the contiguous impoverished areas in the rocky desertification regions of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces. This illustrates that the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture basically remains in a state of overall, longterm poverty. Likewise, the priority counties for national poverty alleviation and development work along with the ethnic counties in the 14 contiguous impoverished regions all have the general characteristics of overall, long-term poverty. In other words, the solidification of poor rural areas in ethnic minority areas is prominent. In summary, from a macro perspective, rural poverty in ethnic minority areas is characterized by a large poor population comprising mainly ethnic minorities distributed in wide areas, a considerable degree of overlap between poverty-stricken areas and ecologically vulnerable areas, salient vulnerability and ethnic minorityassociated poverty in some rural areas. These characteristics, in combination with the current economic slowdown nationally and globally, will keep impoverished ethnic minority areas in overall and long-term poverty in the long run. To address this situation, the central and local governments at all levels are now paying great attention to poverty eradication in impoverished ethnic minority areas and other poor areas of the Central and Western regions. To lift these areas out of poverty, they will mobilize all available resources and provide unprecedentedly strong support. It is expected to solve the overall and long-term poverty in ethnic minority areas through a variety of effective policies and measures prior to 2020.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population and Causes of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas As seen above, economic and social underdevelopment remains the main condition in ethnic minority areas, where rural poverty is still characterized by a large poor population comprising mainly ethnic minorities distributed in wide areas, a considerable degree of overlap between poverty-stricken areas and ecologically vulnerable areas, and huge challenges to eradicating poverty. What kind of poverty picture does the rural poor population in ethnic minority areas present? What causes their poverty? Apparently, they share the commonality of the impoverished in ordinary areas but

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

61

also have their own particularities. Based on the materials of the research team and the large sample microdata from the CHES (Chinese Household Ethnicity Survey), the following section analyzes the causes of poverty of the rural poor in ethnic minority areas to explore the basic path to speed up the anti-poverty process in rural ethnic minority areas. 1. Research approaches and strategies The World Bank noted in its explanation of human poverty in the World Development Report 2000/2001 that poverty has three characteristics: a lack of opportunities to engage in economic activities, a lack of voice in the making of some life-changing decisions, and high vulnerability to economic and other shocks. Vulnerability means the probability that a household or individual will be exposed to certain risks and the likelihood that a risk will make the wealth or living standard of a household or individual fall below a recognized level in a certain society. The shocks that cause vulnerability vary widely from social, economic and political to other aspects, for example, the most common ones for a region, including natural disasters, environmental crises, economic fluctuations, policy changes, racial conflicts, etc. For a household and individual, except for the direct impact of the above shocks, illnesses, unemployment and unexpected accidents all may result in a decline in family wealth and living standards. The concept of vulnerability also involves the resilience against a shock—the ability to recover after suffering a shock. The poor will not only be the victims when a shock occurs due to their vulnerability, but when the shock ends, for instance, after natural disasters such as a flood, they will also get hard to return to the former living standards without external help. In particular, the resultant decline in their wellbeing will further lead to a decline in investment for their children, which will greatly influence the next generation’s health and education, thus forming a vicious cycle of vulnerability and poverty.20 Relevant studies at home and abroad show that poverty is frequently accompanied by a fragile ecological environment. In China, the poor population is often distributed in remote areas with harsh ecological environments, resulting in a considerable degree of overlap between poverty-stricken areas and ecologically vulnerable areas. Certainly, poverty in a region is the result of the interaction of many factors. Rural poverty in ethnic minority areas in the western region is intertwined not only with the fragile ecological environment but also with specific ethnic backgrounds and regional characteristics. Based on the survey data of rural households in Bulangshan Township, Menghai County, Yunnan Province, Yang Donghui, Fan Shenggen and Shen Suping conducted empirical research on the poverty problem of the Bulang ethnic group living in the “directly entering socialist areas” and found that there was relatively great income inequality among rural residents of the ethnic minorities in the southwestern border areas where the poverty problem was rather severe.21 20

Han Zheng, “Fragility and Rural Poverty”, Issues in Agricultural Economy, Issue 10, 2004. Yang Donghui, Fan Shenggen and Shen Suping, “Research on Income Gap and Poverty in the ‘Directly Entering-Socialism Areas’ of Ethnic Minorities—An Analysis Based on the Survey Data of Rural Households in Bulangshan Township, Menghai County, Yunnan Province”, Public Policies

21

62

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

On the basis of rural household survey data from 13 counties in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Wang Xiaolin compared and analyzed the poverty conditions of the Tibetan, Qiang, Hui and Han nationalities from the perspectives of ethnicity, gender and education. The result shows that the probability of ethnic minorities falling into poverty is 2.5% higher than that of the Han nationality.22 Zhuang Tianhui systematically analyzed the current situation and characteristics of poverty in poor counties of ethnic minority areas in Southwest China and pointed out that those counties have their particularities, as the poverty headcount ratio in such areas is relatively high, and poverty often coexists with ecologically vulnerable environments, diverse ethnic cultures, complicated ethnic relations in border areas and a high proportion of the population returning to poverty. Therefore, Zhuang proposed taking an anti-poverty and development path that is suited to regional and ethnic characteristics while protecting the ecological environment, inheriting and developing ethnic culture and safeguarding ethnic solidarity and stability in border areas.23 Chen Quangong and Cheng Xi studied the mountainous areas of ethnic minority areas as a special regional unit and believed that these areas are mostly in long-term poverty. Compared with other regions and the Han masses, the mountainous areas of ethnic minority areas and ethnic minority masses are in deeper poverty and face more difficulties in reducing poverty. The poverty in the mountainous areas of ethnic minority areas is the result of the comprehensive interaction of many factors, such as harsh natural and geographical conditions, unfavorable system reform, market impact and insufficient capacity for personal development.24 The above brief literature review shows that, thus far, researchers have already performed many in-depth studies on rural poverty in ethnic minority areas in the West region. However, most of the studies either mainly explore the conditions, causes, existing problems and countermeasures of poverty in parts of ethnic minority areas or qualitatively analyze the poverty problems in ethnic minority areas in the West region from a macro perspective. There is little comprehensive and systematic microanalysis of rural ethnic minority areas and little comparative analysis of poverty and anti-poverty problems in different ethnic minority areas. The reason may be the lack of comprehensive microdata of ethnic minority areas. The following empirical study on the characteristics of the rural poor population in ethnic minority areas and the factors influencing their poverty conditions is based on the large sample microdata from the CHES and a large number of cases collected from investigations and surveys by the author in ethnic minority areas in the Western region and draws and Rural Poverty in West China edited by Fan Shenggen, Xing Li and Chen Zhigang, Science Press, 2010; Yang Donghui, “Research on the Income Gap and Poverty in Rural Ethnic Minority Areas—A Case Study of the Survey Data of Rural Households in Bulangshan Township in Yunnan Province”, Doctoral Dissertation, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, May 2009. 22 Wang Xiaolin, Theories and Methods of Poverty Measurement, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2012. 23 Zhuang Tianhui, Investigation and Evaluation on Poverty and Anti-Poverty in Poor Counties in Ethnic Minority Areas in Southwest China, China Agriculture Press, 2011. 24 Chen Quangong and Cheng Xi, Research on the Long-Term Poverty in the Mountainous Areas in Ethnic Minority Areas and Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction Policies, Science Press, 2014.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

63

on the international and domestic theories of poverty to explore the basic path to speed up the anti-poverty process in rural ethnic minority areas. Based on the previous theoretical review, the author adopts the strategies below in this quantitative analysis. (1) Measure of Poverty This chapter uses income to measure poverty mainly through the FGT indexes. Compared with other poverty indexes, the FGT indexes have the advantages of comprehensiveness and decomposability. Through the decomposition of the FGT indexes, we can clearly understand to what extent the factors that influence poverty conditions have an impact on poverty, thus taking targeted measures to adjust the influencing factors to achieve the goal of poverty reduction. The FGT indexes consist of three indexes: the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap. The formula is as follows25 : Pα =

 q  1  z − yi α N i=1 z

(2.1)

where Pα is the poverty index, α (α ≥ 0) is the poverty aversion parameter, N is the total population, z is the poverty line, yi is the income of each individual i, and q is the number of people with incomes below the poverty line. With α = 0, Pα is the poverty headcount ratio (H), which refers to the fraction of the population that lives below the poverty line in a region or country and reflects the width of poverty. With α = 1, Pα is the poverty gap (PG), which is a measure of the shortfall in the mean income of the poor from the poverty line and reflects the depth of poverty. A small PG means that most poor people have an income near the poverty line, that efforts to reduce poverty will yield noticeable results in the short term and that the cost of eliminating poverty is relatively low. In contrast, a large PG means that most poor people have an income far lower than the poverty line and that efforts to reduce poverty will not yield noticeable results in the short term, the cost of eliminating poverty is relatively high and the time is relatively long. With α = 2, Pα is the squared poverty gap (SPG), a measure of the intensity of poverty. It is calculated by averaging the square of the weighted poverty gap. The measure gives the very poor much more weight to reflect more clearly the income inequality among the poor. (2) Measure of income inequality In this chapter, the Gini coefficient commonly used in academia is aimed at measuring the overall degree of income inequality, and the Theil index and its decomposition 25

James Foster, Joel Greer, and Erik Thorbecke, “A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures”, Econometrical, Vol. 3, 1984, pp. 761–766.

64

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

are used to analyze the composition of income inequality. The following formula for the Gini coefficient is Gini = 1 −

N 1  (xi − xi−1 )(yi + yi−1 ) N i=1

(2.2)

where xi is the cumulative proportion of the population variable and yi is the cumulative proportion of the income (or consumption) variable. The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve and ranges from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality). The smaller the Gini coefficient is, the more equal the income distribution will be. The Theil index is defined as  α   N 1  yi 1 G E(α) = −1 α(α − 1) N l=1 ≡ y

(2.3)

where y is the income (or consumption) of a particular individual and y is the average per capita income (or consumption) of the population. α, usually equal to 0 or 1, is a parameter that regulates the weight given to the distances between incomes or consumption at different parts of the per capita income or consumption distribution. When α equals 0, the formula is for calculating the Theil L index, and when α equals 1, the formula is for calculating the Theil T index. As the generalized entropy (GE) is equal to 0, it indicates the complete equality of income distribution. The larger GE is, the more unequal the income distribution will be. The Theil index can be decomposed into two parts, within-group inequality and between-group differences, and used to measure the contribution of the two parts to overall inequality. (3) Model of poverty determination In this chapter, the probit model with a binary dependent variable is defined as the model of poverty determination.26 The variables in the model include all variables of the above three capitals: economic capital, human capital and social capital. The basic formula for the model is P(Poverty = 1| x) = G(β0 + βc X c + βh X h + βe X e + βs X s )

(2.4)

where P denotes poverty with a value of 1 for the poor household and a value of 0 for the nonpoor household and X is the vector of the characteristics of the rural households. Xh indicates the human capital owned by a household (and its usage pattern), Xe the economic capital possessed by a household and Xs the social capital held by 26

The Probit model can be used when some of the dependent variables cannot be observed due to the selection bias, which is one of the reasons why social science researchers enjoy the Probit model and the reason why the Probit model is chosen as the model of poverty determination in this chapter.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

65

a household. In addition, Xc is the control variable, including the ethnic identity of the head of a household and the natural and economic and social characteristics of the areas where the registration (or hukou) of the surveyed household is located and the household lives. 2. Distribution of rural poor population in the surveyed areas In 2012, the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS cooperated with the School of Economics of the Minzu University of China (MUC) to carry out the CHES. The survey covers urban and rural communities and households in seven provinces and autonomous regions, including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Guangxi, Qinghai, Guizhou and Hunan. The survey adopts the urban and rural stratified random sampling method of the NBS, giving priority to the majority group households in each region and comprehensively involving the differences among the ethnic and nonethnic regions, natural and geographical conditions, economic and social development level and other aspects. In terms of rural households, the survey selects 7,257 sample households (totaling 31,671 people) from 81 counties and 757 administrative villages in the seven provinces and autonomous regions and investigates their income and other aspects in 2011. The per capita net income of rural households in this chapter based on its definition by the NBS includes the estimated rent value of per capita owned housing in accordance with international practices.27 The following section, according to the rural data of the CHES (2011), analyzes the distribution of poor populations in the surveyed areas. As poverty is a household phenomenon, the following part in this chapter mainly chooses households as the object of research, and the data classified by ethnic groups are all related to ethnic households. In this chapter, the household with ethnic minority people accounting for 50% or more of the family members is defined as the ethnic minority household, while the others are classified as Han households. The ethnic minority household with members from several ethnic minorities is named after the ethnic minority reaches 50% or above. To more objectively and comprehensively assess the situation of the rural poor population in the surveyed areas, it is necessary to set multiple poverty lines. In this 27

The questionnaire survey covers seven provinces and autonomous regions, including Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou, among which all except Hunan are located in Western ethnic minority areas. In Hunan Province, there are Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Shaoyang City, Yongzhou City and Huaihua City as the surveyed areas, most of which are ethnic minority areas. For the sake of convenience, this chapter refers to the seven provinces and autonomous regions as “surveyed ethnic minority areas,” Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai as the “four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions” and Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou as the “three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions” (In fact, Hunan Province lies in the central south instead of the southwest of the country). According to the definition of the per capita net income of rural households by the research team, this chapter has done some data processing when calculating the per capita net income of rural households. For details of the CHES database and its data processing methods, please refer to the Chinese Household Ethnic Survey 2013 edited by Li Keqiang, Long Yuanwei and Liu Xiaomin and published by the Social Sciences Academic Press (China) in 2014. In addition, all the data in this chapter, unless the source is specifically noted, are from the CHES data.

66

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

part, the rural poverty lines include three absolute poverty lines and one relative poverty line.28 The first absolute poverty line indicates the national rural subsistence allowance standard in 2011. The second is the poverty line of “USD 1.5 per day” in 2011 calculated by first using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) to convert USD one (or USD 365 per year) in 1985 into the RMB’s value in 1985 based on the World Bank’s poverty line of “USD 1.5 per day” in 1985 and then adjusting the value to the level of 2011 according to the national rural consumer price index (CPI) in 1985. The third is a new poverty line of RMB 2,300 (at 2010 constant prices) set by the government in 2011.29 The relative poverty line is 50% of the average per capita net income of surveyed households before receiving subsistence allowances. To facilitate a unified comparison of poverty situations in different regions, the unified poverty line is adopted in all areas. Tables 2.2 and 2.3 represent the FGT indexes of rural households in surveyed ethnic minority areas measured by the national rural subsistence allowance standard in 2011, the international poverty line of USD 1.5 per day, the national rural poverty line in 2011 and the relative poverty line, respectively.30 (1) Measure of poverty by the subsistence allowance standard From Table 2.2, it can be seen that the poverty headcount ratio in the surveyed areas is different among regions and ethnic groups. When the subsistence allowance standard is set as the poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio in surveyed ethnic minority areas is 8.24%. From the perspective of the southwest and northwest of the areas, the poverty headcount ratio in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions reaches 11.67%, 3.43 percentage points higher than that in surveyed ethnic 28

The absolute poverty line refers to the cost of a basket of particular food and nonfood products in a certain way of production and life, which individuals with different consumption patterns in different regions need to maintain a minimum living standard generally accepted by society. The relative poverty line represents a poverty standard, which is put forward to solve the development problems of low-income groups after absolute poverty is basically eliminated. It mainly judges the severity of poverty of individuals by comparing individual income with the average or median income of society, avoiding the concept of basic needs in the absolute poverty line. The relative poverty line is usually set at 50% of average personal income (or median personal income). 29 The new national poverty line is defined as RMB 2,300 (at 2010 constant prices). According to the rural CPI, the per capita net income of farmers RMB 2,300 at 2010 constant prices is equivalent to RMB 2,536 in 2011. “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2011”, November 28th, 2012, the website of the NEAC. 30 The per capita net income of rural households in this chapter based on its definition by the NBS embraces the estimated rent value of per capita owned housing in accordance with international practices. Namely, the total income of rural households includes wage income, operational income, property income, transfer income, estimated rental value of owned housing and miscellaneous income. If the surveyed households fail to provide the estimated rental value of their owned housing, the rental value will be calculated according to the six percent of the net value of their owned housing. Therefore, in this chapter, the poverty headcount ratio calculated by using the CHES data on the basis of income is a little different from that published by the NBS.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

67

Table 2.2 FGT indexes measured by the subsistence allowance standard and the poverty line of USD 1.5 per day Region

Subsistence allowance standard

Poverty line of USD 1.5 per day

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Three 11.67 southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

4.39

2.43

21.98

8.07

4.40

Of which: Hunan

21.41

8.43

4.47

36.26

14.43

8.10

Guangxi

12.38

5.01

3.13

21.25

8.58

5.05

Guizhou

2.92

0.49

0.14

10.67

2.30

0.74

Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

5.46

2.43

1.54

11.07

4.13

2.42

Of which: Ningxia

4.27

1.57

0.85

11.97

3.42

1.65

Qinghai

3.71

1.26

0.7

9.52

2.74

1.34

Xinjiang

10.65

5.91

4.08

16.28

8.21

5.63

Inner Mongolia

3.27

1.03

0.56

6.74

2.23

1.11

Surveyed ethnic minority areas

8.24

3.31

1.94

15.91

5.90

3.31

Han

4.03

1.51

0.84

8.39

2.87

1.52

Mongolian

5.58

1.34

0.54

8.37

3.01

1.42

Hui

4.94

1.53

0.67

14.00

3.80

1.66

Tibetan

2.27

1.05

0.65

8.09

2.20

1.11

Uygur

21.65

11.66

7.89

31.30

16.16

11.04

Miao

11.6

4.26

2.22

23.20

8.10

4.25

Zhuang

18.61

8.27

5.59

27.65

12.76

8.21

Dong

6.24

2.06

0.95

16.40

4.66

2.15

Yao

7.32

1.27

0.4

21.95

5.37

1.86

Tujia

20.34

8.71

4.69

35.59

14.85

8.39 (continued)

68

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.2 (continued) Region

Subsistence allowance standard

Poverty line of USD 1.5 per day

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Kazak

4.1

2.42

1.71

4.92

2.99

2.23

Salar

13.43

2.73

0.77

31.34

8.64

3.24

Other ethnic groups

15.82

5.51

3.5

28.25

10.57

5.88

Table 2.3 FGT indexes measured by the national poverty line and the relative poverty line Region

National poverty line

Relative poverty line

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Three 23.68 southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

8.49

4.62

37.99

13.54

7.21

Of which: Hunan

39.04

15.10

8.47

55.78

22.53

12.70

Guangxi

22.52

8.97

5.26

34.80

13.35

7.66

Guizhou

11.83

2.56

0.84

25.83

6.19

2.23

Four 11.60 northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

4.34

2.53

19.41

6.87

3.77

Of which: Ningxia

12.80

3.68

1.76

24.87

7.08

3.20

Qinghai

10.12

2.94

1.42

19.14

5.58

2.56

Xinjiang

16.48

8.45

5.78

22.11

10.99

7.39

Inner Mongolia

7.22

2.37

1.18

12.03

3.97

1.99 (continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

69

Table 2.3 (continued) National poverty line

Relative poverty line

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

Poverty Poverty gap Squared headcount (PG ∗ 100) poverty gap ratio (H ∗ (SPG ∗ 100) 100)

16.98

6.20

3.47

27.61

9.84

5.31

Han

8.96

3.04

1.61

15.20

5.05

2.59

Mongolian

8.84

3.17

1.51

13.49

4.97

2.56

14.83

4.10

1.79

28.67

8.09

3.51

Region

Surveyed ethnic minority areas

Hui Tibetan

9.06

2.39

1.18

19.74

5.03

2.17

Uygur

31.69

16.60

11.35

41.34

21.22

14.43

Miao

25.30

8.58

4.48

41.00

14.16

7.26

Zhuang

29.20

13.21

8.48

43.67

18.40

11.46

Dong

18.36

5.03

2.30

37.08

10.15

4.41

Yao

22.56

5.86

2.07

36.59

10.93

4.64

Tujia

40.11

15.53

8.78

54.80

23.02

13.09

Kazak

4.92

3.05

2.28

8.20

3.92

2.77

Salar

32.84

9.32

3.57

44.78

15.99

7.30

Other ethnic groups

28.81

11.09

6.16

42.37

17.00

9.37

minority areas, and the ratio in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions reaches 5.46%, 2.78 percentage points lower than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas and 6.21 percentage points lower than that in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions. In terms of provinces and autonomous regions, the province with the highest poverty headcount ratio is Hunan (21.41%), followed by Guangxi (12.38%), while the provinces and autonomous regions with the lower ratios are Inner Mongolia (3.27%), Guizhou (2.92%) and Qinghai (3.71%). With respect to ethnic groups, three ethnic minorities have higher poverty headcount ratios, namely, the Uygur (21.65%), Tujia (20.34%) and Zhuang (18.61%), and another three ethnic groups with lower ratios include the Tibetan (2.27%), Kazak (4.1%) and Han (4.03%). In Table 2.2, it can also be concluded that there are regional and ethnic differences not only in the poverty headcount ratio in the surveyed areas but also in the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap. The differences in the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap are the same as those in the poverty headcount ratio; that is, the provinces and autonomous regions and ethnic groups with a wider range of areas in poverty also see a higher depth and intensity of poverty.

70

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

(2) Measure of poverty by the poverty line of USD 1.5 per day In Table 2.2, when measured by the poverty line of USD 1.5 per day, the poverty headcount ratio in surveyed ethnic minority areas reaches 15.91%. In the southwest and northwest of the areas, the poverty headcount ratio in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions is 21.98%, 6.07 percentage points higher than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas, and the ratio in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions is 11.07%, 4.84 percentage points lower than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas and 10.91 percentage points lower than that in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions. In terms of provinces and autonomous regions, Hunan (36.26%), Guangxi (21.25%) and Xinjiang (16.28%) are the provinces and autonomous regions with higher poverty headcount ratios, while Inner Mongolia (6.74%), Qinghai (9.25%) and Guizhou (10.67%) have lower ratios. With respect to ethnic groups, four ethnic minorities have higher poverty headcount ratios, namely, Tujia (35.59%), Salar (31.34%), Uygur (31.3%) and Zhuang (27.65%), and another four ethnic groups have lower ratios, including Kazak (4.92%), Tibetan (8.09%), Mongolian (8.37%) and Han (8.39%). (3) Measure of poverty by the national rural poverty line Similar to the conclusion drawn from the subsistence allowance standard set as the poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap in the surveyed areas all have regional and ethnic differences under the condition of the poverty line of USD 1.5 per day. From Table 2.3, it can be seen that according to the national poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio in surveyed ethnic minority areas is 16.98%. Regarding the southwestern and northwestern areas, the poverty headcount ratio in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions reaches 23.68%, 6.7 percentage points higher than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas, and the ratio in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions is 11.60%, 5.38 percentage points lower than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas and 12.08 percentage points lower than that in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions. From the perspective of provinces and autonomous regions, the three provinces and autonomous regions with higher ratios include Hunan (39.04%), Guangxi (22.52%) and Xinjiang (16.48%), while the other three provinces with lower ratios are Inner Mongolia (7.22%), Qinghai (10.12%) and Guizhou (11.83%). In terms of ethnic groups, Tujia, Uygur and Salar have higher poverty headcount ratios, namely, 40.11%, 31.69% and 32.84%, respectively, and ethnic groups with lower ratios are Kazak, Mongolian, Han and Tibetan, with poverty headcount ratios of 4.92%, 8.84%, 8.96% and 9.06%, respectively. The above analysis is also similar to the conclusion of the subsistence allowance standard defined as the poverty line. When measured by the national poverty line, there are regional and ethnic differences in the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap in the surveyed areas.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

71

(4) Measure of poverty by the relative poverty line In Table 2.3, from the perspective of the relative poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio in surveyed ethnic minority areas reaches 27.61%. With regard to the southwestern and northwestern areas, the poverty headcount ratio in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions reaches 37.99%, which is 10.38% higher than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas, and the ratio in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions reaches 19.41%, 8.2% lower than that in surveyed ethnic minority areas and 18.58% lower than that in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions. In terms of provinces and autonomous regions, Hunan, Guangxi, and Guizhou have higher poverty headcount ratios of 55.78%, 34.80%, and 25.83%, respectively, while Inner Mongolia and Qinghai have lower ratios of 12.03% and 19.14%, respectively. With respect to ethnic groups, three ethnic groups with higher poverty headcount ratios are Tujia (54.8%), Salar (44.78%) and Zhuang (43.67%), and another three with lower ratios are Kazak (8.20 percent), Mongolian (13.49%) and Han (15.20%). As shown in the measure of poverty by the relative poverty line, there are also regional and ethnic differences in the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap in the surveyed areas. In summary, three conclusions can be drawn from the above analysis. First, in general, the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap in the surveyed areas vary with regions and ethnic groups. In addition, the provinces and autonomous regions and ethnic groups that embrace a wider range of areas in poverty face deeper and more intensified poverty. Specifically, in terms of the seven provinces and autonomous regions surveyed, the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions have more serious poverty problems than the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions. Among the provinces and autonomous regions, Hunan and Guangxi are confronted with more severe poverty, but Inner Mongolia, Guizhou and Qinghai have fewer poverty problems; with regard to ethnic groups, the Tujia, Uygur and Salar households are poorer, while Kazak, Mongolian, Han and Tibetan stand at a relatively low level of poverty. Second, when measured by the relative poverty line, the width, depth and intensity of poverty in both the whole surveyed ethnic minority areas and each province and autonomous region and each ethnic group are all higher than those by the absolute poverty lines (namely, the rural subsistence allowance standard, the international poverty line of USD 1.5 per day and the national rural poverty line in 2011). Third, by different absolute poverty lines, the poverty indexes are also measured differently in both the whole surveyed ethnic minority areas and each province and autonomous region and each ethnic group. The poverty indexes measured by the subsistence allowance standard are obviously lower, and there are slight differences between indexes by the international poverty line of USD 1.50 per day and the national rural poverty line in 2011. In other words, the severity of income poverty in rural surveyed ethnic minority areas is closely related to the changes in the poverty standard. This means that various indexes increase with the improvement of the standard. In comparison, most indexes reach their maximum values under the condition of the relative poverty line. Except for the relative poverty

72

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

line and other poverty lines above it, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap reach the maximum when measured by the national poverty line, which shows that many newly increased poor people are concentrated near the national poverty line as the poverty standard is raised. The people living below the subsistence allowance standard certainly encounter the deepest and most intensified poverty, which requires the greatest efforts to lift them out of poverty. Poverty reduction efforts should give priority to those people and at the same time pay full attention to the poor whose incomes fall between the subsistence allowance standard and the poverty line of USD 1.5 per day. 3. Complexity of rural poor households in ethnic minority areas After comparing and analyzing the distribution of rural poor households in surveyed ethnic minority areas, the author will, based on the literature review of the poverty theories stated above, describe the economic and social features of these households. Given that in its poverty reduction practice, the government considers the national poverty line that it has drawn as the standard, the following part will, according to the standard, divide the surveyed households into two groups—poor households and nonpoor households.31 To better capture the economic and social features of poor households, nonpoor households are regarded as Reference One and observed. In addition, the economic and social features of the households of both the Han nationality and ethnic minorities are compared and analyzed to reflect the ethnicityrelated difference in poverty. (1) Natural geographical and social features of rural poor households in ethnic minority areas According to the analyses of the CHES questionnaire, the proportion of rural households living in mountainous areas among all surveyed rural households in surveyed ethnic minority areas is generally the highest, reaching 56.79% (see Table 2.4); the proportion of rural households living on plains ranks second, accounting for 24.73%; and the proportion of rural households living in hills is relatively low, accounting for 18.48%. By comparison, the proportion of ethnic minority households living in mountainous areas is much higher than that of Han households (32.09 percentage points higher), and the proportion of ethnic minority households living on plains is much lower than that of Han households (11.61 percentage points lower). The proportion of poor households living in mountainous areas is much higher than that of nonpoor households (14.92 percentage points higher), and the proportion of poor households living on plains is much lower than that of nonpoor households (9.74 percentage points lower). In view of the surveyed rural households in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions, more than 80% are located in mountainous areas, and fewer than 31

The households whose per capita net income is below the national poverty line are defined as poor households, others are nonpoor households. The central government lifted its official poverty line to a rural poverty line of annual per capita income of RMB 2,300 (RMB 2,536 at 2011 constant prices) in 2010.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

73

Table 2.4 Living environment of the surveyed rural households (unit: %) Terrain

Plains Total

Southwest

Hills

Mountainous areas

Yes

No

Yes

No

Total

24.73

18.48

56.79

7.89

92.11

68.59

31.41

Poor households

16.61

14.17

69.22

5.28

94.72

81.08

18.92

Nonpoor households

26.35

19.35

54.30

8.42

91.58

66.08

33.92

Han households

32.04

30.88

37.08

8.74

91.26

27.62

72.38

Ethnic minority households

20.43

10.40

69.17

7.31

92.69

94.78

5.22

Three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

1.57

17.72

80.71

8.15

91.85

82.84

17.16

Poor households

0.13

12.72

87.15

6.02

93.98

85.27

14.73

Nonpoor households

2.00

19.25

78.75

8.79

91.21

82.10

17.90

Han households

6.73

35.94

57.34

10.91

89.09

43.88

56.12

11.97

88.03

7.18

92.82

94.83

5.17

Ethnic minority households Northwest

Suburbs or not Ethnic minority areas or not

Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

43.63

19.11

37.27

7.69

92.31

56.96

43.04

Poor households

44.65

16.63

38.72

4.05

95.95

73.98

26.02

Nonpoor households

43.50

19.42

37.08

8.15

91.85

54.79

45.21

Han households

41.38

29.01

29.61

7.95

92.05

21.60

78.40

(continued)

74

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.4 (continued) Terrain

Plains Ethnic minority households

46.73

Suburbs or not Ethnic minority areas or not Hills 8.38

Mountainous areas 44.89

Yes 7.47

No

Yes

92.53

94.72

No 5.28

Note This chapter did not deal with missing values while representing the database. Some samples may lack nationality, hukou (household registration), gender, age, education or other variables, resulting in the difference between the summary sample, which is combined by nationality, gender, age, education and so on, and the total sample. However, the analysis of the overall condition of the surveyed ethnic minority areas will not be influenced. The following tables in this chapter may have a similar question, and no further explanations will be presented

two percent are on plains. From the perspective of nationalities, all ethnic minority households live in mountainous areas or hills with no one living on plains. The proportion of ethnic minority households living in mountainous areas accounts for 88.03%, which is 30.69 percentage points higher than that of Han households; the proportion of poor households living in mountainous areas is 8.4 percentage points higher than that of nonpoor households, and the proportion of poor households living on plains is 1.87 percentage points lower than that of nonpoor households. Regarding the surveyed rural households in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, more than 40% live on plains, and fewer than 40% live in mountainous areas. Compared with Han households, ethnic minority households are more likely to live in mountainous areas and on plains and less likely to live in hills; compared with nonpoor households, poor households are more likely to live in mountainous areas and on plains and less likely to live in hills. Table 2.4 also shows that among the rural households in ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority households, in comparison with Han households, are more likely to live in ethnic minority areas that are far away from suburbs; poor households, in comparison with nonpoor households, are more likely to live in ethnic minority areas that are far away from suburbs. In conclusion, in terms of the living environment of the surveyed rural households, the proportions of the surveyed rural households living in mountainous areas, places that are far away from suburbs and ethnic minority areas in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions are higher than those of the surveyed rural households living in mountainous areas in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions; the proportions of the ethnic minority households living in mountainous areas, places that are far away from suburbs and ethnic minority areas are higher than those of the Han households; the proportions of the poor households living in mountainous areas, places that are far away from suburbs and ethnic minority areas are higher than those of the nonpoor households. Obviously, this conclusion echoes that of the distribution of poverty mentioned above: compared with the four

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

75

northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions embrace rural poor households with a wider poverty distribution and deeper and more intense level of poverty; compared with the Han nationality, ethnic minorities have rural poor households with a wider poverty distribution and deeper and more intense level of poverty. Therefore, it can be inferred that the distribution of rural poverty is, to some extent, linked with local geographical conditions. The distribution of rural poverty is linked with local geographical conditions for three main reasons. First, natural and geographical factors have a direct effect on agricultural labor productivity and the level of outputs and thus have a great influence on the occurrence of poverty. Second, mountainous areas with fragile natural environments lack essential conditions for large-scale industrialized activities and will be confronted with high ecological risks, so they are normally defined as restricted development zones, which will hinder local economic development and reduce the effect of poverty reduction. Third, a fragile natural environment is inclined to bring about natural disasters, and frequent natural disasters will lead to the vicious circle of being hit by natural disasters—recovery from natural disasters—being hit again by natural disasters. According to the theory of vulnerability to poverty and poverty dynamics mentioned above, natural disasters are not only responsible for temporary poverty of households in ethnic minority areas but also responsible for why people suffering from poverty for a long time cannot shake off poverty. Recently, with global climate change, disastrous and extreme weather events, which are devastating and are found only once in decades or even in centuries, have occurred more frequently than ever before, increasing the vulnerability of the poverty-stricken population and making it harder for poverty-stricken people to be lifted out of poverty or making it easier for them to be mired in deep poverty. Economic geographical factors exert a larger role in the occurrence of poverty than pure geographical factors.32 From Table 2.5, it can be found that compared with nonpoor households, poor households are far away from towns and stations and are mainly concentrated in underdeveloped villages, which indicates that poor households are more likely to be distributed in areas with weak infrastructure and poor basic production and living conditions. These are all realistic factors that make it harder for poor households to eliminate poverty. Specifically, there are three reasons. First, poor households are far away from public service agencies and cannot enjoy more public goods or services, thus being trapped by multidimensional poverty. Second, poor households are isolated from market-oriented economic systems, which contributes to the “reinforcement” of poverty. Consequently, these households would be mired in poverty for a long time. Third, it is relatively slow to change the harsh ecological conditions and the backward social and economic outlook of povertystricken areas, so the stability of poverty emerges.33 32

China Development Research Foundation, Poverty Alleviation Through Development, China Development Press, 2007. 33 Central China Normal University and International Poverty Reduction Center in China, China’s Anti-poverty Report 2012, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press, 2013.

76

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.5 Economic and geographical environment of the surveyed rural households Per capita annual net income of villagers (RMB) Total

Wages of doing odd jobs in local towns or townships (RMB/day)

Proportion of the poor households in villages (%)

Distance from villages to the nearest counties (km)

Distance from villages to the nearest town or township governments (km)

Distance from villages to the nearest stations (Docks) (km)

Total

4501.35 83.45

16

31.52

7.00

10.03

Poor households

3711.75 79.58

48

35.73

7.01

10.25

Nonpoor households

4662.03 84.24

9

30.67

7.00

9.99

Han households

5293.27 87.65

8

30.60

6.72

8.39

Ethnic minority households

4002.28 80.90

20

32.25

7.18

11.10

Southwest Three 3446.34 74.12 southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

21

33.63

6.96

10.97

Poor households

3363.49 72.76

52

36.73

7.33

11.50

Nonpoor households

3472.30 74.55

12

32.69

6.85

10.81

Han households

3512.09 75.73

14

30.84

5.17

8.58

Ethnic minority households

3420.85 73.69

24

34.75

7.51

11.70

Northwest Four 5350.89 90.97 northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

11

29.79

7.03

9.25

Poor households

4303.63 90.90

41

34.05

6.48

9.40

Nonpoor households

5484.40 90.98

7

29.24

7.09

8.14

Han households

5943.20 91.98

6

30.51

7.29

8.31 (continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

77

Table 2.5 (continued) Per capita annual net income of villagers (RMB) Ethnic minority households

Wages of doing odd jobs in local towns or townships (RMB/day)

4736.34 90.12

Proportion of the poor households in villages (%)

Distance from villages to the nearest counties (km)

Distance from villages to the nearest town or township governments (km)

Distance from villages to the nearest stations (Docks) (km)

16

29.04

6.76

10.31

This table shows that ethnic minority households echo poor households in aspects such as economic, natural and geographical conditions, which means that compared with Han households, ethnic minority households are poverty-stricken largely because they are distributed in places with poor living environments and underdeveloped economies and societies. In other words, the difference in poverty between nationalities to some extent results from regional differences. (2) Human capital features of rural poor households in ethnic minority areas According to the analyses of the questionnaire, the average size of the surveyed rural households in the surveyed ethnic minority areas is 4.88 persons (see Table 2.6), 1.62 times that of the national average level (3.02 persons per household).34 The average elderly dependency ratio, the youth dependency ratio and the total dependency ratio of the surveyed rural households are 9.48%, 25.35% and 34.72%, respectively. Compared with the national average level, the elderly dependency ratio is 2.79 percentage points lower, the youth dependency ratio is 3.22 percentage points higher and the total dependency ratio is slightly higher.35 Table 2.6 shows that in terms of economic situation, poor households exceed the national average level and largely go beyond the nonpoor households in household size, youth dependency ratio, elderly dependency ratio and total dependency ratio; with respect to nationalities, ethnic minority households outnumber the Han households in household size and all kinds of dependency ratios. Furthermore, it can be noticed that in view of the size grouping, number of children, health conditions of household heads, age of household heads, and years of schooling of household heads (see Tables 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9), poor households, compared with nonpoor households, have more members and children, and their heads have poorer health conditions and fewer years of schooling and are also older. Ethnic minority households, compared with Han households, have more members and children, and their heads have poorer health conditions and fewer years of schooling and are also older. 34 35

China Statistical Yearbook 2012, China Statistics Press, 2012. Ibid.

18.73

17.48

19.83

22.03

4.88

5.01

4.76

5.55

4.71

4.52

Surveyed ethnic minority areas

Three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

Poor households

Nonpoor households

Han nationality

16.22

17.90 77.27

75.52

69.12

74.03

74.46

74.23

Proportion of people Proportion of aged 0–14 (%) people aged 15–64 (%)

Age structure of household population

Average household size (person /household)

Region

Table 2.6 Basic demographic features of the surveyed households

6.49

6.58

8.86

6.14

8.06

7.04

Proportion of people aged 65 and over (%)

20.99

23.71

31.88

26.79

23.48

25.23

Youth dependency ratioa (%)

8.40

8.71

12.82

8.29

10.82

9.48

Elderly dependency ratiob (%)

29.39

32.42

44.69

35.08

34.31

34.72

(continued)

Total dependency ratioc (%)

78 2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Average household size (person /household)

Age structure of household population

20.19

72.59

Proportion of people Proportion of aged 0–14 (%) people aged 15–64 (%) 7.24

Proportion of people aged 65 and over (%) 27.81

Youth dependency ratioa (%) 9.97

Elderly dependency ratiob (%) 37.79

Total dependency ratioc (%)

Notes The youth dependency ratio, or the youth dependency coefficient, is the ratio of the youth population (ages 0–14) per 100 people of working age (ages 15–64). It indicates how many children per 100 people of working age need to shoulder b The elderly dependency ratio, or the elderly dependency coefficient, or the elderly coefficient, is the ratio of the elderly population (ages 65 and over) per 100 people of working age (ages 15–64). This indicates how many elderly people per 100 people of working age need to shoulder. It is one of the indicators that can reflect the outcome of an aging society from the perspective of the economy c The total dependency ratio is the ratio of the combined youth population (ages 0–14) and the elderly population (ages 65 and over) per 100 people of working age (ages 15–64). It measures how many people of nonworking age per person of working age need to shoulder

a

Ethnic minorities 5.09

Region

Table 2.6 (continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population … 79

5.12

5.09

0.75

0.42

Han households

Ethnic minority households

Southwest Three 0.47 southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

6.21

0.61

0.54

Nonpoor households

Han households

5.52

1.45

Poor households

13.85

9.66

0.65

8.59

Nonpoor households

0.54 3.30

Total

Poor households

Total

16.69

16.71

8.30

14.73

14.70

24.23

20.27

8.99

18.37

77.25

76.47

90.25

79.71

79.76

61.17

69.42

87.72

72.50

2

3

46.66 30.82 19.58 2.32

49.74 30.26 17.24 2.11

36.89 32.54 24.90 4.74

46.71 30.80 19.04 2.73

41.81 30.59 21.99 4.70

55.07 28.09 14.20 2.25

49.62 29.46 17.43 2.99

33.64 31.16 26.13 7.42

46.93 29.74 18.90 3.73

1

Number of children

Households with 1 Households with 2 Households with 3 Households with 4 0 person persons persons persons and over

Household size

Table 2.7 Basic demographic features of surveyed households 1 (unit: %)

(continued)

0.62

0.65

0.92

0.71

0.91

0.39

0.50

1.65

0.69

4 and over

80 2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

0.83

0.37

Han households

Ethnic minority households

Note “Youth” means population aged 0–14

12.07

0.68

Nonpoor households

5.41

16.85

6.39

11.42

Northwest Four 0.60 northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

Poor households

4.89

15.26

26.95

22.75

10.13

21.31

14.27

78.96

55.37

64.50

83.48

66.67

80.38

2

3

0.68

1.08

4 and over

35.55 30.30 25.11 7.76

57.75 27.39 13.16 1.55

49.55 28.90 17.56 3.60

1.28

0.15

0.40

28.19 28.85 28.19 11.89 2.86

47.11 28.89 18.78 4.54

47.64 30.01 17.09 4.17

1

Number of children

Households with 1 Households with 2 Households with 3 Households with 4 0 person persons persons persons and over

Household size

0.46

Ethnic Minority Households

Table 2.7 (continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population … 81

82

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.8 Basic demographic features of the surveyed households 2 (unit: %) Health conditions of household heads Without disabilities With disabilities but not affecting normal work, study or life Total

With disabilities and affecting normal work, study and life

Total

94.87

3.53

1.60

Poor households

94.07

3.76

2.17

Nonpoor households

95.03

3.48

1.49

Han households

94.65

3.69

1.66

Ethnic minority households

95.05

3.36

1.59

Southwest Three southwestern 94.94 provinces and autonomous regions

3.58

1.48

Poor households

94.39

4.01

1.60

Nonpoor households

95.11

3.45

1.44

Han households

93.07

4.48

2.45

Ethnic minority households

95.54

3.24

1.22

94.81

3.48

1.70

Northwest Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions Poor households

93.54

3.34

3.12

Nonpoor households

94.98

3.50

1.52

Han households

95.22

3.40

1.38

Ethnic minority households

94.42

3.52

2.06

In general, poor households normally feature more members and children, heavy family burden, and older heads with poor health conditions and relatively lower levels of education. Ethnic minority households echo poor households in terms of family and demographic conditions. This means that compared with Han households, ethnic minority households are caught in poverty largely due to family and demographic conditions, such as more members and children, heavier family burden, and older heads with poorer health conditions and fewer years of schooling.

Northwest

Southwest

Total

27.47

31.94

Poor households

17.54

20.82

Han households

Ethnic minority households

Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

15.17

21.67

Poor households

20.14

three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

Nonpoor households

22.04

25.61

Han households

Ethnic minority households

21.45

24.75

Poor households

Nonpoor households

24.19

Total

47.58

59.10

60.85

59.11

60.71

59.10

60.34

57.35

63.14

60.64

54.79

59.65

20.48

13.43

18.33

23.35

17.61

25.73

19.52

17.04

14.82

14.62

23.76

16.16

18.82

13.40

6.19

5.23

5.47

8.02

6.07

11.71

7.65

9.75

12.06

10.13

38.10

33.70

35.90

37.15

35.68

37.09

36.01

37.88

30.10

34.18

37.47

34.73

3–6 Years

Years of schooling Total of elderly households

0–2 Years

Middle-age households

Age

Young households

Table 2.9 Basic demographic features of the surveyed households 3 (Unit: %)

32.88

41.38

46.31

48.45

47.08

45.92

46.81

39.63

50.24

44.35

41.04

43.80

7–9 Years

10.20

11.51

11.59

9.18

11.77

8.97

11.11

10.78

12.01

11.72

9.43

11.34

18.82

13.40

6.19

5.23

5.47

8.02

6.07

11.71

7.65

9.75

12.06

10.13

Total

(continued)

10 Years and over

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population … 83

23.65

31.80

Han households

Ethnic minority households

52.84

64.59

60.58

15.36

11.75

12.52

18.82

8.50

12.72

40.42

27.63

33.14

31.01

50.87

42.46

7–9 Years

9.74

13.00

11.68

10 Years and over

18.82

8.50

12.72

Total

Note Elderly households are households whose heads are aged over 60; middle-age households are households whose heads are aged 40–60; young households are households whose heads are aged fewer than 40

26.89

3–6 Years

0–2 Years

Total of elderly households

Years of schooling Middle-age households

Age

Young households

Nonpoor households

Table 2.9 (continued)

84 2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

85

(3) Economic capital possession features of rural poor households in ethnic minority areas According to the analysis outcome of the questionnaire, in 2011, the per capita original value of productive fixed assets of surveyed rural households in surveyed ethnic minority areas is RMB 4,596.75 (see Table 2.10), the per capita average household land area under real management is 17.39 mu (one mu is approximately 666.6 m2 ), the proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management is 19.67%, the per capita financial assets of households is RMB 3,578.60, and the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time is 27.31%. These indicators basically cannot reach the national average level. The three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions lag behind the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions in the indicators of the possession of household economic capital of the surveyed rural households including the per capita original value of productive fixed assets, the per capita average household land area under real management, the proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management, the per capita financial assets of households, and the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time; the ethnic minority households lag behind the Han households in the indicators of the possession of household economic capital including the per capita original value of productive fixed assets, the per capita average household land area under real management, the proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management, the per capita financial assets of households, and the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time; the poor households lag behind the nonpoor households in the indicators of the possession of household economic capital including the per capita original value of productive fixed assets, the per capita average household land area under real management, the proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management, the per capita financial assets of households, and the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time. It can be concluded that compared with nonpoor households, poor households are confronted with insufficient land possession per capita, inadequate productive fixed assets, an unsound structure of crop farming and relevantly deficient nonagricultural employment of the labor force; in other words, poor households display a characteristic of less possession of household economic capital. In addition, compared with Han households, ethnic minority households also show a characteristic of less possession of household economic capital. (4) Characteristics of social resources owned by poor rural households in ethnic minority areas As shown in Table 2.11, in the surveyed ethnic minority areas, the proportion of surveyed rural households with CPC members and Chinese Communist Youth

86

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.10 Economic capital possession and structure of labor force’s economic activities of surveyed rural households in the surveyed ethnic minority areas Per capita original value of productive fixed assets (RMB)

Per Capita average household land area under real management (mu)

Proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management (%)

Per capita financial assets of households (RMB)

Proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time (%)

Total

4596.75

17.39

19.67

3578.60

27.31

Poor households

2217.61

5.00

17.69

1715.11

25.06

Nonpoor households

5033.40

19.90

20.07

3916.23

27.75

Han households

6762.49

17.60

20.54

4748.23

28

Ethnic minority households

3130.93

17.55

19.31

2733.41

27.88

Southwest Three 1832.57 southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

3.28

17.81

2497.22

26.66

Poor households

1329.44

3.12

18.8

1603.36

24.38

Nonpoor households

1981.17

3.33

17.51

2772.02

27.33

Han households

2419.90

2.87

17

3312.51

26.37

Ethnic minority households

1671.97

3.40

18.2

2271.24

26.7

Northwest Four 6885.53 northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

28.81

21.24

4445.30

27.86

Poor households

8.15

15.76

1954.79

26.23

Region

Total

3988.70

(continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

87

Table 2.10 (continued) Per capita original value of productive fixed assets (RMB)

Per Capita average household land area under real management (mu)

Proportion of the household land area of cash crops in the land area under real management (%)

Per capita financial assets of households (RMB)

Proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time (%)

Nonpoor households

7188.48

31.47

21.95

4685.23

28.06

Han households

8209.27

22.91

21.87

5184.73

28.59

Ethnic minority households

5214.63

35.80

20.82

3404.26

27.03

Region

League (CCYL) members and the proportion of surveyed rural households with officials are 14.4% and 9.7%, respectively. The proportions of poor households with CPC members and CCYL members and officials in the overall poor households are smaller than those of nonpoor households. It can be concluded that the surveyed poor rural households display a characteristic of inadequate social resources. 4. Causes of rural poverty in ethnic minority areas The abovementioned description and analysis of the main economic and social characteristics of the surveyed rural poor households show that in most cases, there are significant disparities between the rural poor households and the rural nonpoor households. From the perspective of the above review of relevant theories, these disparities should be relevant to the occurrence of poverty itself. The human capital, the possession of economic resources, the structural status in society, economy and politics of households and whether or not they experience any social exclusions will indeed exert different levels of influence on the economic and social development of all households. As a result, the indicators used to describe the major economic and social characteristics of the surveyed rural poor households in this part can be viewed as independent variables to analyze the factors that affect the possibilities or risks of the surveyed rural households being caught in the poverty trap. To that end, based on the above review of theories, the author constituted the probit model with a binary dependent variable, a poverty determination model, to analyze the factors that affect the occurrence of poverty of the surveyed rural households in the ethnic minority areas. The model includes all the variables of the three capitals mentioned above. The basic formula for the model is: P(Pover t y = 1| x) = G(β0 + βc X c + βh X h + βe X e + βs X s )

88

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.11 Social resources of the surveyed households (unit: %) Proportion of households with CPC members and CCYL members Total

Southwest

Northwest

Proportion of households without CPC members and CCYL members

Proportion of households with township and village officials

Proportion of households without township and village officials

Total

14.4

85.56

9.7

90.26

Poor households

12.6

87.40

7.3

92.66

Nonpoor households

14.8

85.19

10.2

89.77

Han households

14.8

85.22

8.8

91.22

Ethnic minority households

14.1

85.86

10.2

89.84

Three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions

14.0

85.98

9.4

90.55

Poor households

11.9

88.06

7.1

92.91

Nonpoor households

14.7

85.34

10.2

89.83

Han households

14.23

85.77

8.4

91.62

Ethnic minority households

13.83

86.17

9.7

90.33

Four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions

14.8

85.21

10.0

90.03

Poor households

13.7

86.26

7.8

92.24

Nonpoor households

14.9

85.07

10.3

89.74

Han households

15.0

85.01

8.9

91.08

Ethnic minority households

14.5

85.46

10.8

89.19

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

89

where P denotes poverty with a value of 1 for the poor household and a value of 0 for the nonpoor household. X is the vector of the characteristics of rural households. Xh refers to the human capital owned by a household (and its usage pattern) that includes the following six variables: the age of the household head, the physical condition of the household head, the longest years for which the household members have received formal education, the household size, the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time, and the proportion of the household nonworking age population in the overall household population. Xe refers to the economic capital owned by a household that includes the following four variables: the per capita average household land area under real management, the per capita original value of productive fixed assets, the year-end per capita financial assets of households and the household farmland area that has been turned into forest per capita. Xs refers to the social capital owned by a household that includes the following two variables: whether there are CPC members and CCYL members in the household and whether there are officials in the household. In addition, Xc is the control variable that includes the ethnic identity of the rural household and the natural, economic and social characteristics of the areas where the registration (or hukou) of the surveyed household is located and the household lives. Table 2.12 shows the output of the model. Table 2.13 shows the marginal effect estimated by the model. This model is generally significant. Based on the results of Tables 2.12 and 2.13, the following research findings can be concluded. First, other conditions being equal, the probability of the surveyed rural households of the ethnic minorities being caught in the poverty trap is 6.51% higher than that of the surveyed rural households of the Han nationality, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); the probability of the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions being caught in the poverty trap is 3.39% higher than that of the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). Second, the trend of the effects exerted by the human capital of the surveyed rural households on the risks of the households being caught in the poverty trap mostly corresponds with our experience but with different significance levels. Other conditions being equal, every one person added to the household will lead to a 1.89% increase in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). Every one year added to the age of the household head will lead to a 0.19% increase in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). Every year added to the longest years for which the household members have received formal education will lead to a 0.05% increase in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is, however, not statistically significant (p > 0.1). Every one percent added to the proportion of the household nonworking age population in the overall household population will lead to a 0.19% increase in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). The probability of the household whose head is with disabilities being caught

90

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.12 Factors determining the poverty of rural households in the surveyed regions: evaluation results of the Probit model (coefficient) Variable

Coefficient

Standard deviation

z

p>z

Northwest (1 = northwest, and southwest is the reference)

−0.18328

0.05361

−3.42000

0.00100

Distance from the village to the nearest county

0.00305

0.00093

3.29000

0.00100

Whether the village belongs to the suburb (1 = yes)

−0.14029

0.09404

−1.49000

0.13600

Net income of villagers per capita in the village

−0.00004

0.00002

−2.78000

0.00500

Number of the years in which natural −0.05479 disasters struck the village in the recent five years

0.01292

−4.24000

0.00000

Proportion of the people receiving subsistence allowances in the village

−0.00809

0.00227

−3.57000

0.00000

Proportion of the people subscribing the policy of the new rural cooperative medical insurance in the village

−0.00386

0.00181

−2.13000

0.03300

Household size

0.10314

0.02253

4.58000

0.00000

Age of the household head

0.01057

0.00228

4.64000

0.00000

Ethnic minority household (1 = Han household)

−0.37349

0.05460

−6.84000

0.00000

Household with CPC members (1 = CPC member)

−0.03067

0.07507

−0.41000

0.68300

Household with Officials (1 = official)

−0.30588

0.09293

−3.29000

0.00100

Physical condition of the household head (1 = with disabilities, and the disabilities affect normal work, study and life)

0.25932

0.20313

1.28000

0.20200

The longest years for which the household members have received formal education

0.00292

0.00891

0.33000

0.74300

Proportion of the household nonworking age population in the overall household population

0.01053

0.00168

6.26000

0.00000

Per capita financial assets of households (RMB)

−0.00005

0.00001

−5.45000

0.00000

Per capita original value of productive fixed assets (RMB)

−0.00001

0.00001

−2.49000

0.01300

(continued)

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

91

Table 2.12 (continued) Variable

Coefficient

Standard deviation

z

p>z

Per capita land area under real management (mu)

−0.00039

0.00071

−0.55000

0.58200

Farmland area that has been turned into forest per capita (mu)

−0.00672

0.00618

−1.09000

0.27700

Proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time

−1.19353

0.35482

−3.36000

0.00100

_cons

−0.94425

0.26887

−3.51000

0.00000

Observed value = 5189 chi2 (20) = 641. 83 Prob > chi2 = 0. 0000 Pseudo R 2 = 0. 1426 Table 2.13 Factors determining the poverty of the rural households in the surveyed regions: evaluation results of the Probit model (marginal effects) Variable

Coefficient

Standard deviation

z

p>z

Northwest (1 = northwest, and southwest is the reference)

−0.03390

0.01016

−3.34000

0.00100

Distance from the village to the nearest county

0.00056

0.00017

3.30000

0.00100

Whether the village belongs to the suburb (1 = yes)

−0.02382

0.01477

−1.61000

0.10700

Net Income of villagers per capita in the village

−0.00001

0.00000

−2.78000

0.00500

Number of the years in which natural −0.01002 disasters struck the village in the recent five years

0.00239

−4.20000

0.00000

Proportion of the people receiving subsistence allowances in the village

−0.00148

0.00042

−3.56000

0.00000

Proportion of the people subscribing the policy of the new rural cooperative medical insurance in the village

−0.00071

0.00033

−2.12000

0.03400

Household size

0.01887

0.00418

4.51000

0.00000

Age of the household head

0.00193

0.00042

4.60000

0.00000

−0.06508

0.00915

−7.11000

0.00000

Ethnic minority household (1 = Han household)

(continued)

92

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Table 2.13 (continued) Variable

Coefficient

Standard deviation

z

p>z

Household with CPC members (1 = CPC member)

−0.00553

0.01336

−0.41000

0.67900

Household with officials (1 = official) −0.04776

0.01223

−3.91000

0.00000

Physical condition of the household head (1 = with disabilities, and the disabilities affect normal work, study and life)

0.05517

0.04944

1.12000

0.26400

The longest years for which the household members have received formal education

0.00053

0.00163

0.33000

0.74300

Proportion of the household nonworking age population in the overall household population

0.00193

0.00031

6.21000

0.00000

−0.00001

0.00000

−5.73000

0.00000

0.00000

0.00000

−2.50000

0.01200

Per capita land area under real management (mu)

−0.00007

0.00013

−0.55000

0.58100

Farmland area that has been turned into forest per capita (mu)

−0.00123

0.00111

−1.11000

0.26800

Proportion of average household nonagricultural time per labor force in total household labor time

−0.21834

0.06485

−3.37000

0.00100

Per capita financial assets of households (RMB) Per capita original value of productive fixed assets (RMB)

Note Marginal effects (dF/dx) refer to an additional unit of change of the independent variable or the changes in the odds of the independent variable compared with the reference category

in the poverty trap increases by 5.52% compared with that of the household whose head is without disabilities, which is not statistically significant (p > 0.1). Third, the trend of the effects exerted by the social capital of the surveyed rural households on the poverty headcount ratio corresponds with our experience but with different significance levels. Specifically, the probability of households with officials being caught in the poverty trap decreases by 4.78% compared with that of households without officials, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). The probability of the households with CPC members being caught in the poverty trap decreases by 0.55% compared with that of the households without CPC members, which is, however, not statistically significant (p > 0.1). What should be pointed out is that 33.5% of the households with CPC members overlap with the households with officials, which is basically acceptable and will not bring about too many multicollinearity problems.

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

93

Fourth, the trend of the effects exerted by the economic capital possession of the surveyed rural households on the poverty headcount ratio corresponds with our experience but with different significance levels. Other conditions being equal, every RMB 10,000 added to the per capita financial assets of households will lead to a 9.01% decrease in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); every RMB 10,000 added to the per capita original value of productive fixed assets will lead to a 2.67% decrease in the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (0.05 ≥ p > 0.01); every one percent added to the proportion of average household nonagricultural working time per labor force in total household labor time will lead to a 21.83% decrease in the probability of the rural household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). In addition, every one mu added to the per capita average household land area under real management will lead to a 0.007% decrease in the probability of the rural household being caught in the poverty trap, and every one mu added to household farmland area that has been turned into forest per capita will lead to a 0.12% decrease. However, these two results only apply to the surveyed rural households and therefore are not statistically inferential (p > 0.1). Fifth, the control variables in the model have exerted certain effects on the occurrence of poverty of the surveyed rural households but with different significance levels. Among these variables, other conditions being constant, every one kilometer added to the distance from the village to the nearest county will lead to a 0.056% increase of the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); the probability of the households not living in the suburb being caught in the poverty trap is 2.38% higher than that of the households living in the suburb, which is, however, not statistically significant (p > 0.1); every one time added to the number of the years in which natural disasters struck the village in the recent five years will lead to one percent decrease of the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); every RMB one yuan added to the net income of villagers per capita in the village will lead to a 0.001% decrease of the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); every one percent added to the proportion of the people receiving subsistence allowances in the village36 will lead to a 0.15% decrease of the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01); every one percent added to the proportion of the people subscribing the policy of the new rural cooperative medical insurance in the village will lead to a 0.07% decrease of the probability of the household being caught in the poverty trap, which is statistically significant (0.05 ≥ p > 0.01). 36 Proportion of the People Receiving Subsistence Allowances in the Village = The Number of People Receiving Subsistence Allowances in the Village/The Total Number of People in the Village × 100%; Proportion of the People Subscribing the Policy of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance in the Village = The Number of People Subscribing the Policy of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance in the Village/The Total Number of People in the Village × 100%.

94

5.

2 Diversity and Causes of Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas

Major Conclusions and Discussions

In summary, we can obtain several major conclusions. First, according to the analyses of the monitoring statistics issued by the NBS, poverty reduction in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is on a positive trajectory; however, compared with the whole country, these provinces and regions are still confronted with grave poverty situations. Second, the analyses of the statistics issued by the CHES show that the poverty headcount ratio, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap of the surveyed rural households in the ethnic minority areas vary with region and nationality, and provinces and autonomous regions and nationalities with relatively larger povertystricken areas face higher degrees of poverty depth and poverty intensity. Specifically, among all seven surveyed provinces and autonomous regions, rural households in the three southwestern provinces and autonomous regions are confronted with more severe poverty problems than rural households in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions; compared with other provinces and autonomous regions, rural households in Hunan and Guangxi are faced with more severe poverty problems, and the problems of rural households in Inner Mongolia, Guizhou and Qinghai are less severe; compared with other nationalities, the surveyed households of Tujia, Uygur and Salar are faced with more severe poverty problems, and the problems of the surveyed households of Kazak, Mongolian, Han and Tibetan are less severe. In addition, the severity of the income poverty of the surveyed rural ethnic minority areas is sensitive to the changes in the poverty standard to a certain extent, and these three poverty indexes increase with the standard. Third, ethnic minority households overlap with poor households in economic, natural and geographical conditions. In other words, compared with the Han households, the major reason for the poverty of the ethnic minority households is mainly related to the regions with unsatisfactory living conditions and economic and social development where these households reside. That is, the disparities between different nationalities in poverty distribution can be attributed to the disparities in regions where ethnic households reside. Fourth, poor households display the characteristics of a larger population, more children, heavy family burdens, poor health, older household heads and household heads whose education level is relatively low. Here, ethnic minority households overlap with poor households in population conditions. In other words, compared with the Han households, the major reason for the poverty of the ethnic minority households is mainly related to their population conditions, including the large population, more children, heavy family burdens, poor health, older household heads and household heads whose education level is relatively low. Fifth, compared with nonpoor households, poor households display the characteristics of inadequate possession of household economic capital, which includes insufficient per capita possession of land, inadequate productive fixed assets, unsound structure of crop farming and relevantly deficient nonagricultural employment of

2.3 Complexity of the Rural Poor Population …

95

the labor force. Moreover, compared with Han households, ethnic minority households also display the characteristic of inadequate possession of household economic capital. Sixth, the surveyed poor households in rural areas display the characteristic of insufficient social resources. In comparison with the major poverty characteristics and the factors determining poverty of the rural households in the surveyed regions, it can be concluded that these factors are both the representation of poverty and the factors inducing poverty. In general, the factors affecting the poverty of the rural households in the surveyed ethnic minority areas are multifold, mainly including the natural and geographical environment, society, culture, family, policies and systems. Among them, some factors in the exterior living environment of poor rural households cannot be changed within a short period, while some factors can be improved with the help of others and the endeavor of the rural households themselves. As a result, proper anti-poverty policies that focus on these factors should be formulated in our anti-poverty endeavor. For instance, faced with the characteristic that a fragile ecological environment and insufficient public service are not only a major reason for the temporary poverty of the surveyed rural households in the ethnic minority areas but also an important reason why the chronically impoverished population has difficulties shaking off poverty, the government can, in its decision-making process of poverty reduction measures, give priority to the implementation of ecological migration based on the willingness of the impoverished people. In addition, the government should, in the process of development-oriented poverty alleviation, strive hard to improve the local ecological environment and infrastructure, and it should, taking into consideration disaster prevention, endeavor to fundamentally improve the production and living conditions of impoverished villagers and try to lower the risks that plunge villagers into poverty so that these villagers can embark on the smooth path of poverty alleviation.

Chapter 3

Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction and Development in Rural Ethnic Minority Areas

3.1 Research Background and Problems Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced five stages concerning antipoverty—institutional poverty reduction, large-scale development-oriented poverty reduction, tackling key problems of poverty reduction, new development in poverty reduction and consolidation of the outcome of poverty reduction.1 Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the central government has opened a new phase of poverty reduction and development by attaching more importance to it and conducting targeted poverty alleviation. In general, China’s anti-poverty practice has gradually proceeded through three channels and poverty-alleviation models— economic growth, poverty alleviation and development and social assistance—which are all fully presented in the Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994–2000) and the “Outline for Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas” and exert good results. At present, the “three-in-one” integrated pattern consisting of special poverty alleviation, industry poverty alleviation and social poverty alleviation is becoming clear, and poverty alleviation input has been given priority in the public fiscal budget. From 2000 to 2014, the central government had invested special funds of RMB 296.6 billion in total to support poverty alleviation, among which RMB 84 billion were used for work relief, which paid over RMB 10 billion for jobs provided for poor masses by the government on public works, and RMB 3.08 billion were used as aid funds for relocation programs to alleviate poverty, which helped to relocate 5.88 million poverty-stricken people altogether.2 According to the poverty threshold of that time, the number of rural 1

Lu Yan, “The Fight Against Poverty of China Has Entered the Fifth Stage: Interprovincial Coordination is the Toughest Task While Targeting at 14 Contiguous Destitute Areas”, Oriental Morning Post, July 5th, 2012. 2 Fang Qing, “The Central Government Had Collectively Investigated Special Funds of RMB 296.6 Billion in Total to Support Poverty Alleviation from 2000 to 2014”, July 28th, 2015, the website of the China Development Gateway (http://cn.chinagate.cn/news/2015-07/28/content_36164103. htm). © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_3

97

98

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

poverty-stricken people decreased from 94.22 million in 2000 to 55.75 million in 2015.3 Underdeveloped ethnic minority areas represent the main battlefield of China’s fight against poverty. Regarding poverty alleviation policies and program funding, the central government has always given priority to ethnic minority areas. From 2006 to 2013, the central government funding for poverty alleviation in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions increased from RMB 5.15 billion to RMB 16.6 billion, with a total of RMB 75.84 billion among the eight years, accounting for 40.6% of the national total investment of the same time.4 With the strong support of governments at all levels and people from all walks of life and the arduous efforts of the officials and masses in ethnic minority areas, the rural economy in these areas has developed in an all-around way, the basic needs of rural residents have been basically met, and the number of people in poverty has decreased significantly. According to the poverty threshold of that time, the number of people in poverty in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions decreased from 31.44 million in 2000 to 22.05 million in 2014. However, there were still many difficulties in the battle against poverty in ethnic minority areas. At the end of 2014, the rural poor population in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions accounted for 31.4% of the national rural poor population, nearly twice the proportion of the rural population in these areas in the country’s total population; the poverty headcount ratio in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 14.7%, 7.5 percentage points higher than that of the country’s rural areas.5 Lifting the rural poor out of poverty is the weakest link in the building of an all-around moderately prosperous society in ethnic minority areas, and it also largely affects and restricts the national goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects nationwide by 2020. Therefore, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC set out to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and made it clear that by 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line will be lifted out of poverty, poverty will be eliminated in all poor counties and regions and the problems of regional poverty will be solved. To lift all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty by 2020, the central government held a poverty reduction conference in November 2015 at which provinces and autonomous regions, including the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions mentioned above, were requested to promise to conduct poverty reduction work and assign letters of commitment to poverty elimination. In February 2016, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the “Methods for Evaluating the Performance 3

The NBS, “Statistical Communiqué on China’s 2015 National Economic and Social Development” (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201602/t20160229_1323991.html). 4 Ethnic Policies Office in the NEAC, Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference, June 1st, 2015, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/6/1/art_143_228926_51.html). 5 The NBS, “China Statistical Yearbook 2015”; Economic Development Department of the NEAC, “NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014” (http://www.seac. gov.cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_225897.html). This chapter calculated the data here according to the relevant statistical data of the literature.

3.1 Research Background and Problems

99

of the Provincial Party Committees and Governments in Poverty Reduction and Development” (hereafter called “Evaluation Methods”) to evaluate the performance of Party committees and governments of 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in Central and Western China in poverty alleviation and development. The “Evaluation Methods” releases the evaluation content and makes it clear that not only some “hard indicators”, such as the number and income of poverty-stricken masses but also “soft indicators”, such as the recognition and satisfaction of the general public, are included. The “Evaluation Methods” emphasizes that the data of evaluation indicators will, in addition to official channels such as poverty alleviation and development information systems and rural poverty monitoring agencies, come from a third party. The masses’ degree of satisfaction from the third-party evaluation indicates that all poverty reduction data are more realistic and reliable and introduces the “voice” of poverty-stricken masses in the performance evaluation of poverty reduction.6 Specifically, the “Evaluation Methods”, including the masses’ degree of satisfaction as one of the evaluation indicators, exert the following benefits. On the one hand, it can effectively avoid the fabrication of poverty alleviation numbers and false claims that some poverty-stricken people have been lifted out of poverty; on the other hand, the poverty-stricken people’s degree of satisfaction with poverty alleviation policies can be analyzed to determine the main influencing factors of satisfaction degree, and poverty alleviation measures can be adjusted, targeted poverty alleviation can be better implemented and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation policies can be improved. The key problem is that the satisfaction degree is far more than a statistical datum from a research. It contains meanings. Only when its meanings are understood comprehensively and deeply can the functions of the satisfaction degree research on the performance of poverty alleviation be better developed. As an attempt of such a study, this chapter, based on the research data of the satisfaction degree with poverty alleviation and development in rural ethnic minority areas, observes the satisfaction degrees of target groups with different poverty alleviation and development programs, analyzes their influencing factors, constructs the theoretic structure of satisfaction degree research and promotes from a perspective the analysis of the satisfaction degree with the performance of poverty alleviation developing in a refined and precise way. Effectiveness is equal to performance, which originates from human resources management and then extends to public service and other aspects. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), performance is the effectiveness which is relative to a goal and obtained from a certain activity and it includes the efficiency, profitability and effectiveness of this activity, the compliance degree of the implementing subject with predetermined activity process, and the masses’ degree of satisfaction with the activity.7

6

“The Third Party Evaluation of Poverty Alleviation Has Been Introduced into 22 Provinces”, Beijing Morning Post, February 17th, 2016. 7 Jack Diamond, “Performance Measurement and Evaluation”, OECD Working Papers, 1994.

100

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

Based on the satisfaction degree of rural households, the performance evaluation of poverty reduction and development is derived from the theory of customer satisfaction index (CSI). The theory was initiated by an American scholar in 1985 and then was widespread in developed countries where it was introduced to the government performance evaluation. Recently, the theory has been widely applied in research on the performance evaluation of China’s public goods supply, and many scholars have introduced it to research on government performance evaluation.8 Some scholars have begun to assess the government performance of poverty alleviation and development with the theory. Based on a series of poverty alleviation programs implemented in impoverished areas in Yunnan Province, Liu Hongmei, from the perspective of rural households, evaluated the satisfaction degree with the programs and conducted a weight analysis of the indicator factors that constitute the satisfaction degree. Research shows that rural households have the highest demands for the transparency and participation degrees of poverty alleviation programs, and it also shows that the infrastructure improvement and the influence on local religious and cultural customs brought by these programs are far more important than the economic and environmental influences brought by the programs.9 Zhang Chunxia, from the perspective of rural households’ satisfaction degree and relocation willingness, evaluated the performance of welfare programs (relocation programs to alleviate poverty) in Fujian Province through surveys and investigations. According to the research, the overall evaluation score of the satisfaction degree of rural households with welfare programs is 2.594, belonging to the neutral level. The research also finds that 44.25% of the respondents deem the programs to have yielded ordinary results, and 23.72% feel dissatisfied or even very dissatisfied with the programs. Therefore, welfare programs still have a long way to go in improving rural households’ economic situation and perfecting public policies.10 Wang Hongjie, Feng Haifeng and Li Dongyue, based on a survey of 208 rural residents in Songzi City, Hubei Province, investigated the satisfaction degree of rural residents in impoverished areas with poverty alleviation policies concerning agricultural industrialization. The result shows that the two factors—years of schooling and the improvement of income disparity brought by poverty alleviation policies

8

Xu Youhao and Wu Yanbing, “Application of Customer Satisfaction Degree in the Government Performance Evaluation”, Journal of Tianjin University (Social Sciences), Issue 4, 2004; Zeng Li, “Government Performance Evaluation with the Orientation of Public Satisfaction Degree”, Academic Forum, Issue 6, 2006; Li Yanling and Zeng Fusheng, “Analysis of Farmers’ Satisfaction Degree with Rural Public Goods’ Supply and Its Influencing Factors”, The Journal of Quantitative and Technical Economics, Issue 8, 2008. 9 Liu Hongmei, “Factor Analysis on the Satisfaction Degree of Rural Households with the Poverty Alleviation Programs in Yunnan Province”, Journal of Kunming University of Science and Technology (Social Sciences), Issue 5, 2010. 10 Zhang Chunxia, “Research on Rural Households’ Satisfaction Degree with Welfare Programs in Fujian Province and Their Relocation Willingness—Based on the Rural Households’ Perspective”, Doctoral Dissertation, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, April 2013.

3.1 Research Background and Problems

101

concerning agricultural industrialization—are positively correlated with the satisfaction degree of rural impoverished residents in Songzi with the policies.11 In addition, three scholars, based on a survey of 241 rural residents in Songzi who had received the support of the Dew Project training policy, investigated the satisfaction degree of rural residents in impoverished areas with the Dew Project. The result shows that the two factors—local rural residents’ income level and the improvement of income disparity brought by the Dew Project—are largely correlated with the satisfaction degree of rural impoverished residents in Songzi with the policy.12 Yang Xialin conducted an empirical investigation of 399 rural households in Gansu Province on their satisfaction degree with the pilot program of mutual funds in poor villages. He found that the factors that have a significant positive influence on their satisfaction degree include the change in income of the rural households after joining the mutual-aid society, their understanding of the rules of mutual funds, the rate of fund occupation, the complexity of loan granting procedure, the identification of poor households, the democracy in the decision-making process, fiscal transparency, and the ability of members of the board of directors and the board of supervisors. In contrast, the economic characteristics of rural households have a significant negative influence on their satisfaction, which means that the lower their income is, the higher their satisfaction degree with the pilot project. However, factors such as the age and education of the household head and the per capita income of the rural household have no significant influence.13 Based on existing studies, in addition to the effect of policies related to poverty alleviation and development, other factors, such as the personal characteristics, family conditions, and the economic, social and cultural backgrounds of the people in poverty, all affect their satisfaction degree with relevant poverty alleviation and development projects. These empirical findings serve as helpful information for a deeper understanding of the rich and complicated meanings behind the target poor people’s satisfaction degree with the performance of poverty alleviation and development projects. Certainly, we also notice that different factors have different influencing processes on rural households’ satisfaction degree with poverty relief work. For example, some directly affect their satisfaction degree, while others play a role through intermediate variables. These factors, however, are generally all considered to directly influence satisfaction in many existing studies without distinguishing indirect from direct factors, thus making it difficult to further study the influencing 11

Wang Hongjie, Feng Haifeng and Li Dongyue, “Analysis of the Satisfaction Degree of Rural Residents in Impoverished Areas with Poverty Alleviation Policies Concerning Agricultural Industrialization—Based on the Survey Toward 208 Rural Residents in Songzi City, Hubei Province”, Construction of Old Revolutionary Area, Issue 8, 2015. 12 Wang Hongjie, Feng Haifeng and Li Dongyue, “Analysis of the Satisfaction Degree of Rural Residents in Impoverished Areas with the Transferring Training Policy ‘Dew Project’—Based on the Survey Toward 241 Rural Residents in Songzi City, Hubei Province”, Economic Forum, Issue 3, 2015. 13 Yang Xialin, “Empirical Analysis on the Satisfaction with the Pilot Project of Mutual Aid Funds in Poor Villages—Based on the Survey of 399 Rural Households in Gansu Province”, Rural Finance Research, April 2014.

102

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

process or mechanism of different factors in the satisfaction degree with the performance of poverty alleviation and development projects. Based on the findings of current studies on the influencing factors in the satisfaction degree of the target population for poverty alleviation and development projects, this chapter aims to build a theoretical framework and model to analyze the influencing factors in the satisfaction degree and their influencing mechanism, in combination with preliminary theories and methodologies. The author will first distinguish the direct and indirect factors that affect the satisfaction degree according to relevant studies and build a path analysis model through the methods of both optimal scaling and path analysis. After that, the path analysis model will be used in combination with the questionnaire survey data of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century (2014)” by the project team of the CASS to study and analyze the satisfaction degree of rural households in ethnic minority areas with the performance of related poverty alleviation and development projects and conduct a review analysis. On the one hand, this chapter attempts to evaluate the implementation performance of policies related to poverty alleviation and development in rural ethnic minority areas from the perspective of the satisfaction degree, and on the other hand, it also preliminarily tests the theories, methods and models used in the analysis.

3.2 Research Strategies and Data Sources 1. Research strategies Government-led poverty alleviation and development mainly drives the poor areas and population out of poverty through the implementation of poverty relief projects, which chiefly include special poverty alleviation projects and comprehensive development-oriented poverty alleviation projects. The former encompasses wholevillage projects and projects to reduce poverty via industrial development, relocation of poor residents, work relief, finance, skill training and employment guidance. The latter refers to the poverty alleviation activities led by the government and coordinated by multiple departments and industries, aiming to promote regional development and poverty eradication by boosting infrastructure, industries, science and technology, culture, education, social security, labor and employment through various intervention measures while addressing all problems relating to food, clothing, housing and transportation of the masses in poor areas.14 According to what the author learned in the field investigations in ethnic minority areas, the development-oriented poverty alleviation policies implemented by the state in the vast ethnic minority areas fall into six major categories consisting of 15 specific projects. 14

Office of Household Survey of the NBS, Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2011, China Statistics Press, 2011.

3.2 Research Strategies and Data Sources

(i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

(vi)

103

Relocation programs. They aim to lift out of poverty the rural residents who face difficulties in getting rid of poverty through local or personal development by relocating them to places more suitable for living and development. Education-oriented poverty alleviation programs. Their main purpose is to substantially improve the educational levels and quality of the rural poor in ethnic minority areas and enhance their ability to participate in the market and obtain better opportunities for development. Specifically, this category contains the “Two Exemptions and One Allowance” policy (namely, the policy of providing compulsory education that waives tuition and miscellaneous fees, supplies free textbooks, and grants living allowances for boarders from financially disadvantaged families), children enrollment subsidization and illiteracy elimination projects, and education-oriented poverty alleviation projects. Poverty alleviation training programs. They are designed to increase the technical competences and skills of the labor force of poor rural households through technical training, enhance their competitiveness in the labor market and their entrepreneurial ability, and create favorable conditions for the promotion of relevant technologies to help poor rural households shake off poverty. The specific projects under this category include poverty alleviation training projects and technology popularization and training projects. Industrial poverty alleviation programs. They are aimed at helping poor areas and poor rural households to develop industries suited to local reality and grow the local economy to eradicate poverty. These programs involve productionbased poverty alleviation projects, poverty alleviation funds for crop farming, breeding industry and forestry, subsidy projects of turning marginal farmland into forest and grassland, and basic farmland construction projects. Infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs. They aim to improve the infrastructure and thus lay a sound foundation for economic and social development in poor areas. The category comprises road construction and expansion projects, power facility construction projects, and “Village-to-Village Access” projects (the projects of extending the coverage of radio and television, roads and communication networks to all villages). Health programs for poverty alleviation. They are designed to promote medical and health care at the primary level and in poor rural areas, narrow the gap in health between urban and rural residents, improve the quality of life of vulnerable groups, pursue the social fairness and justice of “health for everyone” and gradually eliminate poverty caused by illness and prevent returning to poverty due to illness through a series of public welfare projects. Under this category are sanitation facilities construction projects and drinking water projects for both people and stock.

As mentioned above, this chapter mainly employs the path analysis method. The main purpose of the evaluation research on the satisfaction degree with poverty alleviation work is in essence to know how satisfied different groups are with the work related to poverty alleviation and development and what causes the differences

104

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

in their satisfaction degree. The so-called “different groups” are ultimately classified according to their demographic and social characteristics, which are the major independent variables in the analysis and are also called initial variables in path analysis. The “dependent variable” in this research is the overall satisfaction degree of the evaluators (the respondents) with the work concerning poverty alleviation and development. The overall satisfaction evaluation is based on the evaluators’ general impression of work concerning poverty alleviation and development but will also be influenced by their evaluation (or impression) of each specific project, which therefore becomes the so-called intermediate variables. Such causality makes path analysis the most appropriate method. Under this method, relevant independent variables (initial variables) must be first identified, and the relationship between different variables should be determined logically according to theories and practice. Based on existing studies and a preliminary analysis of the quantitative data, the author finds that the initial variables for the overall satisfaction degree with work related to poverty alleviation and development consist of the regions where the evaluators dwell, their age, gender, health conditions, education, ethnicity, political affiliation and occupation, as well as the size and per capita income of their families. At the same time, these initial variables will also indirectly affect the overall satisfaction degree by influencing their satisfaction degree with various specific projects of poverty alleviation and development, namely, the abovementioned intermediate variables. Inspired by relevant studies,15 the author takes the satisfaction degree of rural residents in ethnic minority areas with the following six major categories of poverty alleviation projects as intermediate variables: relocation programs, education-oriented poverty alleviation programs, poverty alleviation training programs, industrial poverty alleviation programs, infrastructurebased poverty alleviation programs and health-related poverty alleviation programs. Based on this, an overall analysis framework is established as shown in Fig. 3.1. In this chapter, the dependent variable is originally a categorical variable, and its level of measurement in the actual survey is set as two levels, namely, dissatisfied and satisfied, in addition to which an option of “uncertain” is added. In the actual analysis, the samples that choose the “uncertain” option are discarded, and then the answers are assigned values directly in accordance with the requirements of the optimal scaling regression model; that is, “dissatisfied” is assigned a value of 1 point and “satisfied” a value of 2 points. In the survey, the intermediate variables are measured by five levels, namely, very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied and very satisfied. The five levels are assigned values starting from 1 point for “very dissatisfied” to 5 points for “very satisfied.” All the other five intermediate variables except the satisfaction degree with the relocation programs are measured by the comprehensive scores of the satisfaction degree with a series of secondary projects. In terms of the satisfaction evaluation of the above five intermediate variables, the education-oriented 15

Wang Yanzhong and Jiang Cuiping, “Analysis of Influencing Factors in Rural Residents’ Satisfaction with Medical Services”, China Rural Survey, Issue 4, 2010; Xu Lilai, Run Zhen and Cui Shenghui, “Path Analysis of Influencing Factors on Municipal Solid Waste Generation: A Case Study of Xiamen City”, Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae, Issue 4, 2013.

3.2 Research Strategies and Data Sources

105

Fig. 3.1 Overall analysis framework

poverty alleviation programs consist of the “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy” policy for compulsory education, the children enrollment subsidization and illiteracy elimination projects, and the education-oriented poverty alleviation projects; the poverty alleviation training programs are comprised of the poverty alleviation training projects and the technology popularization and training projects; the industrial poverty alleviation programs are composed of the production-based poverty alleviation projects, the poverty alleviation funds for crop farming, breeding industry and forestry, the subsidy projects of turning marginal farmland into forest and grassland, and the basic farmland construction projects; the infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs are made up of the road construction and expansion projects, the power facility construction projects, and the “Village-to-Village Access” projects; and the health programs for poverty alleviation are formed of the sanitation facilities construction projects and the drinking water projects for both people and stock. The initial variables are mainly about the personal, social, demographic and household characteristics of respondents, including their age, gender, ethnicity, education, political affiliation and major occupation; the household size and the household income (classified into two categories, the poor household assigned a value of 1 point and the nonpoor household assigned a value of 2 points); the regions where the households are located (divided into the western ethnic counties, the central ethnic counties and the eastern ethnic counties assigned values from 1 to 3 points). Because some of the dependent variable, initial variables and intermediate variables in this chapter are categorical variables (such as the major occupation) and disordered multicategorical variables (such as the ethnicity), this chapter adopts the

106

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

optimal scaling regression model to analyze the data in accordance with research problems and actual variable types. Optimal scaling regression analysis is specifically used to solve the quantitative analysis of categorical variables in statistical modeling. Its basic idea is to analyze the degree of influence on the dependent variable made by the categorical variables at different levels on the basis of the model framework that is expected to fit and adopt certain nonlinear transformation methods to iterate repeatedly to find the best quantitative score for each category of the original categorical variables and then use the quantitative score to replace the original variables for the regression analysis and determine an optimal equation.16 2. Source of data The microdata in this chapter come from the questionnaire survey of urban and rural areas in 2014 (referred to as the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas’ 2014”) carried out in 18 counties and cities from ten provinces and autonomous regions, namely, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Sichuan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. The questionnaire survey is part of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and a major special project of the Innovation Program of the CASS. The survey was conducted by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS, and through cooperation with Xinjiang Normal University (XJNU), the MUC and other institutions, a professional survey team was set up with postgraduates and undergraduates majoring in ethnology and sociology to carry out the door-to-door household survey of urban and rural residents who were chosen by the stratified random sampling method. In the 18 surveyed counties and cities, the urban and rural communities surveyed are selected based on the different levels of economic development (such as high, medium and low development) and the ethnic population distribution in urban and rural areas. Whether the surveyed household is classified as an urban household or a rural household depends on the local urbanization rate. Specific samples are picked by random systematic sampling from the households at the selected community or administrative village level, totaling 400 to 500 questionnaires. The questionnaire involves economic development, social undertakings, ethnic culture, ethnic policies, ethnic relations, social security, social harmony and other aspects. A total of 7,341 urban and rural households are surveyed, and this chapter selects only the samples with rural hukou. As the survey does not take random sampling in all ethnic minority areas of the country, the research results cannot be used to infer the overall situation of ethnic minority areas. However, the results are expected to reflect the performance of poverty alleviation and development in rural ethnic minority areas to a certain extent. 16

Zhang Wentong and Zhong Yunfei, IBM SPSS Data Analysis and Practical Case Essence, Tsinghua University Press, 2013; Lu Zimin, “Optimal Scaling Regression Analysis of Influencing Factors on Job Satisfaction of Service Staff in Elderly Care Organizations in Zhejiang Province”, China Economist, Issue 2, 2015.

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

107

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors Influencing the Satisfaction Evaluation of the Performance of the Development-Oriented Poverty Reduction Programs 1.

Description of statistical analysis

(1) Overall satisfaction evaluation of the implementation performance of the poverty alleviation policies from rural residents From the perspective of the survey results, rural residents in ethnic minority areas are not very satisfied with the overall effect of the poverty alleviation policies they have participated in. Specifically, among the 4,316 respondents who answered the question concerning the satisfaction degree, 60.8% of the total selected “satisfied,” 10.6% “dissatisfied” and 28.6% “uncertain.” In other words, more than 60% of the respondents clearly expressed satisfaction with the overall effect of the poverty alleviation policies or activities they participated in, while approximately 40% were dissatisfied or uncertain. (2) Statistical description of initial variables Table 3.1 represents the statistical description of the initial variables. It can be seen from Table 3.1 that among the 5,018 respondents with rural hukou (including the residents having rural hukou before), 84.7% of the total are located in the western ethnic counties; most of the respondents are middle-aged people (from age 30 to 59); the proportion of males is 12.2 percentage points higher than that of females; the proportion of ethnic minorities is 53.6 percentage points higher than that of the Han nationality; the unhealthy respondents account for more than ten percent of the total; the proportion of CPC members reaches 14.1%; almost 60% of respondents only own a degree of elementary school or junior high school; about half of the respondents are mainly farmers engaged in agricultural production; and nearly 70% of the respondents have a household size with four persons and over. All the surveyed households, based on their income level reported in the survey and the poverty line in rural areas that year, are divided into poor households and nonpoor households, among which the proportion of poor households is slightly over 20% of the total households. (3) Statistical description of intermediate variables As mentioned above, the author found that there are approximately 15 developmentoriented poverty reduction projects in ethnic minority areas, which can be classified into six major categories according to nature. The following part first represents the satisfaction evaluation of respondents on the performance of the 15 specific projects (see Table 3.2). Generally, the respondents display relatively high satisfaction with the implementation performance of all programs or projects. In all 15 projects, the lowest average

108

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

Table 3.1 Statistical description of initial variables Value

Frequency (person)

Proportion (%)

1

4251

84.7

Central ethnic counties 2

431

8.6

Eastern ethnic counties 3

336

6.7

Variable Region

Western ethnic counties

From 16 to 29

1

750

15.0

From 30 to 39

2

1034

20.7

From 40 to 49

3

1322

26.5

From 50 to 59

4

1007

20.2

60 and over

5

884

17.7

Gender

Female

1

2199

43.9

Male

2

2805

56.1

Ethnicity

Ethnic minorities

1

3855

76.8

Han nationality

2

1163

23.2

Unhealthy

1

579

11.6

Neutral

2

1318

26.5

Healthy

3

3084

61.9

Non-CPC member

1

4293

85.9

CPC member

2

704

14.1

No education

1

1207

24.1

Elementary school or junior high school

2

2980

59.5

Senior high school

3

544

10.9

University and above

4

277

5.5

Housework and others

1

711

15.5

Farmer

2

2172

47.3

Part-time agricultural job

3

911

19.8

Age group

Health condition

Political affiliation Education

Major occupation

Household size

Nonagricultural job

4

801

17.4

Household with 1 person

1

141

2.9

Household with 2 persons

2

537

10.9

Household with 3 persons

3

865

17.6 (continued)

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

109

Table 3.1 (continued) Value

Frequency (person)

Proportion (%)

Household with 4 persons and over

4

3379

68.7

Poor household

1

822

20.7

Nonpoor household

2

3153

79.3

Variable

Household income

Note In this table, as some of the variables have missing values, the sum of the samples of each variable may be unequal to each other and even may be not equal to the number of effective samples (totaling 5,018 persons), which also exists in the following tables. In this chapter, a record of cases with missing values is kept, and the missing value samples are incorporated into the regression model in the optimal scaling regression analysis

evaluation score is 3.65 points (the subsidy projects of turning marginal farmland into forest and grassland). Given that 3.65 points account for 73% of 5 points, the highest score (i.e., the full score), the subsidy projects, in other words, score 73 concerning their satisfaction evaluation in the centesimal system. The highest score is 4.22 points (the “Two Exemptions and One Allowance” policy), and similarly, this policy scores 84.4 concerning its satisfaction evaluation in the centesimal system, which fares well. All 15 projects are placed in rank order based on their average satisfaction evaluation scores, and the “Two Exemptions and One Allowance” policy, the “Village-to-Village Access” projects, the education-oriented poverty alleviation projects, the children enrollment subsidization and illiteracy elimination projects and the road construction and expansion projects round out the top five places, while the technology popularization and training projects, the drinking water projects for both people and stock, the poverty alleviation training projects, the relocation programs and the subsidy projects of turning marginal farmland into forest and grassland occupy the bottom five places. The two trends in Table 3.2 deserve attention. The first is that inclusive programs or projects achieve higher scores in satisfaction evaluation. For instance, the average scores of the “Two Exemptions and One Allowance” policy at No. 1 and the “Village-to-Village Access” projects at No. 2 exceed 4 points (over 80 in centesimal system), and the children enrollment subsidization and illiteracy elimination projects and the road construction and expansion projects also exhibit a higher degree of inclusiveness and therefore score relatively well. On the one hand, these projects indeed provide direct help for poor people (e.g., providing income for the labor force in poor rural households by means of work relief), and on the other hand, the implementation of these projects will yield immediate benefits to almost all people in the regions involved (revealing strong multiple positive externalities of these projects). The second trend is that among the development-oriented poverty reduction projects achieving relatively lower average scores in satisfaction evaluation, either these projects are rated as very dissatisfied and dissatisfied by a relatively larger number of respondents, the example of which is that the proportions of respondents rating the implementation performance of the several programs or projects outside the top ten as dissatisfied or very dissatisfied in all the respondents all exceed ten percent, with the highest reaching 17.4% (the drinking water projects

8.9 10.1

0.8

0.8

Production-based poverty alleviation project

Poverty alleviation funds for crop farming, breeding industry and forestry

9.9

11.9

Road construction and expansion project

1.2

9.4 13.1

Basic farmland construction project 0.7

Subsidy project of turning marginal 2.3 farmland into forest and grassland

8.8

1.0

0.8

6.9

Poverty alleviation training project

0.6

Education-oriented poverty alleviation project

6.0

Technology popularization and training project

0.7

Children enrollment subsidization and illiteracy elimination project

3.1

9.1

0.9

0.1

Relocation program

Dissatisfied (%)

Very dissatisfied (%)

“Two exemptions and one allowance” policy

Project

4.9

16.3

10.7

18.6

16.4

21.1

23.7

9.7

15.0

5.6

24.6

Neutral (%)

60.0

54.7

61.4

55.2

57.4

55.0

47.6

58.0

59.6

56.3

49.5

Satisfied (%)

22.0

13.7

17.8

15.4

16.5

14.4

17.8

25.0

18.8

34.8

16.0

Very satisfied (%)

Table 3.2 Distribution of satisfaction evaluation of the implementation performances of the 16 projects

3.90

3.65

3.86

3.74

3.80

3.73

3.71

4.00

3.90

4.22

3.71

Average score (point)

4

15

7

10

9

11

13

3

4

1

13

Rank

(continued)

3393

1868

1774

1308

1879

1515

1218

2007

1637

3500

1225

Sample

110 3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

6.9

1.5

4.3

Sanitation facilities construction project

Drinking water project for both people and stock 13.1

10.9

12.0

1.8

0.5

Power facility construction project

“Village-to-village access” project

Dissatisfied (%)

Very dissatisfied (%)

Project

Table 3.2 (continued)

6.5

6.3

4.1

5.1

Neutral (%)

57.7

62.2

59.3

63.7

Satisfied (%)

18.4

19.2

29.3

17.5

Very satisfied (%)

3.73

3.87

4.10

3.83

Average score (point)

11

6

2

8

Rank

2613

2328

3248

2718

Sample

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors … 111

112

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

for both people and stock); or these projects are rated as neutral by a relatively larger number of respondents, the example of which is that the average scores of projects whose performances are rated as “neutral” by over a fifth of the respondents rank among the bottom five. When applying the above analysis framework, the author put forward six poverty alleviation programs or projects to act as intermediate variables. Only the relocation programs obtain a direct satisfaction evaluation of their performances from the survey data the author utilizes, and no direct evaluation data are available for the other five programs. In the process of sorting out variable data, the author employs the method of combining like terms, that is, the author combines specific programs or projects under the above five programs into another item to serve as a new variable whose value is the average score of the performance satisfaction evaluation of the specific programs or projects under each of the new items. Table 3.2 shows that different specific programs or projects are evaluated in terms of satisfaction by different numbers of respondents, which means that some programs or projects are evaluated in terms of satisfaction by a respondent, while other projects are not evaluated by the same respondent. As a result, there are missing values in the database, and how to deal with them is a very intractable problem. In this chapter, a simple method is adopted to guarantee that there are enough samples in the statistical analysis model; that is, when dealing with every sample in the process of formulating new variables, only the scores of specific programs or projects that are evaluated in terms of satisfaction are taken into consideration, and the implicit method (hypothesis) is to view the missing values as the mean values of the above scores. The simple statistical descriptive results of the new variables (i.e., the so-called intermediate variables) are shown in Table 3.3. Table 3.3 Statistical description of the intermediate variables Minimum Maximum Comprehensive Comprehensive Comprehensive average score in rank centesimal system Relocation program 1

5

3.71

74.2

6

Education-oriented poverty alleviation program

1

5

3.84

76.8

2

Poverty alleviation training program

1

5

3.75

75.0

5

Industrial poverty alleviation program

1

5

3.76

75.2

4

Infrastructure-based 1 poverty alleviation program

5

3.96

79.2

1

Health program for poverty alleviation

5

3.81

76.2

3

1

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

113

Generally, after comprehensive processing, there are not very wide disparities in the respondents’ satisfaction evaluation of the six programs or projects, with a gap of 6.7% between the highest comprehensive average score and the lowest one. The comprehensive scores in the centesimal system range from 74 to 80, which approaches the level of good. From the perspective of rank, the more inclusive the project is in itself, the higher its rank in satisfaction evaluation is. 2. Regression analysis of overall satisfaction with development-oriented poverty reduction programs based on the intermediate variables According to the research strategies, the multiple regression analysis of the overall satisfaction evaluation results of the development-oriented poverty reduction programs is made based on the intermediate variables, and the model has an explanation level of 22.7% (see Table 3.4), displaying a good goodness of fit.17 The analysis results indicate that the evaluation results of the education-oriented poverty alleviation programs, infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs and health programs for poverty alleviation do not pass the significance testing, and the results of the relocation programs, poverty alleviation training programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs pass the significance testing, of which the satisfaction evaluation result of the poverty alleviation training programs is the most influential, with a standardized regression coefficient of 0.316. The result of the industrial poverty alleviation programs is the second most influential, with a standardized regression coefficient of 0.164, and the result of the relocation programs is the least influential, with a standardized regression coefficient of 0.039. Consequently, in the following path analysis, education-oriented poverty alleviation programs, infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs and health programs for poverty alleviation are not included in the regression model.

17

The fact that the effects exerted by the infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs, education-oriented poverty alleviation programs and health programs for poverty alleviation on the overall satisfaction evaluation of the development-oriented poverty reduction programs don’t pass the significance testing doesn’t mean that these three programs are not important, but only means that their effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation distribution of the development-oriented poverty reduction programs are not statistically significant. This may be explained by the fact that since all the three programs are relatively inclusive, they can benefit both poor households and rural residents in poor areas as a whole. As a result, these programs, with broader coverage of people and greater satisfaction from people, have fewer significant effects on the distribution disparities of satisfaction evaluation of the development-oriented poverty reduction programs.

114

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

Table 3.4 Multiple regression analysis of the satisfaction with development-oriented poverty reduction programs based on the intermediate variables Unstandardized coefficient

Standardized coefficient

Relocation program

0.019∗

0.039∗

Education-oriented poverty alleviation program

0.005

0.010

Poverty alleviation training program

0.158∗∗∗

0.316∗∗∗

Industrial poverty alleviation program

0.097∗∗∗

0.164∗∗∗

Infrastructure-based poverty alleviation program

0.038

0.062

Health program for poverty alleviation

0.003

0.006

Constant term

0.817∗∗∗

F

20.384

R2

0.20

Note ***, ** and * refer to significance levels of 0.001, 0.01 and 0.05, respectively

3. Multiple regression analysis of the effects exerted by initial variables on intermediate variables and dependent variables As stated above, the multiple regression method used in this chapter is the optimal scaling regression analysis. Table 3.5 shows the multiple regression analysis of the effects exerted by initial variables on intermediate variables and dependent variables. It can be seen from the table that all four regression models display a good goodness of fit. Initial variables can explain over 13% of the several intermediate variables; initial variables can directly explain 15.5% of the dependent variable, obviously lower than the percentage of the dependent variable explained by intermediate variables. This indicates that using initial variables to explain the dependent variable is defective, as the former mainly influences the latter via intermediate variables. Consequently, the presumptive overall analytical framework mentioned above is reasonable. From the results in Table 3.5, the region factor has statistically significant effects in terms of the four models. Specifically, it has negative effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs, the industrial poverty alleviation programs and the development-oriented poverty reduction programs, which means that with the improvement of regional economic and social development, the respondents’ satisfaction evaluation in the three aspects tends to decrease. The factor only has positive effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the poverty alleviation training programs, indicating that the respondents (including the poor and nonpoor people) from regions with higher economic and social development levels are more satisfied with such programs. In other words, it is far better and more significant to teach residents the way of making a living than to present them relief funds. Conversely, in regions with lower levels of economic and social development, relocation programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs are more significant. In addition, the region

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

115

Table 3.5 Multiple regression analysis of the effects exerted by initial variables on intermediate variables and dependent variable (standardized regression coefficient) Intermediate variable Satisfaction evaluation of relocation program

Region

−0.132∗∗∗

Satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation training program

0.161∗∗∗

Satisfaction evaluation of development-oriented poverty reduction program

−0.122∗∗∗

−0.049∗∗∗

−0.055∗∗∗

0.097∗∗∗

0.055

−0.023

0.039

−0.068∗∗∗

0.044∗∗∗

−0.007

0.046∗∗∗

0.016∗∗∗

0.081∗∗∗

−0.057∗∗∗

0.048∗∗∗

Education

−0.082∗∗∗

0.065∗∗∗

0.114∗∗∗

0.053∗∗∗

Major occupation

−0.077∗∗∗

0.047∗∗∗

−0.067∗∗∗

0.031∗∗∗

Household size

−0.144∗∗∗

−0.116∗∗∗

−0.141∗∗∗

−0.119∗∗∗

Household income

−0.087∗∗∗

−0.106∗∗∗

−0.144∗∗∗

−0.075∗∗∗

F

15.224

15.266

18.856

11.113

R2

0.176

0.176

0.194

0.155

Age

0.069

Gender

−0.047

Ethnicity

−0.094∗∗∗

Health condition

0.064

Political affiliation

−0.073∗∗∗

Dependent variable Satisfaction evaluation of industrial poverty alleviation program

0.034∗∗∗ −0.004

Note ***, ** and * refer to significance levels of 0.001, 0.01 and 0.05, respectively

factor’s negative effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of the developmentoriented poverty reduction programs indicate that the programs play a greater role in regions with lower levels of economic and social development. Without statistically significant effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs, the age factor has important effects on that of the other three models, wherein the effects on the poverty alleviation training programs and the industrial poverty alleviation programs are negative. It is not difficult to understand that young people are more likely to benefit from poverty alleviation training and industrial development than older people. The gender factor only has positive effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the poverty alleviation training programs, which means that male respondents are more satisfied with such programs than female respondents. The ethnicity factor has negative effects on the satisfaction evaluation of relocation programs and the overall satisfaction evaluation of development-oriented poverty reduction programs. This indicates that respondents of the Han nationality have lower satisfaction evaluation in these two models than ethnic minority respondents do, and the reason may be that most of the Han respondents come from areas with better ecological environments

116

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

and higher levels of economic and social development. The health condition factor also has statistically significant and positive effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the poverty alleviation training programs and the overall satisfaction evaluation, which means that the implementation of the existing poverty alleviation programs is more meaningful for people with relatively good health. The political affiliation factor has statistically significant effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the four models, which are negative on the industrial poverty alleviation programs and positive on the other three models. This means that the attitude of the CPC members is more positive, but further research is needed to judge whether their positive attitude is because they can obtain more benefits from the poverty alleviation programs or due to political considerations that, as party members, they should be more supportive of the country’s poverty alleviation policies. The education factor has statistically significant effects on the four models, which are negative on the satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs. In terms of the specific programs implemented, the relocation programs are far less significant to the highly educated respondents than to the less educated respondents. In addition, poverty alleviation training programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs are more meaningful to people with higher education levels, who can obtain more help from them. The major occupation factor has statistically significant effects on the four models, which are negative on the satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs and the industrial poverty alleviation programs. As the two kinds of programs are targeted at the agricultural industry, the relevance will be reduced for respondents who are part-time agricultural workers and nonagricultural employees. In fact, poverty alleviation training often includes employment technologies in the nonagricultural sector, positively affecting parttime agricultural workers and nonagricultural employees. The household size has significant effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the four models, which are all negative, indicating that the existing poverty alleviation programs cannot well meet the relevant needs of large rural households. However, from the effects of household income per capita, the satisfaction evaluation of the truly poor farmers interviewed will be higher, which shows that overall, the existing development-oriented poverty reduction programs in rural ethnic minority areas have achieved fairly good results. 4. Path analysis of factors influencing the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty reduction and development In this section, the author will, by virtue of the path analysis, analyze the total effect of the initial variables and the intermediate variables on the overall satisfaction degree of poverty reduction and development. Table 3.6 shows the influence process of independent variables on dependent variables. Specifically, indirect effects equal the standardized regression coefficients of independent variables to each intermediate variable multiplied by standardized regression coefficients of intermediate variables to dependent variables, and total effects equal indirect effects plus direct effects. This means that the results in Table 3.6 are based on Tables 3.4 and 3.5. Furthermore, according to Table 3.5, the standardized regression coefficients with significance levels greater than 5 percent are not included in Table 3.6.

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

117

Table 3.6 Path analysis of factors influencing the overall satisfaction degree of poverty reduction and development based on initial variables and intermediate variables Indirect effect Satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs

Region

−0.0051

Satisfaction evaluation of the technology popularization and training projects

Direct effect

Total effect

−0.0490

−0.0233

Satisfaction evaluation of the industrial poverty alleviation programs

0.0509

−0.0200 −0.0090

Age

–

−0.0231

Gender

–

0.0107

–

–

–

−0.0680

−0.0717

–

0.0460

0.0599

Ethnicity

−0.0037

0.0970

0.0649

–

0.0107

Health condition

–

0.0139

Political affiliation

0.0006

0.0256

−0.0093

0.0480

0.0649

Education

0.0059

0.0205

0.0187

0.0530

0.0981

Major occupation

−0.0026

0.0149

−0.0110

0.0310

0.0323

Household size

−0.0203

−0.0367

−0.0231

−0.1190

−0.1991

Household income

−0.0161

−0.0335

−0.0236

−0.0750

−0.1482

The results of the path analysis show that among the initial variables, household size has the greatest total effect on the satisfaction evaluation of poverty reduction and development (according to the absolute values of path coefficients), followed by household income and then education. In addition, the total effect of gender, region, and major occupation is relatively small, and further explanation will be given below. The region factor, an initial variable, has a negative total effect on the overall satisfaction evaluation of the development-oriented poverty reduction programs in view of its effects on the satisfaction evaluation of the relocation programs, the technology popularization and training projects and the industrial poverty alleviation programs. Specifically, the direct effects of the region factor are the major contributor, and only the indirect effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation through the satisfaction evaluation of the poverty alleviation training programs are positive. On the whole, relocation programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs are more beneficial to rural households (including poor households, the same below) in western ethnic counties, while poverty alleviation training programs are more popular among those in eastern ethnic counties. Without significant effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty reduction and development in terms of relocation programs, the age factor has significant and negative indirect effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation in relation to the

118

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

other two types of programs. However, the significant and positive direct effects of this factor on the overall satisfaction evaluation are much greater, which means that older respondents are generally more satisfied with poverty reduction and development. To further improve the satisfaction degree of rural residents in ethnic minority areas with poverty reduction and development, it is necessary to increase the accessibility and assistance of poverty alleviation training programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs for older people, especially the poor. Without significant direct effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty reduction and development, the gender factor only has small indirect effects through the satisfaction evaluation of the poverty alleviation training programs. It can be seen that the key to eliminating the influence of gender is to increase the benefits of poverty alleviation training programs for women, which will also help to further improve the overall satisfaction degree of rural residents in ethnic minority areas with development-oriented poverty reduction programs. The ethnicity factor has negative indirect effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation in terms of relocation programs and has negative direct effects that are far greater than the indirect effects. This means that the overall satisfaction evaluation of ethnic minority residents in rural ethnic minority areas on the poverty alleviation programs is significantly higher than that of the Han residents. Generally, in rural ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority residents are slightly poorer than Han residents.18 Therefore, some poverty alleviation programs will give priority to ethnic minorities, with more benefits, and their satisfaction evaluation will be higher. Such a difference between ethnicities may be difficult to eliminate, and it is not necessary to be specifically eliminated, as the target of the poverty alleviation programs is the poor. The health condition factor has significant and positive direct effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty reduction and development and, at the same time, has significant and positive indirect effects only in terms of the poverty alleviation training programs. In other words, the satisfaction evaluation of respondents with good health is higher on average than that of those with poor health. The key to eliminating this difference is that development-oriented poverty reduction programs should give more consideration to the needs of people with relatively poor health and provide them with accessible help. The political affiliation factor has indirect effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation through the three types of programs and has direct effects. Specifically, only the indirect effects through industrial poverty alleviation programs are negative, and the other indirect and direct effects are positive, bringing about a positive total effect. In general, the satisfaction evaluation of CPC members is more positive, which is

18

Ding Sai, “The Ethnic Minority-Majority Income Gap in Rural China”, China Labor Economics, Issue 4, 2006; Liu Xiaomin, “The Comparative Studies on the Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas from the Ethnic Point of View: Taking Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan as Example”, EthnoNational Studies, Issue 4, 2013.

3.3 The Results of the Statistical Analysis Regarding Factors …

119

particularly reflected in the direct effects and the indirect effects through the satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation training programs. The reasons behind this, as mentioned above, need to be further studied. The education factor has both directly and indirectly significant positive effects on respondents’ satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and development, which means that the higher the respondents’ education level ranks are, the greater the effects they have on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and development. In other words, in the implementation of various poverty alleviation and development projects, those with higher education may be at a more advantageous position or understand more about poverty alleviation. For the occupation factor, direct effects and indirect effects from the satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation training programs are significant and positive, while indirect effects from the satisfaction evaluation of relocation programs and industrial poverty alleviation programs are significant but negative. The total effects show a positive direction. This result restates that for respondents engaged in housework and farming, programs of relocation and industrial poverty alleviation are more helpful, while programs of poverty alleviation training and industrial poverty alleviation play a more important role in helping respondents who are part-time agricultural workers and nonagricultural employees. This difference may be hard to eliminate in actual work. However, the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and development can be improved by fulfilling various poverty alleviation projects that target different groups. Both the direct and indirect effects of the household size factor on respondents’ satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation are significant and negative. Generally, the larger the household size respondents have, the lower their overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation will be. Considering that the household size of rural households in ethnic minority areas is often larger, their needs for poverty alleviation assistance will also be greater. Given a certain amount of poverty alleviation benefits, the per capita benefits of a larger rural household may be lower than their expectation. In addition, rural households with a larger household size are often under the pressure of having a higher labor dependency ratio. Some poverty alleviation projects focusing on the working-age population act less effectively in helping rural households with a higher labor dependency ratio than in helping those with a lower labor dependency ratio. The factor of household income forms significant but negative effects in both direct and indirect ways in the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation. In other words, the overall satisfaction evaluation of nonpoor rural households in ethnic minority areas on poverty alleviation is generally lower than that of poor rural households, which is reasonable. Unfortunately, the survey data used in this book failed to distinguish whether the respondents actually participated in the various poverty alleviation projects, nor did it determine whether the nonpoor respondents were once included in the list of the poor who were helped by poverty alleviation projects. Therefore, it is difficult to further analyze the specific causes of these direct and indirect effects.

120

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

3.4 Conclusion, Discussion and Suggestion In this chapter, based on the survey data of rural households in the 2014 “survey of ethnic minority areas”, path analysis is applied in the quantitative analysis of influencing factors for the satisfaction evaluation of current poverty alleviation and development of rural residents in ethnic minority areas. This research also acts as an academic response to the concept of targeted poverty alleviation proposed by the central government and the newly issued document, Methods for Evaluating the Performance of the Provincial Party Committees and Governments in Poverty Reduction and Development, which regards “satisfaction” as a “soft indicator” in the evaluation indicator system. Overall, rural residents in ethnic minority areas have a low satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and development, which means there is still a way to go in improving the performance of poverty alleviation. In terms of the satisfaction evaluation of various specific poverty alleviation projects, it is rare to have an average score, calculated by the centesimal system, over 80 points, and most of them only stand at 70–79 points. In addition, after summarizing and merging all these projects into six major projects, none of the six reached an average score of 80 points based on the centesimal system. In the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and development, only 60.8% of all the respondents feel “satisfied”, which means the score has just passed the line. The results of analyzing influencing factors of the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation by path analysis manifest that all the “initial variables” included in this analysis model, namely, the main demographic and social characteristics of the respondents, have significant direct effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation and indirect effects on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation through all or part of the six major poverty alleviation projects. From the perspective of the total effects, constituted by the sum of direct and indirect effects, the one with the largest absolute value is household size, followed by age and then household income. These results are relatively consistent with our daily observations and illustrate how and why these factors influence the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation. Several results of this research bear relatively clear policy implications. The strategy of “targeted poverty alleviation” was put forward by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPCCC, at his visit in Xiangxi, Hunan Province, in November 2013. He said, “Poverty alleviation should follow the principle of seeking truth from facts and be tailored to local situations. Targeted poverty alleviation is necessary. Never implement unpractical actions or reach for what is beyond our grasp.”19 “To focus on poverty alleviation and development, we not only need interactive requirements and measures with commonality but also should highlight the key point and strengthen

19

“Xi Jinping’s Investigating of Poverty Alleviation in Xiangxi”, November 3rd, 2013, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news.xinhua-net.com/politics/2013-11/03/c_117984236.htm).

3.4 Conclusion, Discussion and Suggestion

121

our assistance to impoverished villages and households.” Xi added.20 Therefore, “Targeted poverty alleviation acts as an important solution to the problems of unclear numbers, inaccurate aims, and poor results in poverty alleviation and development. In actual work, we should carry out precise identification, targeted support and dynamic management to poor villages and households, and lift the real poor people out of poverty with our practice.”21 To further implement general secretary Xi Jinping’s spirit of targeted poverty alleviation, the improvement of social satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation should go a step further, and more precise poverty alleviation projects, based on the needs of different people and their demographic and social characteristics, are required to improve the implementation performance. (i)

It is necessary to further complete various basic poverty alleviation projects (including infrastructure-based poverty alleviation programs, educationoriented poverty alleviation programs, and health programs for poverty alleviation) that have direct poverty alleviation effects and can produce universal impacts. People’s satisfaction evaluation for these projects is relatively high with smaller internal differences (so that it has no statistically significant effects on the distribution of the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation). It is worth mentioning that the State Council held an executive meeting to deploy poverty alleviation through transportation infrastructure on April 20th, 2016. An executive meeting of the State Council was held on April 27th to determine measures to accelerate the development of education in the Central and Western regions. At present, governments from the central to the local level are working together to promote the improvement of public services in poor areas, including infrastructure, education and health, and enhance the ability of poverty-stricken areas to get rid of poverty and become rich. By 2020, all poor people will be lifted out of poverty, poverty will be eliminated in all poor counties, and regional poverty problems will be settled to form a solid foundation for poverty alleviation. (ii) Poverty alleviation projects that are more accessible and constructive for older poor people are required to offer them an easier way to obtain real benefits for getting rid of poverty, thereby eliminating all kinds of effects of age difference on the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation. (iii) The design and implementation of poverty alleviation projects should incorporate a gender perspective. Some existing poverty alleviation projects may have problems of accessibility or unsatisfactory effects for poor rural women in ethnic minority areas to get them out of poverty. If these problems are

20

“Xi Jinping Emphasized During His Investigation in Hunan: Deepening Reform and Opening up, Promoting Innovation-Driven, and Achieving Annual Economic and Social Development Goals”, November 5th, 2013, the website of the CCTV (http://news.cntv.cn/2013/11/05/ARTI13836490794 86805.shtml). 21 Li Yongfu: “Win the Battle for Poverty Alleviation to Build a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects—Study and Implementation of the Spirit of Comrade Xi Jinping’s Important Speech on Poverty Alleviation and Development”, People’s Daily, April 9th, 2014.

122

3 Research on the Performance Evaluation of Poverty Reduction …

well settled, the gender gap in the overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation will be erased, thus improving the overall satisfaction evaluation. (iv) The design and implementation of poverty alleviation projects should focus more on target groups with lower education. Obvious accessibility problems exist in projects that require advanced knowledge and skills and understanding ability. Their main advantages lie in their physical strength and hard-working spirit. Therefore, it is necessary to design and implement poverty alleviation projects that commensurate with their advantages, thus having an immediate effect in helping them escape poverty. (v) In the design and implementation of poverty alleviation projects, more attention should be given to target groups facing difficulties in their health conditions. It is essential to provide assistance to improve their health and projects that are within their reach to ensure that they can directly benefit from poverty alleviation. Therefore, the effects of the differences in health conditions on the overall satisfaction evaluation can be reduced. (vi) During the design and implementation of poverty alleviation projects, considerable attention should be given to rural households with larger household sizes and higher labor dependence ratios. Some poverty alleviation projects that mainly target the working-age population of poor rural households may put them in a relatively disadvantaged position. As a result, the effective help they receive from the projects is lower than the projects’ or their own expectations, thereby reducing their overall satisfaction evaluation of poverty alleviation.

Chapter 4

Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas

Ethnic minority areas have the largest poor population and areas as well as the highest poverty head count ratio. In 2011, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions had a poverty headcount ratio of 26.5%, nearly 14 percentage points higher than the national rural headcount ratio of 12.7%, which has been the largest gap since 2006.1 Data from 2012 and 2013 show that the gap between the rural poverty headcount ratio of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the national average rural poverty headcount ratio fell from 10.9 to 8.6 percentage points.2 Since the end of 2013, 89 million people nationwide have been registered as living under the poverty line, and targeted poverty alleviation has been widely practiced. The 70.17 million people living below the current poverty line will be lifted out of poverty within six years.3 It has already been universally acknowledged for a long time that the rural poverty headcount ratio of ethnic minorities as a whole is higher than that of the Han nationality, but this viewpoint has mainly been supported by studies based on ethnic minority areas. There are few studies in academia specifically on certain ethnic groups, especially scarce analyses of the poverty conditions and causes of different ethnic groups from urban–rural and ethnic perspectives. Rural poverty in ethnic minority areas has long been a focus in academia. Based on the data of the Chinese Household Income Project in 2002 (CHIP 2002), Gustafsson and Ding (2009) found that the poverty headcount ratio of ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas is twice that of the Han nationality in the same region from 2000 to

1

“NEAC: Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2010”, http://www.gov. cn/gzdt/2011-07/29/content_1916420.htm. 2 Ning Yafang, “Anti-poverty Effects Evaluation of Population Policy in the Ethnic Western China”, Chinese Journal of Population Science, Issue 6, 2014. 3 Huang Junyi, “70.17 Million People Shake Off Poverty Within Six Years”, Economic Daily, October 13th, 2015.

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_4

123

124

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

2002 and proved that one of the key causes of poverty is harsh natural and geographical conditions.4 Using the same data, Hannum and Wang compared the rural poverty headcount ratios in all parts of China and concluded that the ratio of ethnic minorities is six times that of the Han.5 Based on a micropanel database of rural households in Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces, Gao Mengtao and Bi Lanlan found that from 2003 to 2009, the regions show both absolute and relative pro−poor growth from the view of income and for the poorest, and the impact of pro−poor growth is quite low. At the same time, the effect of economic growth on poverty reduction in southwestern ethnic regions is decreasing gradually, and intractable poverty is salient in these regions.6 Liu Xiaomin employed a sample of rural areas in Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan from the same data as this chapter and proved that the rural households of ethnic minorities have a higher poverty headcount ratio and poverty depth and intensity than those of the Han. In addition, the human, economic and social capital of the surveyed rural households all exert influences on the poverty headcount ratio to different degrees, and imbalanced regional development is also a significant influencing factor.7 After the discomposition of CHIP data from different regions, Gradín found that the reasons for the poverty of ethnic minorities are their places of residence in mountainous areas, low education and slow economic growth.8 With China’s economic growth and the transformation of society, the problem of urban poverty has surfaced and received increasing attention. Using data from the CHIP in 1999 covering six provinces and municipalities, Li Shi and John Knight divided China’s poverty into three types, namely, chronic, transient and voluntary poverty, by combining income and consumption criteria.9 The research by Wang Youjuan demonstrated that the lower one’s education, social status and income are, the higher possibility of falling into poverty one has, and the most essential cause of urban poverty is unemployment.10 Additionally, the urban poor formed a regional pattern, with the majority distributed in the Central and Western regions and relatively few in the developed areas in the Eastern region. Ye Xiangqun argued that the main cause of poverty is mass unemployment due to institutional reform and economic 4

Gustafsson, B. and Ding, S, “Temporary and Persistent Poverty among Ethnic Minorities and the Majority in Rural China”, Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 55, 2009, pp. 588–606. 5 Hannum, E. and Wang, M. “China. A Case Study in Rapid Poverty Reduction”, in Hall, G. H. and Patrinos, H. A. (eds), Indigenous Peoples, Poverty, and Development, Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 149–204. 6 Gao Mengtao and Bi Lanlan, “Measurement of Pro-Poor Growth: Evidence from a MicroPanel Database of Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou Provinces in Rural China”, Chinese Journal of Population Science, Issue 6, 2004. 7 Liu Xiaomin, “The Comparative Studies on the Poverty Problems of Rural Residents from the Ethnic Point of View: Taking Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan for example”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 4, 2013. 8 Gradín, C, “Rural Poverty and Ethnicity in China”, available as EQUALITAS Working Paper No. 32, 2015, http://equalitas.es/sites/default/files/WP%20No.%2032_0.pdf. 9 Li Shi and John Knight, “Three Poverties in Urban China”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 10, 2002. 10 Wang Youjuan, “The Evaluation of Implementation of Minimum Living Security Policies in Urban Areas”, Statistical Research, Issue 10, 2006.

4.1 Survey Data and Research Methods

125

restructuring, the imperfect social security system, illnesses and individual reasons for poor people.11 According to the 2010 census, only 4.39% of the national total population is ethnic minorities in urban areas, far lower than the 11.35% of ethnic minorities in rural areas.12 As the proportion of ethnic minorities in urban areas is much lower and most of them can increase human capital through education and joining the army,13 the poverty of urban ethnic minorities is less serious than that of rural ethnic minorities; accordingly, there are few micro studies on urban poverty in ethnic minority areas, especially the urban poverty of different ethnic groups. In comparison with the above studies, this chapter examines poverty from multiple perspectives by distinguishing absolute and relative poverty, classifying the poor population into three age groups, children aged 0–15, the working population aged 16–60 and the elderly aged above 60, and considering the differences in urban and rural areas and in ethnic groups.

4.1 Survey Data and Research Methods The chapter uses the data of the CHES 2011, which was jointly completed in June 2012 by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS and the School of Economics of the MUC. Supported by local governments and statistical departments in seven provinces and autonomous regions, the survey includes samples of urban and rural households in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Qinghai, the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture (or Guizhou), and Hunan. The survey adopts urban and rural stratified random sampling, giving priority to the households of the majority group in each region and comprehensively involving the differences among the ethnic and nonethnic regions, natural and geographical conditions, economic and social development level and other aspects needed for data analysis and research.14 The CHES 2011 includes samples from 35 ethnic groups. According to the 2010 census, nine of the top 12 ethnic minorities in population size are included in the 11

Ye Xiangqun, “Urban Poverty and the Minimum Living Security System in China”, Review of Economic Research, Issue 43 (2,531 issues in total), 2013, pp. 70–75. 12 Calculated based on the data from the Tabulation of the 2010 Population Census of the People’s Republic of China compiled by the Department of Population and Employment Statistics of the NBS and the Economic Development Department of the NEAC (published by the Ethnic Publishing House in 2013). 13 Ding Sai, Li Shi and Samuel L. Myers, “Intertemporal Changes in Ethnic Urban Earnings Disparities in China”, Changes in China’s Income Disparity: The Distribution of Household Income in China IV edited by Li Shi, Hiroshi Sato and Terry Sicular, People’s Publishing House, 2013, pp. 458–484. 14 Ding Sai, “Summary of Chinese Household Ethnicity Survey”, Chinese Household Ethnic Survey 2013 edited by Li Keqiang, Long Yuanwei and Liu Xiaomin, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2014, p. 1.

126

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

research data, specifically Zhuang, Hui, Uygur, Miao, Tujia, Tibetan, Mongolian, Dong and Yao. In addition, the samples cover 7,257 rural households with 31,671 individuals and 3,259 urban households with 9,921 individuals in the seven provinces and autonomous regions. Among the samples, rural ethnic minorities account for 62.95%, and urban minorities account for 44.78%, much higher than the population proportion of rural ethnic minorities, which is 35.38%, and that of urban minorities, which is 16.34% in the 2010 census.15 As the proportion of ethnic minority samples is higher than that of ethnic minorities there, the weight of the population of different ethnic groups in rural and urban areas is taken into account in adjusting the household income per capita. In the chapter, poverty is analyzed based on poverty types and ages of the poor, and the urban and rural poverty between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas is measured through the FGT indexes, which include the poverty headcount ratio FGT (0), the poverty gap FGT (1) and the squared poverty gap FGT (2). The formula is FGT(α) FGT(α) =

 q  1  z − yi (α = 0, 1, 2) N i=1 z

where N indicates the total population, q is the number of people with household incomes per capita below the poverty line, z denotes the poverty line, and yi is the household income per capita of each individual i. Next, the probit model is used to analyze the causes of urban and rural poverty. The chapter divides the urban and rural samples into three age groups: children aged 0–15, the working population aged 16–60 and the elderly aged above 60. Compared with the overall analysis of the poor, the division helps better understand the distribution and influencing factors of poverty in different age groups and meets the requirements of targeted poverty alleviation that China is currently vigorously promoting. To reflect the integration of urban and rural areas, the explanatory variables of poverty include the human capital and social capital possessed by a household, different ethnic households, various provinces and regions and other variables.

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Definition of absolute poverty and relative poverty In 1990, the World Bank set the absolute poverty line at USD one per day based on the data of the PPP in 1985, and in 2008, the Bank raised the line to USD 1.25. 15

Calculated based on “China’s 2010 Census of Population by Ethnic Groups”.

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

127

Currently, the poverty line of USD two per day set by the Bank is considered to be the relative poverty line. In this chapter, the rural poverty of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in the seven provinces and autonomous regions is also defined based on absolute and relative poverty. The first is to regard the per capita net income of households of RMB 2,300, a poverty line announced by the state in 2011, as the absolute poverty line. Scholars and researchers hold different opinions about how much RMB 2,300 was in US dollars in 2011, as the exchange involves the conversion of the PPP and price changes. In summary, the main points are as follows. The first is that the per capita net income of households of RMB 2,300 a year is only equivalent to earning USD 0.99 per day, approximately USD one per day, based on the exchange rate of the year; the second is that the poverty line of RMB 2,300 means the income has exceeded USD 1.25 per day16 ; and the third is that RMB 2,300 means the income has reached between USD 1.6 and 1.8 per day based on the 2005 PPP.17 The chapter refers to the Bank’s USD two per day as the relative poverty line for the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in the rural areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions. Assuming that the poverty line of RMB 2,300 a year is equivalent to the Bank’s absolute poverty line of USD one per day, the Bank’s poverty line of USD two per day corresponds to a poverty line of RMB 4,600 a year. Another common method for calculating the relative poverty line is based on 50% of the average income. If calculated by the 50% of the per capita net income of rural residents in China, namely, RMB 5,91918 in 2010, the relative poverty line should be RMB 2,959.5. Considering that the number is close to the absolute poverty line of RMB 2,300, the chapter adopts RMB 4,600 as the relative poverty line to classify rural poor households and individuals of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas. Different from rural areas, despite a unified national urban subsistence allowance standard announced in 2011, various provinces and autonomous regions have set their own urban subsistence allowance standards based on their economic development. In this chapter, the urban poverty of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in the seven provinces and autonomous regions is also defined based on absolute and relative poverty. The urban absolute poverty lines in the seven provinces and autonomous regions adopt local subsistence allowance standards, and the relative poverty lines use the low−income standards. In 2011, most of the 31 provinces and autonomous regions across the country determined the standards of low−income households based on the 40–50% of the disposable income of local urban residents in 2010.

16

XieXuelin and Fu Jingjing, “A Potential Increase of 100 Million Poor Population with the Annual Income of RMB 2,300 Becoming the New Poverty Line”, China Business News, November 30th, 2011. 17 “ New Poverty Line in China Focused by Foreign Media”, International Herald Leader, December 12th, 2011, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2011-12/12/c_131295645. htm). 18 “The Per Capita Net Income of Rural Residents in 2014 Reaching RMB 9,892”, January 22nd, 2015 (http://www.chyxx.com/data/201501/305015.html).

128

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

Table 4.1 Urban subsistence allowance standards and urban low−income household standards in the seven provinces and autonomous regions Subsistence allowance standard (province or autonomous region) (yuan)

Proportion of the subsistence allowance standard of the province or autonomous region in the national total (defined as a value of 100)

Low−income household standard (40% of the per capita disposable income of households) (yuan)

Proportion of the low−income household standard of the province or autonomous region in the national total (defined as a value of 100)

Inner Mongolia

4122

119.4

8163

93.6

Qinghai

2830

82.0

6241

71.5

Ningxia

2932

84.9

7032

80.6

Xinjiang

2405

69.7

6205

71.1

Guangxi

2896

83.9

7542

86.4

Guizhou

3251

94.2

6598

75.6

Hunan

2918

84.6

7538

86.4

National Total

3451

100.0

8724

100.0

Source Calculated in accordance with the China Statistical Yearbook 2011

Therefore, in the chapter, 40% of the disposable income of urban residents in the provinces and autonomous regions is set as the relative poverty lines.19 Table 4.1 shows that there are differences in the subsistence allowance standards and the low−income household standards in the seven provinces and autonomous regions. Regarding the urban standards of subsistence allowances and low−income households, Inner Mongolia ranks first among the seven provinces and autonomous regions, while Xinjiang ranks last. The gaps between Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are 49.7 percentage points and 22.5 percentage points in terms of the subsistence allowance standard and the low−income household standard, respectively. 2. Urban and rural poverty between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas (1) Differences in urban and rural poverty between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas. Since the reform and opening up, the poor population has been mainly concentrated in rural areas, and most rural poor populations have been centered in ethnic minority areas. According to the definition of urban and rural household income by the NBS and the data of CHES 2011, it is found that when measured by the national rural poverty line in the seven provinces and autonomous regions surveyed, for ethnic minority households, both the FGT (0) representing the absolute poverty headcount ratio and the FGT (1) representing the depth of poverty are higher than those of 19

Seethe standards of low-income household in various areas in 2011.

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

129

Han households, as is the FGT (2) indicating the intensity of poverty in all the other five provinces and autonomous regions except Inner Mongolia and Guizhou. In comparison, the largest gap, the medium gap and the smallest gap exist between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in terms of the FGT (0), the FGT (1) and the FGT (2), respectively. In addition, the gaps in the three poverty indexes between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities are the most significant in Xinjiang and Guangxi, and these gaps basically remain the same in the rural areas of the two autonomous regions, which shows that the gap in the FGT (0) reaches approximately 30 percentage points, the gap in the FGT (1) achieves approximately 17 percentage points and the gap in the FGT (2) gets to approximately 12 percentage points in both autonomous regions. When measured by the relative poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio of ethnic minorities is still obviously higher than that of the Han nationality, and the overall situation and differences are basically consistent with those by the absolute poverty line in the seven provinces and autonomous regions (see Table 4.2). The data in Table 4.2 show that under the condition of the urban subsistence allowance standard in the seven provinces and autonomous regions, the absolute poverty headcount ratio of urban ethnic minorities is slightly lower than that of the urban Han nationality; the ratios of both the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in urban areas are lower than those in rural areas. Moreover, the gap between the ratio of the Han nationality and that of ethnic minorities in urban areas is obviously smaller than that in rural areas. In terms of the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, there is a small gap between the absolute poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality and that of ethnic minorities in the urban areas of Ningxia, while the ratios of ethnic minorities are obviously higher than those of the Han nationality in the urban areas of Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xinjiang. In South China, except for the urban Han nationality without an absolute poverty population in Guizhou, the urban Han nationality in Guangxi and Hunan has higher ratios than urban ethnic minorities. Compared with those in the northwest, the urban areas in South China face a relatively smaller gap between the ratio of the Han nationality and that of ethnic minorities. From the perspective of the urban low−income household standard, the relative poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality is lower than that of the ethnic minorities in the urban areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions. The ratio of urban ethnic minorities is higher than that of the urban Han nationality in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, while the other three southern provinces and autonomous regions show the opposite situation. The gaps between the relative poverty headcount ratio of the urban Han nationality and that of urban ethnic minorities in the three southern provinces and autonomous regions are smaller than those in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions. In terms of the Han nationality and the local majority minority in the rural areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions, the absolute poverty headcount ratio between the Han nationality and the Mongolian ethnic group is almost the same in Inner Mongolia; the average gap between the ratio of the Han nationality and that of the Miao and Dong ethnic groups is nearly 6 percentage points in Guizhou, as are

7.00

15.79

25.75

Han Nationality

Ethnic minorities

11.56

Ethnic minorities

5.09

Total

23.38

12.19

7.32

22.04

Ethnic minorities

Xinjiang

6.52

6.15

17.64

15.58

Total

Han Nationality

Ningxia

2.41

7.43

14.14

Han Nationality

Ethnic minorities

4.60

3.18

5.19

5.08

9.80

Total

Qinghai

11.02

10.99

Total

Han Nationality

Inner Mongolia

10.97

8.55

Total

19.67

8.85

3.93

3.88

3.9

2.61

1.42

1.84

3.30

3.52

3.51

7.04

4.72

5.62

Seven provinces and autonomous regions

45.56

60.40

44.70

49.72

57.84

42.22

47.74

30.56

37.48

37.05

65.80

45.41

53.35

23.78

26.04

18.16

20.68

20.62

12.44

15.33

12.66

13.62

13.56

29.52

18.35

22.70

FGT (1)

16.18

14.20

10.37

11.59

10.21

5.64

7.25

7.73

7.81

7.81

17.52

10.82

13.43

FGT (2)

4118

1979

2170

4224

2970

1762

4867

879

2740

3653

19,528

11,494

31,671

1.92

3.37

3.31

3.32

1.85

1.42

1.45

7.67

4.63

5.09

2.22

2.55

2.48

FGT (0)

0.74

2.31

2.22

2.23

0.23

0.30

0.30

3.99

2.22

2.49

1.00

1.04

1.03

FGT (1)

0.49

1.94

1.71

1.75

0.03

0.22

0.20

2.73

1.40

1.60

0.67

0.70

0.70

FGT (2)

FGT (0)

FGT (0)

FGT (2)

Urban subsistence allowance standard

FGT (1)

Urban areas

Poverty line of RMB 2,300

Sample Size

Poverty line of RMB 4,600

Rural areas

Table 4.2 Urban and rural poverty between the han nationality and ethnic minorities

5.57

26.42

14.46

16.37

16.49

12.30

12.59

19.96

16.29

16.85

16.10

13.93

14.38

FGT (0)

2.36

8.65

5.57

6.07

4.67

3.50

3.58

8.50

6.40

6.71

5.12

4.76

4.84

FGT (1)

1.44

4.52

3.41

3.59

1.76

1.50

1.52

5.29

3.64

3.89

2.46

2.49

2.48

FGT (2)

Urban low−income household standard

(continued)

1490

730

817

1547

411

1077

1488

558

726

1284

4671

5250

9921

Sample Size

130 4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

20.00

Ethnic minorities

53.93

Ethnic minorities

5.02

23.36

21.38

21.55

5.11

4.38

14.92

14.28

14.33

1.97

2.09

1.98

17.30

5.13

9.49

85.05

83.12

83.28

73.85

69.25

73.3

70.97

42.75

52.85

61.79

3.03

47.56

43.55

43.89

27.41

21.98

26.76

42.15

16.74

25.84

32.99

1.33

32.01

29.01

29.27

13.10

10.12

12.74

30.25

10.01

17.26

22.77

1180

3286

1072

4516

4398

956

5487

3103

1614

4806

2913

1.39

0.79

2.81

1.78

0.29

0.00

0.17

0.53

2.51

2.21

4.22

0.61

0.29

0.75

0.51

0.06

0.00

0.04

0.02

0.36

0.31

1.33

0.49

0.20

0.55

0.37

0.01

0.00

0.01

0.00

0.09

0.07

0.51

14.99

26.61

20.66

5.44

12.65

8.31

12.90

17.41

16.73

23.67

1.39

FGT (0)

4.03

7.98

5.95

1.33

3.52

2.20

4.11

5.60

5.38

7.87

1.08

FGT (1)

1.56

3.65

2.58

0.45

1.21

0.75

1.76

2.69

2.55

3.88

0.88

FGT (2)

Urban low−income household standard

1009

638

1647

618

299

917

504

1044

1548

841

649

Sample Size

Note In this table, the poverty headcount ratio calculated by income has been weighted by the ethnic population of the provinces and autonomous regions. When calculating the FGT indexes, the per capita net income of households, which is a negative number, should be defined as a value of 0. See Table 4.1 for the urban subsistence allowance standard and the urban low−income household standard. The sample size with the ethnic identity missing in rural survey data is 649 persons

46.25

45.52

Total

Han Nationality

Hunan

19.22

13.49

Total

Han Nationality

Guizhou

6.50

12.52

42.29

Han Nationality

Ethnic minorities

24.12

12.81

23.17

Total

Guangxi

0.09

12.74

8.98

0.39

17.43

FGT (2)

2.63

FGT (1)

32.60

FGT (0)

Han Nationality

FGT (2)

Ethnic Minorities

FGT (1)

FGT (0)

FGT (1)

FGT (0)

FGT (2)

Urban areas Urban subsistence allowance standard

Poverty line of RMB 2,300

Sample Size

Poverty line of RMB 4,600

Rural areas

Table 4.2 (continued)

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality … 131

132

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

the gaps between the Han nationality and the Tibetan ethnic group in Qinghai and between the Han nationality and the Hui ethnic group in Ningxia; the gap between the Han nationality and the Tujia ethnic group reaches approximately 12 percentage points in Hunan; the gaps between the Han nationality and the Zhuang ethnic group in Guangxi and between the Han nationality and the Uygur ethnic group in Xinjiang all achieve the largest, which is more than 30 percentage points. In the urban areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions, the absolute poverty headcount ratio of Mongolian households in Inner Mongolia reaches the largest, 75% higher than that of local Han households; the ratio of Tibetan households is lower than that of Han households in Qinghai, while the ratio of Hui households is higher than that of Han households; there is a small gap between the ratio of Han households and that of Hui households in Ningxia; the ratio of Uygur households is 2.6 times higher than that of Han households in Xinjiang, and there are no poor Kazak households; the ratio of Tujia households in Hunan is relatively higher, exceeding 1.5 times that of local Han households; the ratio of Han households in Guangxi is 2.9 times higher than that of local Zhuang households; the ratio of Han households is lower than that of Dong households in Guizhou, and there are also no poor Miao households (see Table 4.3). (2) Urban and rural poverty of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities of different ages in ethnic minority areas. Increasing attention has been given to the poverty of children and the elderly among the poor. Child poverty profoundly impacts their growth and even their health and education as adults; whether intergenerational transmission poverty can be effectively blocked is directly related to the effectiveness of future poverty reduction. The elderly, with a low possibility of poverty reduction, need more effective follow−up by social and public services. In terms of policies, different poverty alleviation policies should be adopted to respond to the needs of different groups of people, including poor children, the poor elderly and the poor among the working population, to better implement targeted poverty alleviation and reduction. This chapter divides the survey samples into three categories by age, namely, children aged 0–15, the working population aged 16–60, and the elderly aged above 60. Under the absolute poverty line, the rural working population aged 16–60 in ethnic minority areas has the lowest poverty headcount ratio. In general, the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly in the seven provinces and autonomous regions is slightly higher than that of children. However, among the Han nationality, the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly reaches 5 percentage points higher than that of children, and for ethnic minorities, the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly is lower than that of children by nearly 1 percentage point. In specific provinces and autonomous regions, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Guangxi have a higher poverty headcount ratio of the elderly than that of children, while Qinghai, Xinjiang, Hunan and Guizhou show the opposite situation. From the perspective of ethnicity and region, the rural Han people in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Guangxi have a higher poverty headcount ratio of the elderly than that of children, but the rural Han people in Guizhou and Hunan have a lower poverty headcount ratio of the elderly than that of children;

13.72

Tibetan 40.10

12.52

24.69

9.80

9.76

11.02

Other ethnic minorities

Total

17.64

23.38

7.84 46.25

58.88

57.88

23.17

75.97 19.22

22.77

16.82

21.15

13.49

4.63

5.09

0

8.12

1.45

0

0.91

3.36

1.42

3.32

0

3.49

3.31

1.92

0

0

5.01

1.39

1.78

0

7.04

1.15

0

2.81

Note The poverty headcount ratio calculated by income has been weighted by the ethnic population of the provinces and autonomous regions

38.06

Salar

Kazak

Tujia

23.27

40.08

Yao

29.78

55.67

45.52

Dong

7.20

33.48

16.96

2.63

42.66

10.00

22.04

15.58

Zhuang

Miao

Uygur

13.01

7.43

Hui

11.58

Han Nationality 10.99

Mongolian

Urban areas

2.21

0

0

0

0.65

0

2.51

0.17

0

1.82

0

0

Inner Qinghai Ningxia Xinjiang Hunan Guangxi Guizhou Inner Qinghai Ningxia Xinjiang Hunan Guangxi Guizhou Mongolia Mongolia

Rural areas

Table 4.3 Urban and rural poverty between the Han Nationality and specific ethnic groups

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality … 133

134

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

among ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the elderly have basically the same poverty headcount ratio as children, and the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly among ethnic minorities in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan is all lower than that of children. Han people of different ages in the seven provinces and autonomous regions generally have a higher poverty headcount ratio than ethnic minorities. The poverty headcount ratio of the elderly ethnic minorities over 60 in Inner Mongolia is lower than that of the elderly Han people by 16 percentage points; Xinjiang and Guangxi have the largest gap in poverty among the three age groups, and the poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality is on average 32 and 31 percentage points lower than that of ethnic minorities. Under the relative poverty line, the difference in the rural poverty headcount ratios of the three age groups is roughly the same as that under the absolute poverty line. Among the rural Han people and ethnic minorities, except for the Han in Inner Mongolia having a significantly higher poverty headcount ratio of the three age groups than ethnic minorities, the other regions have a basically lower poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality than that of ethnic minorities, which is especially notable in Xinjiang and Guangxi (see Table 4.4). Compared with rural areas, under the absolute poverty line, the gap among both different ethnic groups and different age groups in the urban areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions significantly narrows, and the poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality is higher than that of the ethnic minorities. On the whole, ethnic minorities have the lowest poverty headcount ratio of the elderly, a middle poverty headcount ratio of the working population, and the relatively highest poverty headcount ratio of children, and the Han nationality has the lowest poverty headcount ratio of the working population, followed by the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly, and the relatively highest poverty headcount ratio of children. Inconsistency is shown in the poverty headcount ratios of the three age groups and different ethnic groups in different regions. For instance, the three age groups of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in Inner Mongolia have various poverty headcount ratios. The Han nationality has the highest poverty headcount ratio of the elderly and the lowest of working population; and for ethnic minority households, the poverty headcount ratio of the elderly is the lowest and that of working population is the highest. In Qinghai, the poverty headcount ratio of the urban Han nationality is ranked, from top to bottom, in the order of working population, the elderly, and children, and the order of the poverty headcount ratio of the ethnic minorities is children, working population, and the elderly. In Ningxia, the poverty headcount ratio of the urban elderly among Han nationality and ethnic minorities is the lowest compared with that of the work age population and children, and children of the Han nationality and working population of ethnic minorities have the highest poverty headcount ratio. In Xinjiang, the difference among the urban Han people and ethnic minorities in the three age groups is the most remarkable among the seven provinces and autonomous regions. In particular, the ratio of urban children of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang ranks first among all age groups in the seven provinces and autonomous regions. The overall trends of the seven provinces and autonomous regions under the relative poverty line are consistent with the conditions under the absolute poverty

29.17

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

10.76

15.69

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

17.97

26.24

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

Xinjiang

21.79

18.54

Total

19.50

14.03

15.61

12.92

17.22

Ethnic minority

Ningxia

9.08

7.08

11.81

8.33

Han Nationality

11.26

9.9

9.98

24.23

14.33

Total

Qinghai

11.20

Total

Inner Mongolia

23.28

17.92

Total

Seven provinces and autonomous regions

24.74

25.36

21.24

22.38

15.39

8.20

10.74

3.69

20.08

19.32

27.89

22.78

60.21

68.10

51.95

58.78

61.09

51.79

55.43

34.25

43.60

42.76

70.26

51.06

50.68

56.41

42.21

46.32

56.03

38.94

44.79

29.91

35.23

34.91

63.91

43.00

59.05

60.87

48.19

51.68

62.53

46.99

52.48

27.51

47.73

46.79

67.97

53.53

2.87

4.91

4.52

5.39

0.60

0.83

5.04

5.55

5.50

2.95

3.07

3.04

Children aged 0–15

3.93

3.08

3.21

1.60

1.64

1.64

8.11

4.19

4.83

2.23

2.45

2.40

0

1.45

1.24

0

1.26

1.20

3.98

7.81

7.39

0.95

2.53

2.27

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Children aged 0–15

Children aged 0–15

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Urban subsistence allowance standard

Poverty line of RMB 2300

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Urban areas Poverty line of RMB 4600

Rural areas

Table 4.4 Urban and rural poverty headcount ratios of the Han Nationality and ethnic minorities of different ages

36.11

18.41

21.76

45.04

18.08

19.36

11.08

20.11

19.21

21.73

17.61

18.45

Children aged 0–15

25.67

14.21

15.96

13.96

11.61

11.80

21.55

14.88

15.96

15.66

13.22

13.75

(continued)

1.85

7.25

6.46

6.18

9.43

9.29

5.97

25.39

23.26

10.29

13.58

13.03

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Urban low−income household standard

4.2 Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality … 135

Ethnic minority

48.07

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

22.17

18.89

23.69

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

58.65

6418

Han Nationality

Ethnic minority

Sample size

21,960

52.81

43.41

42.53

57.05

56.86

Total

Hunan

12.19

18.17

23.19

17.44

40.73

11.77

Total

Guizhou

25.33

14.14

Total

Guangxi

36.19

Han Nationality

30.69

21.32

2.40

28.80

3.02

Total

25.36

3293

53.49

48.52

48.88

23.01

12.50

21.71

44.31

15.44

27.11

36.92

3.74

52.13

6418

87.02

86.93

86.94

79.92

75.00

79.41

76.37

46.80

56.55

64.62

8.54

43.41

21,960

84.97

83.33

83.47

71.81

66.51

71.16

69.85

40.64

51.13

60.62

8.70

44.88

3293

82.83

78.70

79.00

73.90

75.00

74.03

70.50

52.21

59.60

62.36

12.15

1653

0.44

3.49

1.90

0.47

0

0.31

3.93

3.12

3.21

8.08

1.92

3.34

Children aged 0–15

7262

0.77

3.11

1.88

0.28

0

0.18

0.22

2.07

1.77

3.11

1.39

1.70

1006

1.29

1.00

1.13

0

0

0

0

4.12

3.69

5.39

0

0.59

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Children aged 0–15 Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Children aged 0–15

Poverty line of RMB 2300

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Urban areas Urban subsistence allowance standard

Poverty line of RMB 4600

Rural areas

Table 4.4 (continued)

1653

17.04

36.00

26.16

5.44

16.99

9.47

19.00

19.76

19.67

27.64

1.92

7.85

Children aged 0–15

7262

13.81

25.76

19.47

5.75

11.92

8.11

13.16

16.99

16.36

22.89

1.39

5.33

1006

19.58

22.09

21.00

2.81

12.59

8.17

5.31

17.39

16.10

16.17

0

1.77

Working Elderly population above aged 16–60 60

Urban low−income household standard

136 4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality …

137

line, although the difference under the relative poverty line is slightly larger than that under the absolute poverty line. In addition, only for the Han nationality in Qinghai, Guangxi, Guizhou, and the ethnic minorities in Ningxia and Hunan, the difference in the poverty headcount ratios among the three age groups is inconsistent with the sequencing of the poverty headcount ratios under the absolute poverty line.

4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality and Ethnic Minorities in Ethnic Minority Areas Most of the analyses of poverty−influencing factors use probit or Tobit models. This chapter also applies the marginal analysis method based on the probit model. The poverty lines (the dependent variable of the probit model) are the absolute poverty lines of urban and rural areas. The explanatory variables of the poverty of the three age groups in rural areas consist of six factors, namely, human capital, social capital, agricultural production conditions, ethnic household types, geographical conditions, and provinces and autonomous regions where people of the three groups reside. The explanatory variables of the poverty of the three age groups in urban areas include five factors: human capital, social capital, employment, ethnic identity, and provinces and autonomous regions where people of the three groups reside. Among them, the variables of the provinces and autonomous regions where people of the three groups reside in urban and rural areas are exactly the same. All the explanatory variables used to explain the effects on the poverty of the children, the working population and the elderly in rural areas include the proportions of male and unhealthy members in the household working population, which represent household characteristics; the proportions of CPC members and township and village officials in the household working population, which represent social capital; the social capital variable measured by the ability to master Chinese dialects and the education level of the household working population; the variables of natural and geographical conditions, that is, the areas where the surveyed populations live, including plains, hills and mountainous areas; and the six dummy variables of the provinces and autonomous regions by reference to Guizhou. The differences between the three age groups lie in the following three aspects. In the process of analyzing the poverty occurrence of the 1,634 children, the explanatory variables of the parents’ average years of schooling, the average age of the household working population, the number of children in the household, whether children live with their parents and the ten dummy variables of the ethnic minority households by reference to the Han households are also included. The explanatory variables used to explain the poverty occurrence of the 4,638 working population also include their years of schooling, the average age of the household working population, household size and the 12 dummy variables of the ethnic minority households by reference to the Han households. Except for the common explanatory variables shared by the three age groups,

138

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

the variables used to explain the poverty occurrence of the 880 elderly population also include the average years of schooling of the household working population, the average age of the household working population and whether the elders live with their children and grandchildren. Since there are few samples of the elderly poor population, only the northern ethnic minority households and the southern ethnic minority households, in contrast to the Han households, are included. The data in Table 4.5 indicate that education has significant and negative effects on the occurrence of poverty in the three age groups, which corresponds with many research results. The significant and negative effects on poverty exerted by the household per capita arable land area have been proven. The effects exerted by the natural and geographical conditions of the rural areas where people reside on the poverty occurrence of the children, the working population and the elderly are significant. The possibilities of the poverty occurrence of people living on plains or in hills are lower than those of people living in mountainous areas, and people living on plains have the lowest possibility. The number of children in the household, the household size and the elderly living with their children and grandchildren have significant and positive effects on poverty occurrence. The poverty headcount ratio of the ethnic minority households is higher than that of the Han households. The social capital variable used to explain the poverty occurrence of the working population displays significant and negative effects, and the variable is useless in regard to the elderly. The proportions of township and village officials in the household working population also have significant and negative effects on the poverty occurrence of children. Elderly individuals with poor language abilities are much more likely to be exposed to poverty. The explanatory variables used to explain the poverty occurrence of children aged 0–15, the working population aged 16–60 and the elderly aged above 60 in urban areas include the human capital and social capital of the household, the nature of the employer for which the employee works and the ethnic minority households (the ethnic minority identity in the South or the North divided due to the limited number of samples). The income of rural households mainly comes from household production and operation, while the income of urban households mostly comes from employment. As a result, the explanatory variables of poverty occurrence in rural areas include arable land and terrain, two variables representing agricultural production conditions; however, the nature of the employer is taken as the employment variable of urban areas. There are some disparities between the explanatory variables of the children and the elderly in urban areas and those of the children and the elderly in rural areas (e.g., the explanatory variables used to explain the poverty occurrence of the elderly in urban areas include whether they were employed in the year in which the research was carried out, whether they have an old age pension or retirement pension or the retirement pension for veteran cadres, and whether there is a working population in the household and other dummy variables) (see Table 4.6). The data in Table 4.6 show that in review of the two variables in human capital, the increase of the education level of city dwellers of the three age groups, like the increase of the education level of rural residents, will decrease poverty; for urban children and working population of ethnic minorities, their Chinese writing ability

Areas where people reside are hills (0,1)

Areas where people reside are plains (0,1)

Whether children live with their parents

0.0026

0.0265 0.0282 −0.1321∗∗∗ 0.0228 −0.0547∗∗∗

0.0106

−0.0686∗∗∗

0.0003 0.0001

0.0000 0.0000 ∗∗

−0.2054∗∗∗

Proportion of the working population with poor abilities to master chinese dialects in −0.0002 the ethnic minority households that have their own languages

−0.0093 0.0001∗∗∗

Household per capita arable land area

Square of household per capita arable land area

0.0302

0.0427

(continued)

0.0117 −0.1392∗∗∗

0.0157 −0.1981∗∗∗

0.0004

0.0002 0.0009∗∗

0.0055 0.0002

0.0010

0.0004

0.0005

0.0000 0.0003

−0.0250∗∗∗

0.0002 −0.0003

Proportion of unhealthy members in the household working population

−0.0032∗∗∗

0.0003 0.0007∗∗∗

0.0004

Proportion of township or village officials in the household working population ∗∗∗

0.0004 −0.0010∗∗∗

−0.0015∗∗∗

0.0008

0.0004 −0.0006 0.0002 −0.0007

0.0008 −0.0014∗∗∗

−0.0007

proportion of CPC members in the household working population

0.0420 0.0002 −0.0013 ∗∗∗ 0.0004

0.0005 −0.0004

−0.0001

0.2598∗∗∗

0.0009

0.0034

Std.Err

Proportion of male in the household working Population

Whether the elders live with their children and grandchildren

0.0021

Number of children in the household 0.0436∗∗∗

0.0062

0.0425∗∗∗

Household size

0.0013 −0.0018 ∗∗∗ 0.0006 −0.0013

−0.0029∗∗

−0.0103∗∗∗

Average age of the household working population

0.0011

Std.Err dy/dx

0.0027

−0.0036∗ ∗∗

Std.Err dy/dx

Elderly aged above 60

−0.0063∗∗∗

dy/dx

Working population aged 16–60

Average years of schooling of parents

Average years of schooling of the household working population

Years of schooling

Children aged 0–15

Table 4.5 Marginal effects of the poverty of different age groups in rural ethnic minority areas based on the probit model

4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality … 139

1634

4638

0.0191

0.0315

0.0449

0.0222

0.0225

0.0161

0.0172

0.0140

0.0313

0.0242

0.0156

0.0256

0.0284 880

0.0327 0.1020∗∗∗

Std.Err

0.0222

Std.Err dy/dx

Elderly aged above 60

Note *** refers to the significance level of 1%; ** refers to the significance level of 5%; * refers to the significance level of 10%. Different ethnic households take Han households as their reference

Sample size

Six dummy variables of the provinces and autonomous regions

Southern ethnic minorities

Northern ethnic minorities

0.0337

0.0361 0.3189∗∗∗

0.1563∗∗∗

Other northern ethnic minorities

Other southern ethnic minorities

0.1845∗∗∗

0.0519 0.1714∗∗∗

Salar households

0.0463 0.1159

0.0674 0.1685∗∗∗

0.1122∗

Tujia households

Kazak households

∗∗∗

0.0306 0.0256

0.1291∗∗∗

Dong households

0.0262 0.0349 0.2354 ∗∗∗

0.0219

0.0887

0.1303∗∗∗

∗∗∗

0.2286∗∗∗

0.0568 0.3573∗∗∗

0.3760∗∗∗

Uygur households

Miao households

0.0424 0.0773∗∗∗

Tibetan households

Zhuang households

0.0256 0.0580 ∗∗∗

0.1064∗∗

0.0067

Std.Err dy/dx

Working population aged 16–60

0.0648∗∗

dy/dx

Children aged 0–15

Hui households

Mongolian households

Table 4.5 (continued)

140 4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

Number of children in the household

Std.Err

0.0186 0.0000

−0.0056 −0.0000∗∗∗

Whether being employed in the year in which the research was carried out

0.0094 0.0296

0.0065 0.0195 0.0229∗∗

0.0362∗

Proportion of the working population with poor chinese writing abilities in the ethnic minority households that have their own languages

0.0147 0.0177*** 0.0050

Proportion of unhealthy members in the household working population

(continued)

0.0291

0.0143 0.0064

0.0140 0.0048

Whether there are CPC members in the household −0.0005

−0.0295∗∗

Proportion of the working population in the household whose Hukou is not in the surveyed city

0.0185

0.0008

0.0133

0.0281 −0.0436∗∗∗

−0.0263

Proportion of CPC members in the household working population

Whether there are working population in the household

0.0124

0.0359 −0.0347∗∗∗

−0.0884∗∗∗

Proportion of male in the household working population

Income of old age pension or retirement pensions or the retirement pension for veteran cadres

0.0172

0.0064

0.0017

−0.0427∗∗∗

0.0126

0.0019 0.0121∗∗∗

0.0000

0.0025

0.0006 −0.0028∗

Std.Err dy/dx

Elderly aged above 60

whether the elders live with their children and grandchildren

Whether children live with their parents

−0.0058

0.0029

Square of the average age of the household working population 0.0087 ∗∗∗

0.0001 0.0000

−0.0002∗

Household size

0.0075 0.0011

0.0134∗∗∗

Average age of the household working population 0.0077

0.0019

−0.0018∗∗∗

Std.Err dy/dx

−0.0082 ∗∗∗

dy/dx

Working population aged 16–60

Average years of schooling of the household working population

Years of schooling

Children aged 0–15

Table 4.6 Marginal effects of the poverty of different age groups in urban ethnic minority areas based on the probit Model

4.3 Influencing Factors of the Urban and Rural Poverty of the Han Nationality … 141

0.0182 −0.0505∗∗∗ Std.Err dy/dx

−0.0471∗∗∗ dy/dx

Southern ethnic minorities 0.0199 7265

−0.0367∗∗∗

0.0079

749

0.0248

0.0221

0.0055 −0.0244 −0.0640∗

Std.Err

Std.Err dy/dx

0.0103

Std.Err

Note *** refers to the significance level of 1%; ** refers to the significance level of 5%; * refers to the significance level of 10%. Different ethnic households take Han households as their reference

Sample size 1626

−0.0377∗

Six dummy variables of the provinces and autonomous regions

0.0067

Northern ethnic minorities 0.0128 0.0070

0.0231 −0.0576∗∗∗

−0.0707∗∗∗

Proportion of the Working Population Working in State−owned Enterprises 0.0104

0.0243

0.0375 −0.0874∗∗∗

Proportion of the working population working in private enterprises or who are self−employed

Std.Err dy/dx

Std.Err dy/dx

Elderly aged above 60

−0.0270

Working population aged 16–60

dy/dx

Children aged 0–15

Proportion of the working population working in party and government bodies

Table 4.6 (continued)

142 4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

4.4 Brief Conclusions

143

has a significant effect on the poverty reduction within their households. The representatives of the social capital variable—the proportion of CPC members in the household working population, the proportions of the working population working in Party and government bodies, in stated−owned enterprises, in private enterprisesor who are self−employed and whether there are CPC members in the households with elderly members can significantly reduce poverty. The three age groups of urban ethnic minorities are not poorer than those of the Han nationality, and the urban ethnic minorities in South China have a lower poverty headcount ratio than the Han nationality; in terms of household demographic characteristics, only the proportion of unhealthy members in the household working population can significantly influence the poverty of the working population. Elderly people who live with their children or grandchildren and are under the coverage of old age pension or retirement pension or the retirement pension for veteran cadres face fewer possibilities of poverty.

4.4 Brief Conclusions Ethnic minority areas normally refer to the five autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia, and Tibet) and three multiethnic provinces (Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai), which are collectively called eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions.20 The survey data of ethnic minority households (CHES 2011) cited in this chapter come from seven provinces and autonomous regions—Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Guangxi and Guizhou in the eight provinces mentioned above and Hunan Province in which the Tujia ethnic group inhabits. Although Tibet and Yunnan are not included, the seven provinces and autonomous regions can represent ethnic minority areas in the western region. By researching and analyzing the poverty distribution and influencing factors of poverty in the seven provinces and autonomous regions, the following conclusions are reached: First, under the absolute poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio of rural ethnic minorities is slightly higher than that of the Han nationality, while the poverty headcount ratio of urban ethnic minorities is slightly lower than that of the Han nationality; the poverty headcount ratios of both urban ethnic minorities and urban Han nationality are lower than those of their rural counterparts, whether the poverty headcount ratio of urban ethnic minorities is lower or higher than that of the Han nationality depends on regions, and the gap between the poverty headcount ratio of urban ethnic minorities and that of the Han nationality is smaller than the gap between the poverty headcount ratio of urban ethnic minorities and that of the Han nationality. The FGT (0) of the poverty headcount ratio and the FGT (1) indicating the depth of poverty of rural ethnic minorities are higher than those of the Han nationality; the FGT (2) indicating the intensity of poverty of ethnic minorities is higher than 20

Ding Sai, Liu Xiaomin and Long Yuanwei, “Indicator System for Finishing Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and the Development of Ethnic Minority Areas”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 4, 2014.

144

4 Comparison of Urban and Rural Poverty Between the Han Nationality …

that of the Han nationality in the five provinces and autonomous regions (except Inner Mongolia and Guizhou), among which the gap between the absolute poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality and that of the Zhuang ethnic group in the rural areas of Guangxi and the gap between the absolute poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality and that of the Uygur ethnic group in the rural areas of Xinjiang are huge. Regarding urban areas, the absolute poverty headcount ratios of ethnic minorities are lower than those of the Han nationality in Hunan and Guangxi, and the absolute poverty headcount ratios of ethnic minorities are slightly higher than those of the Han nationality in the other five cities; the gaps between the absolute poverty headcount ratio of the Han nationality and that of the ethnic minorities in southern cities are slightly smaller than those in northwestern cities. Second, under the relative poverty line, the poverty headcount ratio of rural ethnic minorities is largely higher than that of the Han nationality, and the overall situation and difference in the seven provinces and autonomous regions are basically on the same track as those under the absolute poverty line. Under the urban relative poverty line, which is also called the low−income household line, the relative poverty headcount ratios of the urban Han nationality are lower than those of ethnic minorities in the seven provinces and autonomous regions. In the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, the relative poverty headcount ratios of urban ethnic minorities are higher than those of the Han nationality; in the three southern provinces and autonomous regions, the relative poverty headcount ratios of the urban Han nationality are higher than those of ethnic minorities. The gaps between the relative poverty headcount ratio of the urban Han nationality and that of the ethnic minorities in the three southern provinces and autonomous regions are smaller than those in the four northwestern provinces and autonomous regions. Third, after dividing poor people into three groups by age, it can be found that the poverty headcount ratio of the working population aged 16–60 is the lowest in rural ethnic minority areas and that the poverty headcount ratios of children and the elderly vary with regions and nationalities. The differences in poverty among the three age groups in Xinjiang and Guangxi are the most significant. In rural areas, the gaps in the poverty headcount ratios of the three age groups under the relative poverty line are basically on the same track as those under the absolute poverty line. By comparing the poverty headcount ratios of rural Han nationality and ethnic minorities, it can be noticed that except for the Han nationality in Inner Mongolia, whose poverty headcount ratios of the three age groups are largely higher than those of ethnic minorities, the Han nationality in the other provinces and autonomous regions embraces a lower poverty headcount ratio. The gaps in poverty headcount ratios between the rural Han nationality and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Guangxi are more significant. Under the urban absolute poverty line, the gaps in poverty headcount ratios between different nationalities and ages in the seven provinces and autonomous regions have been narrowed, and the poverty headcount ratios of the Han nationality are higher than those of ethnic minorities. In general, the poverty headcount ratios of the elderly, working population and children of ethnic minorities are listed in ascending order; the poverty headcount ratios of the working population, the elderly

4.4 Brief Conclusions

145

and children of the Han nationality are listed in ascending order. Under the relative poverty line, the overall situation in the seven provinces and autonomous regions is in accordance with that under the absolute poverty line. Fourth, the improvement of education level, increase of household per capita arable land area and residences on plains and in hills rather than in mountainous areas decrease the poverty headcount ratios of rural poor children aged 0–15, rural poor working population aged 16–60 and the rural poor elderly aged 60 and over. The number of children in the household, household size, and the elderly living with their children or grandchildren have a noticeable positive influence on the poverty headcount ratio. Compared with Han households, ethnic minority households have a higher poverty headcount ratio. The social capital variable in the second group— working population—has a noticeable negative influence on poverty, the variable in the third group—the elderly has no such influence, and the proportion of township and village officials in the household working population in the first group—children aged 0–15 can also exert a noticeable negative influence. The increase in human capital and social capital of the urban working population and their employment can reduce the possibilities of poverty, and the increase in household size and the proportion of unhealthy members in the household can raise the possibilities. In South China, urban ethnic minority households, compared with Han households, enjoy fewer possibilities of poverty, while in North China, ethnic minority households show no clue of more possibilities of poverty than Han households.

Chapter 5

Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural School-Age Children in Ethnic Minority Areas

The overall improvement of the education level of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas can exert great and far-reaching influences on their economic and social advancement. However, the basic education of the ethnic minority population remains weak. The “Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Programme for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)” puts forward the goal of gradually making senior secondary education universal; nevertheless, compulsory education of the ethnic minority population has been far from universal. According to the data analysis of the sixth population census in 2010, 7.2% of the children of minority groups aged 6–17 do not gain access to or finish compulsory education in accordance with laws. Against this backdrop, this chapter utilizes the data of the CHES to study the current situation of the basic education of school-age children in Western ethnic minority areas and the reasons for this situation. This study can therefore provide a basis for the government and academia to be informed of the current situation of the basic education of ethnic minorities and then lend reference to relevant policies concerning the promotion of education and economic development of ethnic minority areas in China. In the literature on the basic education of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, a larger number of studies, grounded on macrodata, conduct descriptive analyses of the progress of ethnic education. The data in the literature mainly come from previous population censuses. For example, Huang Rongqing carries out a quantitative and descriptive analysis of the education development of ethnic minorities in the Western region1 ; Xu Shiying and Li Nan conduct an analysis of the education level of ethnic minorities with a population over one million2 ; Sun Baicai and others conduct a comparative analysis of the educational achievement and education

1

Huang Rongqing, “An Analysis of the Educational Status of Ethic Minority Groups in West China”, Tribune of Education Culture, Issue 2, 2009. 2 Xu Shiying and Li Nan, “Measure and Predictive Analysis of Educational Progress of Ethnic Minorities with a Population over One Million in China”, Journal of Research on Education for Ethnic Minorities, Issue 2, 2009. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_5

147

148

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

equality of all ethnic groups3 ; He Lihua and Cheng Aihua conduct an analysis of the education equality of China’s ethnic minority areas.4 Comparatively speaking, empirical studies based on microdata and aiming at exploring the influencing mechanism are inadequate.5 Among them, Hong Yanbi, from the perspective of the sociology of education and utilizing the microdata from the “Monitoring Research on the Social and Economic Development of Provinces in China’s Western Region” in 2004, comprehensively studies the effects exerted by factors such as rural–urban distinction, occupation, culture and policy changes on the access to education of ethnic minorities in the Western region. The author holds that, generally speaking, ethnic minorities’ access to education is more influenced by rural–urban distinctions and social strata.6 Tan Min and Xie Zuoxu, utilizing the research data of college students, analyze the effects exerted by family backgrounds and ethnic identity on access to higher education and find that family backgrounds being constant, ethnic minority students more easily obtain access to undergraduate education.7 However, Chen Jianwei, another researcher studying the effects exerted by ethnic identity on education opportunities, draws different conclusions. He, based on the data of the “2011 Chinese Social Survey” (CSS 2011) by the CASS, studies the effects exerted by ethnic identity on ethnic minorities’ access to education and holds that although being blessed with national favorable policies in school enrolling, ethnic minority students, grounded upon their ethnic identity, do not receive remarkable help to be accessible to higher education. It can be found that quantitative studies on ethnic education based on a large sample of microdata are scarce. As a result, academia cannot learn about the overall current situation of the children’s education of ethnic minorities via any microdata other than the data of population censuses; that is, the variety of information for academia is limited. In addition, as the research perspectives and databases are different, the existing limited literature is not comprehensive concerning the exploration of influencing mechanisms: the literature highlights the effects of family backgrounds and ethnic identity, while it ignores the limitations and restrictions of the distribution of regional education resources. Consequently, this chapter, utilizing the research data of the CHES, will focus on the rural ethnic minority areas in the Western region to present the current situation of basic education in these areas, and this chapter 3

Sun Baicai, Zhang Yang and Liu Yunpeng, “The Educational Achievement and Education Equality of All Ethnic Groups in China: An Analysis Based on the Three Recent Nationwide Population Censuses”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 3, 2014. 4 He Lihua and Cheng Aihua, “The Educational Development and Education Equality of China’s Ethnic Minority Areas: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Three Recent Nationwide Population Censuses”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 4, 2015. 5 Sun Baicai, Zhang Yang and Liu Yunpeng, “The Educational Achievement and Education Equality of All Ethnic Groups in China: An Analysis Based on the Three Recent Nationwide Population Censuses”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 3, 2014. 6 Hong Yanbi, “Ethnic Groups and Educational Inequalities: An Empirical Study of the Educational Attainment of the Ethnic Minorities in West China”,Chinese Journal of Sociology, Issue 2, 2010. 7 Tan Min and Xie Zuoxu, “Family Background, Ethnic Identity and Chinese Minorities’ Acquisition of Higher Education”,Journal of Higher Education, Issue 10, 2011.

5.1 Data Sources

149

will, at the same time, take into consideration the factors of family backgrounds and the distribution of education resources to explore their effects on the access to basic education in rural ethnic minority areas.

5.1 Data Sources The data in this chapter come from the CHES, which was carried out by the School of Economics of the MUC and the Department of Ethno-Economic Research of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS from March to June 2012. The survey covers urban and rural communities and households in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan, and 41,733 persons from 10,516 households are surveyed.8 In rural areas, this survey selects 31,671 people from 7,257 households in 757 administrative villages and conducts a village-level questionnaire that involves information about local education resources. This chapter will launch the research with the information concerning the distribution of education resources in the survey data of rural households and communities. This chapter deletes the data that are missing or abnormal in the key variables. In the research, the sample size of rural community questionnaires is 734, and the sample size of rural individuals is 30,804, among which 11,460 are from 2,834 Han households and 19,344 are from 4,702 ethnic minority households. In addition, grasping the status of national basic education is of vital importance for us to objectively evaluate the current situation of basic education in Western ethnic minority areas. Therefore, this chapter will calculate indicators concerning the basic education of school-age children of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities across the country with the relevant tabulations of the sixth population census, including the Tabulation on the 2010 Population Census of the People’s Republic of China and the Tabulation on the 2010 Population Census of the Republic of China by Ethnicity.

8

The surveyed areas of the CHES are located in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, including Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou among which all except Hunan are located in western ethnic minority areas. In Yunnan Province, there are Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Shaoyang City, Yongzhou City and Huaihua City as the surveyed areas, most of which are ethnic minority areas. For the sake of convenience, this chapter refers to the seven surveyed ethnic provinces and autonomous regions as the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. For details of the CHES, such as the research methods and distribution of samples, please refer to the Chinese Household Ethnic Survey 2013 edited by Li Keqiang, Long Yuanwei and Liu Xiaomin and published by the Social Sciences Academic Press (China) in 2014. This chapter deletes 23 village samples that are missing in the key variables while disposing data.

150

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

5.2 Description and Analysis of the Current Situation of Rural Basic Education in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Current situation of rural basic education in ethnic minority areas Nationwide (see Table 5.1), people’s education level is increased, compulsory education is basically popularized, the attendance rate of the primary school-age population and that of the junior high school-age population are 98.1% and 94%, respectively, and there are no obvious rural-urban disparities or gender differences in the attendance rate of the population of compulsory education age. However, the analysis of the survey data of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region in this chapter shows that the compulsory education level of people in the rural areas of the seven provinces and autonomous regions lags behind the nationwide level, the attendance rate of primary school-age samples is only 92.7%, and that of junior high school-age samples is lower—only 89.5%. Within the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region, huge ethnic differences exist. In terms of the attendance rate of primary school-age samples, ethnic minorities are basically on the same level as Han nationality; however, in regard to that of junior high school-age samples, ethnic minorities, with a school attendance rate less than 90%, lag far behind the Han nationality by 5 percentage points. After being admitted into senior high schools, students cannot benefit from the “Two Exemptions and One Allowance” policy, which only fits for students of compulsory education age; thus, households need to input more resources. Meanwhile, senior high school-age students have entered working age, and their schooling means a higher opportunity cost. From the tendency of China’s population’s school attendance rate, the average rate of senior high school-age students descends largely with a national average of 80.6%.9 Based on the analysis of the data of the CHES, this chapter indicates that the senior high school-age samples in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions enjoy 57.8% of the attendance rate, and the senior high school-age samples of ethnic minorities see a rapid decrease of the rate, which is only 50.3%, 21.6 percentage points lower than that of the Han nationality. It can be concluded that the population in the western ethnic minority areas is in unfavorable condition of receiving senior high school education, and ethnic minorities in the areas face an even harsher situation. In addition to the differences between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, the gap among ethnic minorities is also prominent. In Table 5.2, the attendance rate of the school-age population in the main ethnic groups in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is calculated. The analysis results show that the school attendance rate in Zhuang, Dong and Mongolian is higher than that in other ethnic minorities and that in Tujia, Uygur and Yao is lower.

9

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the NBS, “Population Status of Children in China—Facts and Figures”, 2013.

5.2 Description and Analysis of the Current Situation of Rural Basic …

151

Table 5.1 School attendance rate of population aged 7–18 in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and nationwide unit: % Total

Han Nationality

Ethnic minorities

School attendance rate of population aged 7–18

81.8

86.8

79.3

Of which: attendance rate of primary school-age population (7–12)

92.7

93.4

92.5

Attendance rate of junior high school-age population (13–15)

89.5

92.8

87.8

Attendance rate of senior high school-age population (16–18)

57.8

71.9

50.3

School attendance rate of population aged 7–18

88.5

89.0

83.7

Of which: attendance rate of primary school-age population (7–12)

98.1

98.3

96.6

Attendance rate of junior high school-age population (13–15)

94.0

94.7

87.9

Attendance rate of senior high school-age population (16–18)

69.0

70.5

55.0

Rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions

Nationwide

Notes (i) The nationwide data are obtained by calculating the data from the long tables of the sixth population census, and the data of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are obtained by calculating the data from the CHES; the following data, if with no special explanations, all come from the CHES (ii) Although the Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that any child who has attained the age of six should be enrolled in school to finish the compulsory education, the initial time of schooling may be postponed to seven years old, given the backward education conditions in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the Western region. Therefore, this chapter postpones one year in the division of children’s schooling age. Children aged 7–12 are the primary school-age population, those aged 13–15 are the junior high school-age population, and those aged 16–18 are the senior high school-age population. To compare with the nationwide school attendance rate, the division of children’s schooling age across the country is postponed one year as well

2. Distribution of rural education resources Since 2001, new adjustments to the layout of primary and secondary schools have been implemented in China’s rural areas, which is commonly referred to as “School Closure and Merger”. Rural areas across the country had 440,000 primary schools and nearly 40,000 secondary schools in 2000, and by 2010, they had 210,000 primary schools and only more than 20,000 junior high schools.10 After ten years, 10 The data is quoted from Educational Statistics Yearbook of China 2000 and Educational Statistics Yearbook of China 2010.

152

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

Table 5.2 School attendance rate of population aged 7–18 by ethnicity and rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions unit: % Attendance rate of primary school-age population (7–12)

Attendance rate of junior high school-age population (13–15)

Attendance rate of senior high school-age population (16–18)

School attendance rate of population aged 7–18

Han

93.4

92.8

71.9

86.8

Mongolian

89.9

90.0

67.5

83.9

Hui

95.5

86.4

44.1

79.2

Tibetan

95.9

85.5

61.5

82.0

Uygur

88.3

82.6

32.2

70.2

Miao

91.5

89.2

49.4

80.9

Zhuang

94.9

100.0

67.2

88.0

Dong

95.0

93.3

62.2

85.6

Yao

80.0

73.1

57.9

71.1

Tujia

97.9

88.9

30.8

68.3

Other ethnic groups

90.9

87.1

56.7

79.1

Total

92.7

89.5

57.8

81.8

approximately half of rural primary and secondary schools were closed and merged. According to the survey data of 11 provinces and cities nationwide collected by the research group of Central China Normal University in 2009, the average distance to schools for students changed from 1.6 to 4 km after the closure and merger.11 The distribution of rural basic education resources in western ethnic minority areas is greatly affected by the closure and merger. Among the sample rural areas of the survey data in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions (see Table 5.3), 47.6% of the villages have complete primary schools, and 14.8% of the villages have lower primary schools or teaching sites. Influenced by the closure and merger, 30.9% of villages removed primary education institutions, and 82% of schools were removed after 2000. For villages without complete primary schools, school-age children need to complete primary education in neighboring villages or in township or town centers. Accordingly, the median distance to school is three kilometers, and the average distance is 5.8 km. In terms of different provinces, Hunan and Inner Mongolia have seen a small proportion of villages with complete primary schools, which is less than 30%, and that of villages that have removed their primary education institutions, exceeding 50%. In addition, the average distance to the nearest school for students is higher, reaching 5.3 km in Hunan and 11.4 km in Inner Mongolia. At the same time, it can be found that the proportion of villages that have removed primary education 11

Lei Wanpeng and Xu Lu, “Government Responsibilities in the Development of Rural School Buses—Under the Background of the Adjustments of Compulsory Education Schools”, Journal of The Chinese Society of Education, Issue 1, 2011.

5.2 Description and Analysis of the Current Situation of Rural Basic …

153

Table 5.3 Distribution of primary education resources in the sample rural areas of the seven ethics provinces and autonomous regions Removing primary schools (%)

Possessing lower primary schools or teaching sites (%)

Possessing complete primary schools (%)

Distance to the nearest complete primary schools (km)

Schools with Schools dormitories with (%) canteens (%)

Hunan

53.5

24.2

21.2

5.3

69.8

88.7

Guangxi

11.8

15.7

72.5

3.0

34.4

73.2

Guizhou

22.5

18.3

55.0

3.5

44.8

78.4

Ningxia

24.7

15.5

55.7

4.5

20.0

74.7

Qinghai

18.7

14.6

56.1

4.0

22.0

43.1

Xinjiang

33.3

5.4

43.0

4.5

25.4

60.6

Inner Mongolia

56.4

8.9

25.7

11.4

65.6

76.8

Total

30.9

14.8

47.6

5.8

40.6

70.3

Notes (i) In the survey, for villages with complete primary schools, the distance to the nearest schools is zero km. Therefore, the average value of the distance to the nearest complete primary schools is calculated based on 385 villages without complete primary schools (ii) The CHES is mainly carried out in the ethnic minority areas of each province, which can reflect the situation of the main ethnic groups there but cannot represent that of the provincial population

institutions in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is low (11.8%), that of villages with complete primary schools is the highest (72.5%), and the average distance to the nearest school for rural school-age children is also the shortest, which is 3 km. Corresponding to the closure and merger, China has strengthened the construction of boarding schools in the western region.12 Under the leadership of the State Council and cooperating with provinces in the western region, the central government has invested RMB 10 billion since 2004 to implement the “Construction Project of Rural Boarding Schools”, and as a result, the number of rural primary and secondary boarding schools has increased rapidly. According to the rural survey data in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region (see Table 5.3), 40.6% of rural primary education institutions have dormitories, and especially in Hunan and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where education resources are relatively scarce, the proportion of boarding primary schools has come up to the highest (over 60%). With a relatively high proportion of complete primary schools, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang have relatively low proportions of boarding schools, reaching less than 30%. Guizhou also has a relatively high proportion of complete primary schools (55%) and boarding schools (44.8%). 12

“Decision on Further Strengthening Rural Education” issued by the State Council proposed: “We must continue to advance the adjustments of the layout of primary and secondary schools, strive to improve the conditions for running schools, and focus on strengthening the construction of rural junior high schools and boarding schools in remote mountainous areas and ethnic minority areas”.

154

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

School facilities and configuration have significant effects on education opportunities and results. Specifically, school canteens, closely related to the nutrition and health of students, are one of the most important facilities. According to the CHES data, the proportion of schools with canteens near the sample rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions stands at 70.3%, wherein the proportion in Hunan is the highest (88.7%) and that in Qinghai is the lowest (only 43.1%).

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural School-Age Populations in Ethnic Minority Areas To systematically analyze the impacts of family backgrounds and the distribution of educational resources on the education opportunities of people in Western ethnic minority areas, regarding education status as the dependent variable (DV), the following will apply logit regression analysis to conduct an empirical analysis of influencing factors such as family backgrounds and educational resources in local areas. The results are shown in Tables 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6. Models 1–6 in Table 5.4 are the regression results of the education status indicator of all school-age individuals of different ages. Models 1–6 in Tables 5.5 and 5.6 are the regression results of the education status indicator for individuals from the Han nationality and ethnic minorities at different school ages. Education status is divided into the following two categories of indicators according to individuals at different school ages. The first category is “being a school student or not”, corresponding to Model 1, Model 2, Model 4 and Model 6 in Tables 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6, and the corresponding ages are 7–18 years old (the whole school age), 7–12 years old (age of primary school), 13– 15 years old (age of junior high school), and 16–18 years old (age of senior high school), respectively. The second category is “entering the next stage of schooling or not”. For those completing their primary education, the regression results of Model 3 in Tables 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 show “whether they have entered junior high school”. For those finishing their junior high school, the regression results of Model 5 in Tables 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 indicate “whether they have entered high school or not”. The model with “being a school student or not” as the dependent variable focuses on the current education status of school-age individuals, and the regression model with “entering the next stage of schooling or not” as the dependent variable emphasizes the education progress of school-age individuals, which is a cumulative indicator of education. The regression results based on the whole sample (see Table 5.4) show that the economic and social status of households and the number of siblings have a significant influence on education opportunities. The number of siblings has a significant negative influence on whether an individual attends school. As the number of siblings increases by one, the probability of an individual attending school will decrease by 2% (see model 1). In terms of school age, the senior high school attendance rate is

(0.013)

(0.117)

In income per capita

Parents’ years of schooling

Number of siblings

0.012

(0.002)

0.011

(0.008)

(0.018)

0.099

(0.069)

(0.005)

(0.050)

0.112

−0.020***

−0.182***

(0.009)

−0.01

−0.169

(0.143)

(0.002)

0.003

(0.006)

−0.009

(0.014)

−0.007

(0.011)

0.006

(0.039)

0.048

(0.108)

−0.157

(0.231)

−0.114

(0.192)

(0.010)

−0.049***

0.103

0.028***

−0.443***

Family background

Ethnicity (Ethnic minority = 1)

Gender (Female 0.261*** = 1) (0.095)

MarginEffect

Coef.

Coef.

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Demographic feature

(2)

Samples aged 7–12

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

(0.177)

−0.081

(0.037)

0.203

(0.107)

−0.185*

(0.391)

−1.698***

(0.221)

−0.14

Coef.

(0.007)

−0.003

(0.002)

0.009

(0.005)

−0.008*

(0.017)

−0.072***

(0.009)

−0.006

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

(0.155)

−0.086

(0.037)

0.088**

(0.108)

−0.227**

(0.270)

−0.452*

(0.214)

0.28

Coef.

(0.013)

−0.007

(0.003)

0.007**

(0.009)

−0.019**

(0.022)

−0.037*

(0.018)

0.023

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

Table 5.4 Results of the influencing factors of education opportunities by logit regression (5)

(0.117)

0.439***

(0.032)

0.177***

(0.087)

−0.355***

(0.188)

−0.357*

(0.161)

0.581***

Coef.

(0.022)

0.086***

(0.006)

0.035***

(0.017)

−0.069***

(0.037)

−0.070*

(0.031)

0.113***

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

(0.100)

0.343***

(0.025)

0.162***

(0.070)

−0.207***

(0.155)

−0.584***

(0.133)

0.390***

Coef.

(continued)

(0.020)

0.068***

(0.005)

0.032***

(0.014)

−0.041***

(0.030)

−0.116***

(0.026)

0.077***

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural … 155

0.015

(0.012)

0.019*

(0.012)

0.14

(0.109)

0.175*

(0.105)

Canteen in the nearest complete primary school (Has−1)

Boarding school (Yes = 1)

In distance to the nearest complete primary school

In distance to the nearest township or town

MarginEffect

0.006

(0.007)

0.017

(0.013)

0.026**

(0.013)

(0.065)

0.154

(0.119)

0.240**

(0.119)

(0.007)

(0.063)

0.054

−0.016**

−0.145**

MarginEffect

(0.240)

0.405*

(0.247)

0.216

(0.014)

0.024*

(0.015)

0.013

(0.008)

−0.004

−0.059

(0.138)

(0.008)

−0.006

(0.127)

−0.108

(0.013)

−0.003

−0.048

(0.212)

(0.013)

0.003

(0.218)

0.049

Coef.

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Coef.

Samples aged 7–12

Community resources

Father being a local nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

Father being a migrant nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

(2)

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

Table 5.4 (continued)

MarginEffect

(0.273)

0.379 (0.012)

0.016

(0.011)

−0.018

−0.424 (0.267)

(0.007)

0.008

(0.006)

−0.016***

(0.011)

0.025**

(0.010)

0.003

(0.160)

0.189

(0.142)

−0.388***

(0.265)

0.597**

(0.240)

0.064

Coef.

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

(0.261)

0.473*

(0.285)

0.011

(0.152)

0.166

(0.144)

−0.217

(0.254)

0.663***

(0.255)

0.466

Coef.

(0.022)

0.039*

(0.024)

0.001

(0.013)

0.014

(0.012)

−0.018

(0.021)

0.055***

(0.021)

0.039*

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

(0.203)

0.398**

(0.200)

0.06

(0.102)

−0.04

(0.107)

−0.113

(0.171)

−0.188

(0.189)

(0.039)

0.078**

(0.039)

0.012

(0.020)

−0.008

(0.021)

−0.022

(0.033)

−0.037

(0.037)

MarginEffect −0.05

Coef. −0.256

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

(0.169)

0.04

(0.161)

0.235

(0.088)

0.026

(0.089)

−0.128

(0.145)

0.063

(0.154)

−0.004

Coef.

(continued)

(0.034)

0.008

(0.032)

0.047

(0.017)

0.005

(0.018)

−0.026

(0.029)

0.012

(0.031)

−0.001

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

156 5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

1887

4242

Observations

1887

(0.016)

2088

0

0.2006

(1.592)

3.243**

Y

Y

(0.479)

0.448

Coef.

2088

(0.020)

0.019

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

1128

0.0001

0.0738

(1.410)

1.929

Y

Y

(0.353)

0.201

Coef.

1128

(0.029)

0.017

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

Notes (i) ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1 (ii) The above regression results all incorporate the dummy variables of single-year age group and province to control the age effect

0.0017

0

Prob > chi2

4242

0.0524

(1.334)

(0.655)

0.2159

2.958**

0.302

Constant

PseudoR2

Y

Y

Y

(0.268)

Dummy variable of province

(0.016)

(0.150)

MarginEffect −0.001

Coef.

−0.024

Y

0.006

0.053

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Coef.

Samples aged 7–12

Dummy variable of age

Influenced by the closure and merger (Yes = 1)

(2)

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

Table 5.4 (continued)

MarginEffect

Coef.

867

0

0.1195

1227

0

0.132

(0.923)

−3.092***

(1.076)

−4.011***

Y

(0.224)

0.127

Y

867

(0.055)

0.074

1227

(0.045)

0.025

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

Y

Y

(0.280)

0.38

Coef.

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural … 157

0.019

(0.017)

0.218

(0.188)

Parents’ years of schooling

Number of siblings

−0.022**

(0.010)

0.007**

(0.003)

−0.246**

(0.116)

0.077**

(0.036)

Family background

Gender (Male = 1)

(0.087)

0.007

(0.249)

−0.201

(0.370)

−0.401

(0.005)

0

(0.013)

−0.011

(0.020)

−0.021

MarginEffect

Coef

Coef.

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Demographic feature

(2)

Samples aged 7–12

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

(0.180)

0.149

(0.391)

−0.502

(0.848)

−0.217

Coef.

(0.003)

0.003

(0.008)

−0.009

(0.016)

−0.004

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

(0.098)

0.104

(0.293)

0.006

(0.478)

0.284

Coef.

(0.005)

0.006

(0.016)

0

(0.026)

0.015

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

(0.059)

0.172***

(0.187)

−0.532***

(0.319)

0.541

Coef.

(0.009)

0.027***

(0.028)

−0.085***

(0.050)

0.086

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

(0.047)

0.106**

(0.158)

−0.377**

(0.268)

0.565

Coef.

(continued)

(0.007)

0.017**

(0.025)

−0.060**

(0.041)

0.089

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

Table 5.5 Results of the influencing factors of education opportunities by logit regression (samples of children of the Han Nationality only)

158 5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

MarginEffect

−0.01

(0.014)

0.01

(0.019)

0.02

(0.018)

Coef.

(0.163)

0.115

(0.214)

0.223

(0.198)

Canteen in the Nearest complete primary school (Has = 1)

Boarding school (Yes = 1)

In distance to the nearest township or town

0.015

(0.020)

0.174

(0.226)

(0.022)

(0.011)

(0.119)

(0.246)

−0.011

−0.119

0.043**

(0.011)

(0.127)

0.486**

0.015

0.167

(0.464)

0.543

(0.527)

0.502

(0.253)

−0.281

(0.252)

−0.032

(0.414)

0.143

(0.421)

0.231

(0.308)

−0.097

Coef

(0.024)

0.028

(0.028)

0.026*

(0.013)

−0.015

(0.013)

−0.002

(0.022)

0.007

(0.022)

0.012

(0.016)

−0.005

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

−0.116

Samples aged 7–12

Samples aged 7–18

Community resources

Father being a local nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

Father being a migrant nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

In income per capita

(2)

(1)

Table 5.5 (continued)

MarginEffect

(1.293)

2.386* (0.027)

0.045*

(0.028)

−0.047*

−2.536*

(1.340)

(0.008)

0.001

(0.012)

−0.017

(0.023)

0.022

(0.022)

0.013

(0.013)

−0.004

(0.417)

0.068

(0.622)

−0.915

(1.176)

1.179

(1.173)

0.69

(0.674)

−0.199

Coef.

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

MarginEffect

(0.535)

0.923*

(0.677)

0.537

(0.310)

−0.268

(0.324)

0.089

(0.675)

1.727**

(0.029)

0.049*

(0.036)

0.029

(0.017)

−0.014

(0.017)

0.005

(0.038)

0.092**

(0.030)

−0.055*

(0.557)

(0.024)

−1.022*

0.008

(0.452)

0.144

Coef.

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

MarginEffect

(0.378)

0.18

(0.384)

0.228

(0.175)

−0.097

(0.214)

0.155

(0.060)

0.029

(0.061)

0.036

(0.028)

−0.016

(0.034)

0.025

(0.048)

−0.078

−0.49

(0.308)

(0.060)

0.021

(0.043)

−0.003

(0.375)

0.13

(0.268)

−0.019

Coef.

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

MarginEffect

(continued)

(0.052)

−0.038

−0.24

(0.326)

(0.052)

0.095*

(0.025)

−0.015

(0.028)

0.042

(0.042)

−0.002

(0.048)

0.028

(0.036)

−0.025

(0.330)

0.597*

(0.157)

−0.097

(0.180)

0.265

(0.265)

−0.012

(0.303)

0.176

(0.224)

−0.156

Coef.

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural … 159

0.2045

611

0

1427

Prob > chi2

Observations

(0.028)

0.03

385

0.5392

0.2155

(6.471)

5.112

Y

Y

(1.301)

0.821

Coef.

(0.025)

0.015

MarginEffect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

388

0.1339

0.1437

(3.972)

0.159

Y

Y

(0.677)

0.919

Coef.

(0.037)

0.049

MarginEffect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

Notes (i) *** p < 0.01, ** 0.05, ** p < 0.1 (ii) The above regression results all incorporate the dummy variables of single-year age group and province to control the age effect

0.0993

(2.830)

(1.483)

0.1999

1.922

0.882

Constant

PseudoR2

Y

Y

Dummy variable of province

(0.523)

Y

(0.024)

(0.267)

Y

0.012

MarginEffect

Coef

Coef.

0.135

0.564

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

MarginEffect

Samples aged 7–12

Samples aged 7–18

Dummy variable of age

Influenced by the closure and merger (Yes = 1)

(2)

(1)

Table 5.5 (continued)

MarginEffect

310

0

0.1582

428

0

0.1746

(2.093)

0.813

(2.429)

−0.857

Y

(0.392)

(0.062)

MarginEffect −0.043

Coef. −0.271

Y

(0.081)

0.171**

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

Y

Y

(0.518)

1.075**

Coef.

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

160 5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

0.031**

(0.013)

0.263**

(0.113)

Father being a local nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

Father being a migrant nonagricultural worker (Yes = 1)

In income per capita

Parents’ years of schooling

Number of siblings

(0.002)

0.019

(0.015)

(0.127)

(0.015)

(0.130)

0.16

(0.009)

0.01

(0.080)

0.084

0.011

(0.021)

0.091

0.015***

(0.007)

(0.059)

0.126***

−0.020***

−0.173***

Family background

Gender (Female = 1)

(0.016)

−0.005

−0.073

(0.255)

(0.016)

(0.263)

(0.011) −0.005

(0.173)

−0.078

(0.003) −0.018*

(0.046)

0.004

(0.008)

−0.007

(0.014)

0.018

−0.298*

0.069

(0.130)

−0.117

(0.233)

0.294

MarginEfect

Coef.

Coef.

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Demographic feature

(2)

Samples aged 7–12

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

(0.274)

0.550**

(0.249)

−0.005

(0.185)

−0.091

(0.039)

0.212***

(0.113)

−0.165

(0.232)

−0.139

Coef.

(0.016)

0.033**

(0.015)

0

(0.011)

−0.005

(0.002)

0.013***

(0.007)

−0.01

(0.014)

−0.008

MarginEfect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

Samples aged 13–18

(3)

(0.288)

0.479*

(0.304)

0.749**

(0.174)

−0.083

(0.042)

0.097**

(0.123)

−0.317**

(0.250)

0.343

Coef.

(0.027)

0.046*

(0.029)

0.071**

(0.017)

−0.008

(0.004)

0.009**

(0.012)

−0.030**

(0.023)

0.032

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

(0.213)

−0.131

(0.230)

−0.419*

(0.138)

0.513***

(0.040)

0.189***

(0.105)

−0.271**

(0.194)

0.484**

Coef.

(0.044)

−0.027

(0.047)

−0.087*

(0.027)

0.106***

(0.008)

0.039***

(0.021)

−0.056***

(0.039)

0.100**

MarginEfect

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

Table 5.6 Results of the factors influencing education opportunities by logit regression (samples of ethnic minority children only) (6)

(0.178)

0.1

(0.186)

−0.174

(0.119)

0.417***

(0.031)

0.180***

(0.084)

−0.172**

(0.160)

0.261

Coef.

(continued)

(0.037)

0.021

(0.039)

−0.036

(0.024)

0.087***

(0.006)

0.038***

(0.017)

−0.036**

(0.033)

0.055

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural … 161

(0.022)

(0.192)

Y

−0.013

−0.11

Dummy variable of province

(0.017)

Y

0.026

(0.145)

(0.017)

0.222

0.011

(0.143)

(0.010)

0.093

0.01

(0.082)

(0.009)

(0.076)

0.082

−0.030***

−0.256***

Dummy variable of age

Influenced by the closure and merger (Yes = 1)

Canteen in the nearest complete primary school (Has = 1)

Boarding school (Yes = 1)

In Distance to the nearest complete primary school

In Distance to the nearest township or town

Community resources

Y

Y

(0.323)

−0.432

(0.292)

0.397

(0.293)

0.168

(0.171)

0.046

(0.153)

−0.155

Coef.

(0.020)

−0.027

(0.018)

0.025

(0.018)

0.01

(0.011)

0.003

(0.010)

−0.01

MarginEfect

Y

Y

(0.518)

0.288

(0.291)

0.201

(0.031)

0.017

(0.017)

0.012

(0.017)

−0.019

−0.321 (0.280)

(0.010)

0.011

(0.009)

−0.021**

MarginEfect

(0.176)

0.184

(0.148)

−0.358**

Coef.

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

MarginEfect

Samples aged 13–18

Samples aged 7–12

Coef.

(3)

(2)

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

Table 5.6 (continued)

Y

Y

(0.430)

0.055

(0.312)

0.248

(0.329)

0.024

(0.184)

0.236

(0.164)

−0.291*

Coef.

(0.041)

0.005

(0.030)

0.024

(0.031)

0.002

(0.018)

0.022

(0.016)

−0.028*

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

Y

Y

(0.372)

−0.179

(0.254)

0.577**

(0.248)

−0.061

(0.077)

−0.037

(0.052)

0.120**

(0.051)

−0.013

(0.028)

−0.011

−0.054 (0.137)

(0.027)

−0.042

MarginEfect

(0.130)

−0.204

Coef.

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

Y

Y

(0.305)

0.205

(0.209)

0.102

(0.196)

0.191

(0.117)

−0.033

(0.108)

−0.293***

Coef.

(continued)

(0.064)

0.043

(0.044)

0.021

(0.041)

0.04

(0.024)

−0.007

(0.022)

−0.061***

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

162 5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

0.0013

MarginEfect

Coef.

1354

0

0.1644

(1.593)

1.703

MarginEfect

740

0.0015

0.0807

(1.535)

1.656

Coef.

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 13–15

(4)

557

0

0.1143

(1.222)

−4.880***

Coef.

MarginEfect

DV: Admission to senior high school = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(5)

Notes (i) ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗ ∗ p < 0.05. ∗ p < 0.1 (ii) The above regression results all incorporate the dummy variables of single-year age group and province to control the age effect

1276

0

2815

Prob > chi2

Observations

(1.561)

0.0742

(0.738)

Coef.

4.131**

0.551

MarginEfect

DV: Admission to junior high school = 1

DV: School student = 1

DV: School student = 1

Coef.

Samples aged 13–18

Samples aged 7–12

0.2355

PseudoR2

Constant

(3)

(2)

(1)

Samples aged 7–18

Table 5.6 (continued)

799

0

0.1225

(1.042)

−3.979***

Coef.

MarginEfect

DV: School student = 1

Samples aged 16–18

(6)

5.3 Analysis of the Influencing Factors of Education Opportunities for Rural … 163

164

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

more negatively affected, with a fall of 4.1% (see Model 6). It is worth mentioning that the number of siblings has a greater impact on the probability of junior high school graduates entering senior high school, with each additional sibling bringing the promotion rate down by 6.9% (see Model 5). Parents’ years of schooling have a positive influence on the enrollment and promotion rates of children. The household income per capita only has a significant positive effect on the senior high school attendance rate and promotion rate but no great impact at the compulsory education stage. Being a nonagricultural worker has a significant positive influence on education opportunities, being a migrant nonagricultural worker positively affects the junior high school attendance rate only, and being a local nonagricultural worker has a positive impact on the junior high school enrollment rate and attendance rate but has no significant impact on other aspects. On the premise of controlling the influence of family backgrounds, the impact of the distribution of local education resources is further explored. The distance between an individual’s village and the township or town center is significantly negatively correlated with the school attendance rate. Each time the distance rises by 1%, the school attendance rate will fall by 1.6%, which shows that the more remote the area is, the more an individual’s education opportunities will be affected. Whether there are dormitories in the nearest complete primary school has no significant impact on the enrollment and attendance rates in all grades. Whether there are canteens in the nearest complete primary schools reflects the level of school facilities. When the nearest complete primary schools had canteens, the primary school enrollment rate, junior high school attendance rate and senior high school enrollment rate all increased significantly. The marginal effects obtained in the whole sample regression results indicate that there are significant differences between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities. With other conditions under control, the probability of ethnic minority students attending school is noticeably lower than that of the Han. Furthermore, we compared the regression results of the subsamples of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities (see Tables 5.5 and 5.6). First, compared with the Han nationality, ethnic minorities are still negatively influenced by the number of siblings but to a relatively smaller degree than before. Meanwhile, ethnic minorities are more sensitively influenced by the economic and social status of their households, which is manifested as follows: (i) with an average increase of one year in the parents’ years of schooling, the probability of ethnic minorities entering senior high school after finishing junior high school grows significantly by 3.9%, while the corresponding probability of the samples of the Han is only 2.7%; (ii) with an average increase of one year in the parents’ years of schooling, the probability of senior high school-age ethnic minorities (16–18) attending school rises greatly by 3.8%, while the corresponding probability of the samples of the Han is only 1.7%; (iii) the household income per capita only has a statistically significant effect on the education opportunities of ethnic minorities in senior high school but no significant influence on any educational indicators of the Han. By comparing the education opportunities and family backgrounds of the school-age population of both ethnic minorities and the Han nationality, it can be

5.4 Conclusion and Discussion

165

found that ethnic minorities have higher elasticity, which means that the improvement of parents’ education and household income has a stronger positive effect on ethnic minorities. Regarding the distribution of local education resources, the distance to the nearest complete primary school is not significant for both the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, while the distance to the nearest township or town has a negative impact on the education opportunities of ethnic minorities only. The policy of “School Closure and Merger” has not significantly affected the educational opportunities of ethnic minorities but has sharply increased the probability of Han students entering senior high school from junior high school. This may be because the education resources in some areas are more concentrated after “closing and merging schools” and thus provide better education quality and more benefits for the Han people. By comparing the education opportunities of the school-age population of both ethnic minorities and the Han nationality and the distribution of local education resources, it can be found that ethnic minorities have lower elasticity, and the same investment in education resources brings fewer education opportunities for the school-age ethnic minorities than for the Han people.

5.4 Conclusion and Discussion This chapter analyzes the education of the school-age population in ethnic minority areas in accordance with the large sample survey data of the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region and attempts to study the influencing factors of education status from the perspectives of family backgrounds and education resource distribution. From a quantitative point of view, this chapter supplements the literature mainly focusing on qualitative research and provides policy makers and academic circles with data support to understand rural basic education in ethnic minority areas. The analysis results of this chapter show that the development of Western ethnic minority areas remains far behind the education goals set by the country’s policies. This situation is manifested as follows. First, the development of compulsory education in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions severely lags behind the policy goals, and priority should still be given to basic education to support Western ethnic minority areas. Since 1986, China has implemented nine-year compulsory education and stipulated that “compulsory education is the one that all school-age children and adolescents must receive and the public welfare undertaking which must be guaranteed by the country.” Moreover, tuition and miscellaneous fees have been waived at the compulsory education stage since 2006 in China, which plays a critical role in consolidating and improving the level of compulsory education. In 2002, the Chinese government issued the “Decision of the State Council on Deepening Reforms and Expediting the Development of Ethnic Education,” which put forward the goal of comprehensively achieving the “Two Basics” (namely, basically popularizing compulsory education and basically eliminating illiteracy) in ethnic minority areas

166

5 Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Basic Education of Rural …

by 2010. However, the analyses in this chapter demonstrate that in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the West region in 2011, the attendance rate of primary school-age children only reached 92.7%, the attendance rate of junior high school-age children was just 89.5%, and there were still approximately 7% of primary school-age children and approximately 10% of junior high school-age children who did not receive compulsory education according to the national regulations. The development of compulsory education in western ethnic minority areas has not only failed to reach the goal put forward in 2002 but also faced a great challenge to achieve the medium- and long-term goal proposed by the “Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Programme for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)” from the perspective of the current development. Second, in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the attendance rate of the senior high school-age population is only 57.8%, which is far from the goal of making senior secondary education universal. Senior secondary education is the key to the country’s development. The “Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Programme for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)” puts forward the goal of making senior secondary education universal by 2020. In this context, China’s senior secondary education is developing steadily. According to the data released by the Ministry of Education of the PRC (MOE of the PRC), the gross enrollment rate of the senior high school-age population reached 86% in 2013, an increase of 3.5 percentage points over 2010. However, there is still a serious regional imbalance in the development of senior secondary education. In 2011, the attendance rate of the senior high school-age population in the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region was only 57.8%, 11 percentage points lower than the corresponding rate calculated in accordance with the sixth population census in 2010. Therefore, to achieve the goal of making senior secondary education universal across the country, a great challenge has yet to be addressed concerning the imbalanced regional development of education, and more investment should be focused on Western ethnic minority areas. Third, there are gaps among ethnic groups in Western ethnic minority areas, so it is necessary to give preferential treatment and policies to some ethnic minorities. The development of ethnic minority areas does not mean the development of ethnic minority populations. As Li Keqiang, Long Yuanwei, Liu Xiaomin and others mentioned, “in many ethnic minority areas, the modern economy which drives regional economic growth has few connections with the economic activities of ethnic minorities, and some ethnic minorities even don’t engage in the process of regional economic development.” From the results of this chapter, the education in western ethnic minority areas generally has fallen behind and there are still gaps among ethnic groups. This means that the education of some ethnic minorities is also relatively backward (such as the Yao and Uygur), and the indicators in each education stage are even worse, especially indicating larger gaps in junior high school and senior high school. Since 2005, the regions and schools with high-quality education resources in other provinces and municipalities have increased the enrollment of students in the Xinjiang and Tibetan classes (special classes for ethnic minorities), which demonstrates the preferential policies on education for a single ethnic minority. However, as

5.4 Conclusion and Discussion

167

the enrollment of students in Xinjiang and Tibetan classes is very limited, the policy is still a drop in the ocean to improve the overall education of ethnic minorities in the Western region. Finally, it is more efficient to enhance the education of children of minority groups through policies promoting family development. The results of the regression analysis in this chapter prove that education has a strong intergenerational transmission effect, and family resources and backgrounds also play an essential role in the access to education opportunities in the rural areas of the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region. Ethnic minority households have not only relatively weak education resources but also more children, which further leads to the dilution of education resources, thus negatively impacting ethnic minorities’ access to education. The education opportunities of ethnic minorities are more sensitive to the influence of family backgrounds compared with those of the school-age population of the Han nationality. Therefore, when formulating preferential and supportive policies for a single ethnic minority, the government should adopt a series of policies on family development to provide ethnic minority households with more opportunities to earn income and better social security, thus creating stronger family support for the school-age population of ethnic minorities and more efficiently improving their educational opportunities in ethnic minority households.

Chapter 6

Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Countermeasures

6.1 Research Background and Problems Employment is the cornerstone of wellbeing. In the face of the new situation featuring a peak number of college graduates, a decline in the economic growth rate and the transformations of the economic structure to overcome the employment problems of college students is a prominent problem besetting China now. The problem is mirrored by the “most difficult employment season” for college students, which has been constantly overamplified by the media in recent years. With relatively smaller aggregate economies compared with the Eastern region, the Central and the Western regions, ethnic minority areas in particular, are incapable of providing adequate jobs for college graduates to fully meet their demands for employment and are therefore confronted with more prominent employment pressure and difficulties. Whether there are employment difficulties for China’s college students is a question that deserves discussion. From the perspective of the employment situation, the number of college graduates grows each year. There were only 1.45 million graduates in 2002, and the number increased to 4.95 million in 2007, 6.99 million in 2013, which was dubbed by the media “the most difficult employment season”, 7.27 million in 2014, which was dubbed “the most difficult employment season ever”, and an estimated number of 7.5 million in 2015. However, the employment rate for new college graduates declines each year. Some data show that the rate has declined from approximately 90–65%. From the perspective of scholars, college students are indeed faced with employment difficulties, but objectively speaking, the employment rate for new college graduates overstates employment difficulties. Labor market segmentation makes the employment difficulties of college students structured and makes them undergo transformations. These difficulties are reflected by the year-by-year decreasing employment rate for new college graduates, the gap between the expected salary and the actual salary, and the nontraditional employment choices of college graduates. Regardless, confronted with the harsh employment conditions nationwide and the backward economic development and unreasonable industrial structure of

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_6

169

170

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

ethnic minority areas, college students in ethnic minority areas undergo more prominent employment problems. Some studies show that when other factors are identical, the employment odds of graduates coming from the Eastern region are 14.95 times as high as those of graduates coming from the Western region. Research on the reasons for the employment problems of college students abroad mostly focuses on the following three perspectives: supply, demand and the match between supply and demand. First, from the perspective of supply, the employability of college students is the core problem; from the perspective of demand, the number of posts and employment structures influence the employment of college students; from the perspective of the match between supply and demand, employment services are the priority. Second, the employment choices of college students are analyzed from the perspectives of human capital and social capital. The uncertain risk of human capital investment imposes a direct influence on the employment choices of college students. Granovetter put forward the “weak ties hypothesis” while studying the impact of social relationship networks on people’s chances of getting hired, thus providing a basis for some scholars to put forward social resource theory. At home, the reasons for the employment problems of college students are the main research direction. The inadequate employability of college students leads to the emergence of the employment dilemma; however, some scholars hold that the unbalanced development between urban and rural areas and among different regions, the unreasonable system arrangements and policies and measures, the planned system plus supply-side orientation and the unsound development of the job market combine to lead to the employment difficulties of college students. Tu Siyi, nevertheless, holds that these difficulties can be attributed to the job market’s failure to provide adequate jobs, the multifold employment barriers, the problems of major setups of colleges and the improper employment concepts of college students. Analyzing the employment problems of college students from the perspective of policies can also serve as a starting point. The evolution of the employment policies for college students in China is closely related to the improvement of the socialist market economy system, which shows that the employment policies have undergone a profit-oriented transformation. Yang Weiguo introduced policies and measures promoting the employment of college students abroad from the following three perspectives: the promotion of demand, the promotion of supply and the promotion of the match between supply and demand. Research exploring the employment problems of college students from a micro angle has been mature. Social capital directly affects the employment of college students, and parents with satisfactory economic and social status and cultural backgrounds have a significant and positive influence on college students’ chances of being employed and getting a handsome salary. Research on the employment problems of college students in ethnic minority areas starts late and mainly focuses on the employment of ethnic minority college students who have seen a year-by-year decreasing employment rate, a longer employment waiting period, increasing employment costs, unbalanced situations in terms of different regions and industries, lower salaries and a wide gap between the employment rate for ethnic minority college students and that for Han college students, all of which are prominent features of the current situation of ethnic minority

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority …

171

college students’ employment. The inconsistency between enrollment policies and employment policies, the unfair evaluation standards of the job market, the parents’ deep-rooted attachment to the hometown, the backward basic education, and the poor performance of the standard Chinese language are prominent reasons for the employment difficulties of ethnic minority college students. Generally, studies on the employment problems of college students in ethnic minority areas are scarce, and these studies mainly focus on ethnic minority college students and are carried out based on questionnaire surveys of a certain region and college and university without explorations of the employment of college students in ethnic minority areas. Therefore, this chapter will take these explorations as its starting point. This chapter mainly explores the employment difficulties of college students in ethnic minority areas1 amid the universally difficult employment situation of college students in China. This chapter is arranged as follows. The second part briefly introduces the current situation of the development of higher education in ethnic minority areas and analyzes the current situation of the employment of college students in ethnic minority areas by utilizing the data from the reports on the employment quality of graduates of ethnic minority areas in 2014. The third part sorts out and reviews the policies and measures aimed at promoting the employment of college students put forward by the central government and governments of ethnic minority areas. The fourth part focuses on the analysis of the employment problems facing college students in ethnic minority areas. The fifth part puts forward policy recommendations on the promotion of employment of college students in ethnic minority areas.

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Current Situation of Employment of College Students in these Areas 1. Analysis of the current development of higher education in ethnic minority areas Since the enrollment expansion of colleges in 1988, the higher education of ethnic minority areas has seen a rapid development and seen its level being greatly improved. The enrollment size of higher education and the number of students at school and other indicators used to measure the development of higher education have dramatically changed. (1) Constant increase in the number of students at school The number of students at school is a comprehensive indicator that can reflect the development scale and level of higher education to the utmost. The number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas has experienced the 1

According to the definition of ethnic minority areas by the NEAC, ethnic minority areas in this chapter mainly refer to the eight provinces and autonomous regions including the five autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia, and Tibet), Qinghai, Guizhou and Yunnan.

172

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

transition from a rapid increase to a constant increase. As seen from Table 6.1, during the eight years from 1998 to 2005, the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas witnessed a 3.45-fold increase from 0.295 million to 1.3128 million, registering an average annual growth rate of 23.98%. All of this is closely related to the policy of enrollment expansion of colleges. From 2005 to 2013, the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas grows at a lower speed, with an average annual growth rate of 8.49%, which is, nevertheless, 2.57 percentage points higher than the national level (5.92%). In addition, the proportion of the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas in the national total increased from 8.66% in 1998 to 10.19% in 2013. Generally, the growth rate of the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas is higher than the national level and remains good momentum after the policy of enrollment expansion of colleges gradually becomes rational. (2) Constant expansion of enrollment size Enrollment size is also an important indicator used to measure the development of higher education. As seen from Table 6.2, the enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas witnessed a 7.1-fold increase from 0.0943 million in 1998 to 0.7649 million in 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 15.66%, which is higher than the national rate of 13.95%. However, since 2005, the enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas has increased at an obviously lower speed, with a mere growth rate of 0.91% in 2012, which is lower than the national rate that year. Generally, the growth rate of the enrollment number in ethnic minority areas is higher than the national level, and the enrollment size in these areas is expanded constantly, which will foster a large number of talent for the areas and therefore promote the economic and social development of the areas in the long run. (3) Constantly improved education security mechanism The education security mechanism is mainly mirrored by financial support and teaching faculties. From the perspective of financial support, in 2012, government spending on education reached RMB 2.223623 trillion, accounting for over 4% of GDP for the first time.2 As the government input to education increases, the educational expenses per student of regular higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas increase constantly from RMB 14,516 in 2005 to RMB 26,129 in 2011 (see Table 6.3). With regard to financial distribution, expenditures on personal development were higher than those on public use from 2005 to 2009, and expenditures on infrastructure projects continued to decrease, which shows that ethnic minority areas pay more attention to talent development and training. With regard to the teaching faculties, there are more full-time teachers with higher college degrees in higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas, and the proportion of ethnic minority 2

The MOE of the PRC, the NBS, and the Ministry of Finance: The “Statistical Report on the 2012 Expenditures on Education”.

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority …

173

Table 6.1 Analysis of the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas and across the country 1998–2013 Category

Number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas (10,000 persons)

Growth rate of the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas (%)

Number of students at school receiving higher education across the country (10,000 persons)

Growth rate of the number of students at school receiving higher education across the country (%)

Proportion of the number of students at school receiving higher education in ethnic minority areas in the National total (%)

1998

29.50

–

340.88

–

8.66

1999

35.09

18.95

408.59

19.86

8.59

2000

48.88

39.30

556.09

36.10

8.79

2001

63.43

29.77

719.07

29.31

8.82

2002

76.55

20.68

903.36

25.63

8.47

2003

92.89

21.35

1108.56

22.72

8.38

2004

112.47

21.08

1333.50

20.29

8.43

2005

131.28

16.72

1561.78

17.12

8.41

2006

146.06

11.26

1738.84

11.34

8.40

2007

161.44

10.53

1884.90

8.40

8.57

2008

178.92

10.83

2021.02

7.22

8.85

2009

196.42

9.78

2144.66

6.12

9.16

2010

210.87

7.36

2231.79

4.06

9.45

2011

224.09

6.27

2308.51

3.44

9.71

2012

236.39

5.49

2391.32

3.59

9.89

2013

251.57

6.42

2468.07

3.21

10.19

Source Calculated in accordance with the China Statistical Yearbook (1999–2013) and the “Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on the 2013 National Economic and Social Development”

teachers is steadily increasing, which provides soft support for more talent training in ethnic minority areas. 2. Analysis of the current employment situation of college students in ethnic minority areas This part will, based on the analysis and comparison of the reports on the employment quality of graduates issued by ethnic minority areas, analyze the current situation of employment of college students in ethnic minority areas. Given that all fresh graduates in Tibet were employed for three consecutive years from 2011 to 2013 thanks to measures such as the projects providing employment aid to Tibet, the increase

174

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Table 6.2 Analysis of the enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas and across the country 1998–2013 Enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas (10,000 persons)

Growth rate of the enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas (%)

Enrollment number of higher education across the country (10,000 persons)

Growth rate of the enrollment number of higher education across the country (%)

Proportion of the enrollment number of higher education in ethnic minority areas in the National total (%)

1998

9.43

–

108.36

–

8.70

1999

13.19

39.87

154.86

42.91

8.52

2000

19.95

51.25

220.61

42.46

9.04

2001

24.58

23.21

268.28

21.61

9.16

2002

26.68

8.54

320.50

19.46

8.32

2003

32.51

21.85

382.17

19.24

8.51

2004

38.83

19.44

447.34

17.05

8.68

2005

43.05

10.86

504.46

12.77

8.53

2006

47.61

10.59

546.05

8.24

8.72

2007

51.00

7.12

565.92

3.64

9.01

2008

56.11

10.02

607.66

7.38

9.23

2009

61.24

9.14

639.49

5.24

9.58

2010

65.62

7.15

661.76

3.48

9.92

2011

69.05

5.23

681.50

2.98

10.13

2012

69.68

0.91

688.83

1.08

10.12

2013

76.49

9.77

699.83

1.60

10.93

Source Calculated in accordance with the China Statistical Yearbook (1999–2013) and the “Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on the 2013 National Economic and Social Development”

of post of public officials, the purchase of public-service jobs and the improvement of enterprises’ capacity for job creation, and the People’s Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region set the goal of employment for all fresh college graduates in Tibet for the fourth time in 2014. Therefore,3 focuses on analyzing the current employment situation of college students in ethnic minority areas except for Tibet. (1) Analysis of the basic information about the employment of college students in ethnic minority areas:

3

“Projects Providing Employment Aid to Tibet Widen the Development Road of Graduates: Threeconsecutive-year Employment for All Fresh Graduates”, August 25th, 2014, the website of Xinzhiye (http: www.ncss.org.cn/zx/jydt/jyxsfx/285834.shtml).

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority …

175

Table 6.3 Educational expenses per student of regular higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas Year

Educational expenses per student (RMB)

Expenditure on personal development

Expenditure on public Expenditure on use infrastructure projects

Value (RMB)

Value (RMB)

Proportion (%)

Proportion (%)

Value (RMB)

Proportion (%)

2005

14,516

5876

40.48

5239

36.09

3400

23.43

2006

14,840

6423

43.28

5552

37.41

2866

19.31 12.82

2007

14,302

6852

47.91

5616

39.27

1834

2008

16,094

8123

50.47

6846

42.54

1125

6.99

2009

16,698

8509

50.96

7579

45.39

609

3.65

2010

19,559

9063

46.34

9222

47.15

1274

6.51

2011

26,129

10,165

38.90

14,567

55.75

1397

5.35

Source Calculated in accordance with the China Educational Finance Statistical Yearbook (2006– 2012)

(i) The employment rate for new college graduates4 in ethnic minority areas varies by region (see Tables 6.4 and 6.5). Table 6.5 shows that the average employment rate for new college graduates in ethnic minority areas is 87.44%, and Qinghai registers the highest rate (90.65%), followed by Guangxi (88.55%), Guizhou (88.05%), and Yunnan (87.70%). The rates of Xinjiang, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia are lower than the average, and the rates of Xinjiang (72.36%) and Ningxia (76.92%) are particularly low. The difference in employment rates between different ethnic provinces and autonomous regions reflects the differences in economic development and higher education scales. (ii) The employment rate for new college graduates in ethnic minority areas varies with college degrees. As seen from Table 6.5, it is common to see that the employment rate for higher vocational college students is higher than that for graduates with bachelor’s degrees, and the employment rate for graduates with bachelor’s degrees is higher than that for postgraduates. The employment rates for new postgraduates in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia and Guizhou are 49.34%, 54.46%, 60.24% and 66.08%, respectively, which means that postgraduates are faced with great employment pressure that is probably related to the blind expansion of the enrollment size of postgraduates in ethnic minority areas and the unnecessary role of highly qualified postgraduates in the regional economic structure. In addition, the employment rate for new postgraduates is even lowered by their 4

The employment rate for new graduates refers to the employment rate calculated before September 1st, 2014.

176

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Table 6.4 Number of college graduates in ethnic minority areas by college degree 2014 Unit: person Name

Guangxi Guizhou Yunnan Inner Xinjiang Ningxia Qinghai Ethnic Mongolia Minority Areas

Graduates with Master’s degrees

–

4454

9389

5322

4899

1347

831

–

Graduates with Bachelor’s degrees

–

52,603

75,231

52,441

33,145

13,796

7458

–

Graduates – with Associate’s degrees

46,633

67,653

55,912

34,223

11,193

5695

–

181,000 103,690 152,273 113,675

77,166

26,336

13,984

Total

654,140

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates” (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Qinghai, Ningxia and Guizhou)

employment concepts that they cannot find great jobs and will not accept small jobs. The employment rate for new higher vocational college students in Ningxia is as high as 93.45%, while the rates for new postgraduates and graduates with bachelor’s degrees are only 60.24% and 65.15%, respectively, which reflects the inconsistency between the talent training and major setup of colleges and regional economic and employment structures. (2) Analysis of college graduates’ choices of employers in ethnic minority areas The analysis of college graduates’ choices to employers in ethnic minority areas, by analyzing the data of their choices to employers, aims to explore whether they choose Party and government bodies, public institutions or enterprises as their employers or choose to start their own businesses. (i)

Enterprises serve as the main channel for graduate employment; nonpublic enterprises absorb most graduates, and the proportion of graduates with master’s degrees occupying an occupation in enterprises is relatively low. First, enterprises serve as the main channel for graduate employment, which can be fully presented in Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, whose proportions of graduates taking up an occupation in enterprises are 70.19%, 68.70%, 68.58%, 67.35%, 64.42% and 45.93%, respectively (see Table 6.6). Second, nonpublic enterprises absorb half of the graduates. Table 6.7 shows that the nonpublic enterprises in Ningxia, Guangxi, Yunnan and Xinjiang absorb 58.04%, 55.50%, 55.21% and 49.79% of graduates, respectively, which can be attributed to the preferential policy of the state encouraging

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority …

177

Table 6.5 Employment rate for new college graduates in ethnic minority areas by college degree 2014 Unit: % Name

Guangxi Guizhou Yunnan Inner Xinjiang Ningxia Qinghai Ethnic Mongolia minority areas

Graduates with Master’s degrees

85.79

66.08

85.10

49.34

54.46

60.24

85.56

–

Graduates with Bachelor’s degrees

86.64

85.54

87.10

85.67

65.99

65.15

88.28

–

Graduates 90.07 with Associate’s degrees

92.98

88.80

89.65

83.66

93.45

94.49

–

88.55

88.05

87.70

85.93

72.36

76.92

90.65

Total

87.44

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates” (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Qinghai, Ningxia and Guizhou)

graduates to get a job in small and microenterprises and reflects the changes in graduates’ employment concepts. Third, the proportion of graduates with master’s degrees taking up an occupation in enterprises is relatively low. From Table 6.8, it can be noticed that the proportions of graduates with master’s degrees working in enterprises in Ningxia, Guangxi and Yunnan are 25.00%, 34.88% and 45.77%, respectively, lagging far behind those of graduates with bachelor’s degrees and graduates with associate’s degrees. Enterprises serving as the main channel for graduate employment can explain the relatively low employment rate for new graduates with master’s degrees in ethnic minority areas. (ii) Party and government bodies absorb relatively fewer graduates, public institutions become the second-largest force of absorbing graduates, and graduates with master’s degrees are more likely to work in Party and government bodies and public institutions. First, Party and government bodies absorb relatively fewer graduates. Generally, the proportion of graduates working in Party and government bodies ranges from 1.5 to 3% (see Table 6.6), but the proportion in Guizhou reaches 4.84%, going far beyond the average level. Second, public institutions become the second-largest force of absorbing graduates. In Guizhou, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, the proportions of graduates working in public institutions are 34.93%, 19.18%, 18.70%, 18.25%, 18.15% and 14.24%, respectively, lower than those of graduates working in enterprises (see Table 6.6). Third, graduates with master’s degrees are inclined and more likely to work in Party and government bodies and public institutions. Although a large number of graduates with bachelor’s

178

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

degrees and those with associate’s degrees work in Party and government bodies and public institutions, the proportion of them working in these departments is much lower than that of graduates with master’s degrees. In Ningxia, 70% of graduates with master’s degrees choose to work in public institutions, while only nine% of graduates with associate’s degrees work there (see Tables 6.9 and 6.10). This finding proves the conclusion of the research that the higher the level of education is, the higher the probability of graduates working in Party and government bodies, public institutions and state-owned enterprises. (iii) In ethnic minority areas, graduates choosing to start their own businesses represent an extremely small proportion, and there are regional and college degree differences. In general, the proportion of graduates who are self-employed in ethnic minority areas is less than one%, and the proportions in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang reach 0.05% and 0.1%, respectively, while in Yunnan, the proportion reaches 1.22%, 1.17 percentage points higher than that in Inner Mongolia (see Table 6.6). Thus, it can be reached that Yunnan graduates enjoy a strong sense of innovation, and they have the courage to try to start a business, which is to some extent linked to Yunnan’s geographic location. Yunnan shares international borders with some countries, so it is endowed to embrace flourishing border trade and a higher-level open economy. Table 6.11 shows that graduates with bachelor’s degrees are the most active in starting a business, followed by graduates with associate’s degrees and those with master’s degrees. (1) Analysis of college graduates’ choices to work places in ethnic minority areas In view of workplaces, graduates from ethnic minority areas and those from other areas have different choices; in addition, college degrees can also play a role in college graduates’ choices to work places in ethnic minority areas. (i)

In ethnic minority areas, more graduates choose to work within the areas. Graduates who work outside the area usually choose adjacent provinces with advanced economies. In 2014, the number of Yunnan graduates who chose to work within the province was 126,150, accounting for 85.31% of the total employed graduates; 21,722 chose to work outside Yunnan, accounting for 14.69% of the total. Regarding those working outside Yunnan, most flew to Guangdong (1.71%) and fewer to Guizhou (1.40%) and Sichuan (1.14%); Ningxia, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Tibet and Gansu each attracted fewer than 200 graduates. In 2014, the proportion of Ningxia graduates who chose to work within the autonomous region was 74.72%, followed by proportions of graduates who flew to Inner Mongolia and Gansu, which were 3.85% and 1.77%, respectively. The number of Inner Mongolia graduates who were employed in 2014 was 92,201, among which 76,263 were employed within the autonomous region, which accounted for 82.71% of the total, and 15,938 were employed outside the autonomous region, which accounted for only 17.29%. In 2014, 110,693 graduates in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were employed within the region, which accounted for 68.89% of the total employed graduates. The Pearl River Delta region was still attractive to Guangxi graduates. In

–

0.21

0.90

5.50

5.93

Primary-level – service projects

Enlistment in 332 the army

Self 1450 -employment

Others 8836 (flexible employment)

Going abroad 9519 or pursuing further study

67.35

3159

8628

794

475

–

41,934

3.46

9.45

0.87

0.52

–

45.93

34.93

4.84

6379

4551

1810

1057

4512

95,265

28,356

5942

4.31

3.08

1.22

0.71

3.05

64.42

19.18

4.02

8053

5478

49

410

1128

66,990

13,907

1664

8.24

5.61

0.05

0.42

1.15

68.58

14.24

1.70

3532

1047

60

345

943

36,505

9924

816

6.60

2.00

0.10

0.60

1.80

68.70

18.70

1.50

1635

122

34

14,219

3677

571

(continued)

8.07

0.60

0.17

70.19

18.15

2.82

108,206

31,891

4419

All kinds of enterprises

18.25

1.87

29,324

Ningxia

Public institutions

Xinjiang

3008

Inner Mongolia

Party and government bodies

Yunnan

Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) (person) (person) (person) (person) (person) (person)

College graduates’ choices to employers

Guizhou

Guangxi

Name

Table 6.6 Analysis of college graduates’ choices to employers in ethnic minority areas

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority … 179

Xinjiang

Ningxia

91,299

100

147,872

100

97,679

100

53,172

100

20,258

100

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Ningxia)

100

160,675

Inner Mongolia

Total

Yunnan

Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion Employed Proportion graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) graduates (%) (person) (person) (person) (person) (person) (person)

College graduates’ choices to employers

Guizhou

Guangxi

Name

Table 6.6 (continued)

180 6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

67.35

108,206

14,848

89,172

4186

All kinds of enterprises

State-owned enterprises

Nonpublic enterprises

Foreign-funded enterprises

Yunnan

–

81,642

13,623

95,265

Employed graduates (person)

–

55.21

9.21

64.42

Proportion (%)

Xinjiang

–

26,472

10,033

36,505

Employed graduates (person)

–

49.79

18.87

68.70

Proportion (%)

Ningxia

280

11,757

2182

14,218

Employed graduates (person)

1.38

58.04

10.77

70.19

Proportion (%)

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guangxi and Ningxia)

2.61

55.5

9.24

Proportion (%)

Guangxi

Employed graduates (person)

Name

Enterprise types

Table 6.7 Employment situation of graduates by enterprise type in ethnic minority areas

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority … 181

Yunnan

2.61

1.38

Foreign-funded enterprises

55.21 –

9.21 1.00

7.00

17.00

25.00

Guangxi

3.03

12.75

19.10

34.88

Yunnan

–

13.27

32.51

45.77

2.00

15.00

51.00

68.00

Ningxia

2.97

7.62

48.93

59.52

Guangxi

–

9.78

51.76

61.54

Yunnan

Graduates with Bachelor’s degrees

1.00

7.00

70.00

78.00

Ningxia

2.33

10.66

62.44

74.83

Guangxi

–

8.03

62.10

70.13

Yunnan

Graduates with Associate’s degrees

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Yunnan, Guangxi and Ningxia)

9.24

55.00

58.04

10.77

Nonpublic enterprises

64.42

Ningxia

Guangxi

67.35

Ningxia

70.19

Graduates with Master’s degrees

Total

State-owned enterprises

Enterprises

Name

Table 6.8 Employment situation of Ningxia, Guangxi and Yunnan graduates with different college degrees in enterprises unit: %

182 6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

5942

–

Ningxia

2.82

4.02

1.87 –

568

208 3

6.38

3.12 –

4030

1076

Employed graduates (person)

4

5.52

1.76

Itemized poportion (%)

Graduates with Bachelor’s degrees

–

1344

1724

Employed graduates (person)

2

2.04

1.86

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Associate’s degrees

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Yunnan, Guangxi and Ningxia)

3008

Yunnan

Itemized proportion (%)

Employed graduates (person)

Employed graduates (person)

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Master’s degrees

Total

Guangxi

Party and government bodies

Table 6.9 Employment situation of Guangxi, Yunnan and Ningxia graduates with different college degrees in party and government bodies (unit: person)

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority … 183

–

Ningxia

18.25

18.15

19.18

3378 –

3551

50.62 70.00

39.86 –

14,288

13,196

Employed graduates (person)

21.00

19.57

21.58

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Bachelor’s degrees

–

10,517

12,750

Employed graduates (person)

9.00

15.94

13.74

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Associate’s degrees

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Yunnan, Guangxi and Ningxia)

29,324

28,356

Guangxi

Itemized proportion (%)

Employed graduates (person)

Employed graduates (person)

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Master’s degrees

Total

Yunnan

Public institutions

Table 6.10 Employment situation of Guangxi, Yunnan and Ningxia graduates with different college degrees in public institutions

184 6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

0.9

1.22

1450

1810

Guangxi

Yunnan

0.71

0.45 1154

732

Self-employed graduates (person) 1.58

1.2

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Bachelor’s Degrees

593

688

Self-employed graduates (person)

0.90

0.74

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Associate’s Degrees

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Yunnan and Guangxi)

63

30

Self-employed graduates (person)

Itemized proportion (%)

Self-employed graduates (person)

Itemized proportion (%)

Graduates with Master’s Degrees

Total

Self-employment

Table 6.11 Self-employment situation of Guangxi and Yunnan graduates with different college degrees

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority … 185

186

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

addition, 21,960 Guangxi graduates flew to the Pearl River Delta region, which accounted for 13.67% of the total. In view of Xinjiang graduates, there were 43,611 who were employed within the autonomous region, which accounted for 82.02% of the total, and only 4,770 flew to other inland cities, which accounted for 8.97%. (ii) College graduates in ethnic minority areas are inclined to find their jobs in provincial capitals and cities with an advanced economy. In Yunnan, graduates finding jobs in the provincial capital Kunming account for 55.1% of the total employed graduates, while each of Nujiang Prefecture and Diqing Prefecture attracts fewer than 1,000 graduates. In Ningxia, the proportion of local graduates finding jobs in the provincial capital Yinchuan is 64%, while only 3.88% and 3.93% of graduates find jobs in Guyuan and Zhongwei, respectively. In Inner Mongolia, the graduates attracted to the three cities—Hohhot, Baotou and Ordos—account for 58.96% of the total employed graduates. In Guangxi, graduates who choose to work within the autonomous region mostly flow to Nanning, Liuzhou and Guilin, and the provincial capital Nanning attracts 51,523 graduates, which account for 46.55% of the total employed graduates within the autonomous region. In Xinjiang, 21,970 graduates choose to work in the provincial capital Urumqi, which accounts for over half of the total employed graduates within the autonomous region, while Turpan City, Hami City, Bayingol Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture, Hotan Prefecture, Altay Prefecture, Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture and Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture each attract fewer than 2% of college graduates. This reflects the uneven distribution of employment in a certain region, which will intensify unbalanced regional development and talent distribution and intensify the waste of human resources. (iii) Graduates’ choices to work places in ethnic minority areas are influenced by their native places, which means that graduates in a region tend to find their jobs within the region, while graduates from other regions tend to find their jobs outside the region. In Ningxia, 89% of local graduates choose to work within the autonomous region, while only 982 graduates choose to work outside, which accounts for only 5.46% of all local graduates. In Guizhou, there are 88,907 local graduates, which account for 85.74% of all Guizhou graduates, and their employment rate is 89.10%; there are 14,783 graduates from places outside Guizhou, which account for 24.26% of all Guizhou graduates, and their employment rate is 81.69%. In Inner Mongolia, 9,354 local graduates choose to work outside, and 6,035 of them flow to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong, which account for 31.57% of all graduates working outside the autonomous region. Most Inner Mongolia graduates flow to adjacent provinces and cities, indicating that graduates in ethnic minority areas are more attached to their hometowns around which they wish to find jobs. (4) Analysis of the employment differences caused by ethnic identity Ethnic identity can influence the employment of college graduates, and the employment rate for college graduates with different ethnicities is different. In Qinghai, the

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority …

187

employment rate for ethnic minority college graduates is over 90%, which is basically on the same level as that for Han college graduates; in Tibet, Tibetan college graduates benefit from the policy orientation and can achieve full employment. However, in Xinjiang, ethnic identity exerts huge influences on the employment rate for college graduates. (i) The gap between the employment rate for ethnic minority college graduates and that for Han college graduates in Xinjiang is relatively large. The average employment rate for Han college graduates (78.55%) is 14.34 percentage points higher than that for their ethnic minority counterparts (64.21%). In 15 cities (prefectures and autonomous prefectures) of Xinjiang, the employment rates for Han college graduates are higher than those for their ethnic minority graduates, and in Hami, the employment rate for ethnic minority college graduates is only 55%, lagging behind that for Han college graduates (77.4%) by 22.4 percentage points (see Table 6.12). There is statistical evidence that from 2009 to 2011, the employment rate for new college graduates in Xinjiang ranged from 68.3% to 71.2%, while that for ethnic minority college graduates was between 52.7% and 77.0% (Sun Qiang et al. 2012). This indicates that ethnic minority college graduates face harsher conditions to find jobs, which directly results from their poor Mandarin ability and weak professional knowledge. (ii) There are regional differences in the employment rate for ethnic minority college graduates. Shihezi City and Tarbagatay Prefecture enjoy the highest employment rate for ethnic minority college graduates in Xinjiang, which is over 70%, while Hami enjoys the lowest employment rate, which is only 55%. The employment rates for ethnic minority college graduates in most parts of Xinjiang range from 61 to 65%, while the rate for ethnic minority college graduates in Urumqi is only 61.8% (see Table 6.12). This shows that an advanced economy and fast urbanization cannot ensure that ethnic minority college graduates are easily employed. (5) Analysis of the employment differences caused by major Analyzing the employment differences caused by discipline and major is meant to investigate the degree to which disciplines and majors are adapted to economic development. That some majors are unpopular in the job market means that they do not comply with the market, and graduates specializing in these majors will be confronted with unemployment. (i) There are huge differences in the employment situation of graduates from different disciplines in ethnic minority areas. Tables 6.13 and 6.14 show that relatively popular disciplines in the job market meet the needs of local economic and social development. In the employment situation of graduates with bachelor’s degrees divided by discipline, the employment rates for graduates from engineering, science, economics, medicine and management are all over 85%, while graduates from philosophy, law, history and agriculture face relatively negative employment situations. The employment rates for new graduates

1468

1429

6157

4415

2067

Changji Hui autonomous prefecture

Tarbagatay prefecture

Bortala Mongol autonomous prefecture

417

4478

Kelamayi city 724

Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture

7986

2916

4301

Bayingol Mongolian autonomous prefecture

5064

1998

7134

Hami city

Urumqi city

3239

4977

2499

2651

Shihezi city

Han graduates (person)

Total graduates (person)

Name

3508

307

1385

2070

569

599

1176

1180

152

Ethnic minority graduates (person)

43.93

42.40

32.20

29.02

28.48

28.98

26.64

19.17

5.73

Proportion of ethnic minority graduates (%)

75.17

74.45

71.45

71.22

71.02

75.91

78.82

77.51

79.25

Total employment rate (%)

80.40

79.60

76.10

75.10

77.40

80.10

82

79.80

79.60

Employment rate for the han graduates (%)

68.40

67.40

61.60

61.80

55

65.60

70

67.70

73.70

Employment rate for ethnic minority graduates (%)

12.00

12.20

14.50

13.30

22.40

14.50

12.00

12.10

5.90

(continued)

Gap between the employment rate for ethnic minority graduates and that for the Han graduates (%)

Table 6.12 Employment situation of the han and ethnic minority graduates in 15 cities (prefectures and autonomous prefectures) of Xinjiang

188 6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

1489

1746

55,877

Hotan Prefecture

Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture

Total

32,394

200

282

1788

682

1957

998

Han graduates (person)

223,483

1546

1207

5075

1210

2349

1150

Ethnic minority graduates (person)

42.03

88.55

81.06

73.95

63.95

54.55

53.54

Proportion of ethnic minority graduates (%)

71.81

61.51

65.55

65.83

68.87

70.99

69.55

Total employment rate (%)

78.55

74.50

72.30

78.90

80.50

80

81.90

Employment rate for the han graduates (%)

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates” (Xinjiang)

1892

6863

4306

Aksu Prefecture

Turpan City

2148

Altay Prefecture

Kashgar Prefecture

Total graduates (person)

Name

Table 6.12 (continued)

64.21

59.80

64

61.20

62.30

63.50

61.10

Employment rate for ethnic minority graduates (%)

14.34

14.70

8.30

17.70

18.20

16.50

20.80

Gap between the employment rate for ethnic minority graduates and that for the Han graduates (%)

6.2 Analysis of the Development of Higher Education of Ethnic Minority … 189

190

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

majoring in philosophy in Guizhou and Inner Mongolia are approximately 50%, the employment rates for new graduates majoring in agriculture in Guizhou, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia are 73.06%, 70.72%, and 78.01%, respectively, and those for graduates majoring in law in Guizhou, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia are fewer than 80%. The employment situation of graduates with associate’s degrees is better than that of graduates with bachelor’s degrees, but the employment situation of graduates with associate’s degrees from different disciplines is different. Given that provinces and autonomous regions differ in economic development and economic structure, graduates with associate’s degrees from the same discipline in different places enjoy different employment situations. For example, the employment rate for new graduates with associate’s degrees majoring in law in Inner Mongolia is only 31.91%, while that for new graduates with associate’s degrees majoring in law in Qinghai is 89.50%. (ii) The low employment rate majors in ethnic minority areas show the unreasonable major setups of colleges. On October 15th, 2014, the MOE’s Department of Higher Education issued the list of undergraduate majors with low employment rates in the past two years (2012 and 2013). Across the country, the employment rates of undergraduate majors such as food hygiene and nutrition, biological science, tourism management, marketing, animation, and performance are relatively low. However, ethnic minority areas also have their own low employment rate majors (see Table 6.15). For example, it is difficult for the graduates majoring in computer science and technology in Inner Mongolia to find jobs, the reason for which is that the teaching workforce in higher education institutions is weak and their teaching contents still stand at the stage of popularization of basic computer knowledge, which makes the graduates weak in the professional application and project development and lack competitiveness in the market; the graduates majoring in broadcasting and hosting art in Guizhou and Inner Mongolia face a challenge of low employment rate; the graduates of English major in Guangxi, Yunnan and Inner Mongolia encounter a cold job market. The majors with low employment rates vary with ethnic minority areas, but the common reason lies in that the major setups of colleges fail to meet the needs of local economic development.

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas and Their Effects 1. Employment promotion policies for college students China’s employment promotion policies for college students began in 2002. In that year, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the “Notice on the Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Employment System for Graduates of Regular Higher Education Institutions” issued by the MOE and other departments, clearly proposing to establish an employment mechanism featuring market orientation,

3741

50.52

85.82

81.66

8003

Management

Military science 469

11

12

73.06

45

0

13,794

5572

641

17,778

6098

349

17,188

2792

2223

4128

91.11

0.00

88.32

92.93

86.58

87.71

84.55

86.25

84.96

87.93

79.31

82.05

90

0

9273

4419

2128

14,689

6786

715

11,355

3240

2594

2474

52.22

0.00

83.72

81.96

78.01

84.14

81.37

66.29

82.60

84.04

77.60

80.44

0

1108

876

362

2113

1223

68

1257

442

457

367

16

Qinghai

87.50

0.00

90.43

84.70

70.72

89.26

88.72

79.41

90.37

90.05

87.31

88.01

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates” (Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia)

86.37

1043

7973

Agriculture

Medicine

9

84.76

86.56

84.57

81.44

85.63

78.51

86.26

10

7666

Engineering

8

933

7881

History

Science

13,061

4086

6

Literature

5

97

2053

7

Law

Education

3

2

4

Philosophy

Economics

1

Inner Mongolia

Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate (%) (%) (%) (%)

Number Discipline

Guangxi

Guizhou

Name

Table 6.13 Employment situation of graduates with Bachelor’s degrees by discipline in Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College … 191

93.27

Material and energy

Civil engineering 3814

5

6

Electronic information

Environment 151 protection, meteorology and safety

9

10

3744

208

3318

Water resources

Manufacturing

7

8

601

90.07

94.34

90.75

88.69

92.58

201

7731

12,840

550

15,567

1810

636

1133

93.03

89.91

90.86

84.36

88.84

92.32

88.52

91.44

252

3810

8647

384

7687

1596

1887

2072

71.83

89.58

91.96

96.88

92.06

89.54

88.66

91.46

94.12

0

461

215

0

1136

0

128

0

833

0.00

97.40

92.09

0.00

98.15

0.00

100.00

0.00

99.88

(continued)

92.48

Resources 1051 development and survey

93.76

3315

89.57

4

1442

90.43

604

Biochemistry and medicine

5108

88.49

3

96.69

704

1481

90.47

Transportation and communication

1942

2

95.57

790

Agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishing

Qinghai

1

Inner Mongolia

Number discipline

Guangxi

Guizhou

Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate (person) (%) (person) (%) (person) (%) (person) (%)

Name

Table 6.14 Employment situation of graduates with associate degrees by discipline in Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia

192 6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Inner Mongolia

Qinghai

Artistic design and mass media

Public security

Law

17

18

19

7278

1816

87

1228

4597

644

2046

12,277

85.96

74.71

96.34

89.06

80.90

93.74

93.47

96.63

100.00

1628

683

3331

10,413

1028

3241

8796

25,228

1184

81.20

92.53

89.61

88.44

92.32

90.90

91.36

90.84

91.89

633

146

1221

5108

438

1289

6194

9193

1336

31.91

100.00

82.56

81.32

65.75

92.55

90.73

93.24

90.42

181

62

0

463

30

251

1047

284

0

89.50

83.87

0.00

85.53

30.00

95.62

93.60

90.85

0.00

Source Calculated in accordance with the “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates” (Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia)

Public service

Culture and education

15

Tourism

14

16

Finance

Medical and health care

12

13

Light, textile and 102 food

11

Number discipline

Guangxi

Guizhou

Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate Graduates Employment rate (person) (%) (person) (%) (person) (%) (person) (%)

Name

Table 6.14 (continued)

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College … 193

194

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Table 6.15 List of LMIR majors in ethnic minority areas National total

Food hygiene and nutrition, biological science, tourism management, social sports guidance and management, marketing, animation, intellectual property, radio and television editing, performance, art design, broadcasting and hosting art, music performance, e-commerce, trade and economy, public services management

Inner Mongolia Broadcasting and hosting art, sociology, rural regional development, ecology, Mongolian, art design, law, English, computer science and technology, accounting Guangxi

Marketing, English, computer science and technology, international economics and trade, social sports guidance and management, law, chemistry, applied psychology

Guizhou

Broadcasting and hosting art, public administration, land resources management, sports training, industrial design

Yunnan

Animation, physical education, biological science, educational technology, physics, fine arts, English, Chinese linguistic literature, ideological and political education, public services management

Tibet

Archival science, history

Qinghai

Music performance, economics, tourism management

Xinjiang

Applied physics, law, social sports guidance and management, primary school education, physics, applied chemistry, fine arts, biological technology, computer science and technology, journalism

Ningxia

Agricultural water conservancy engineering, mathematics and applied mathematics, Japanese, business administration, information management and information system, public services management, advertising, information and computing science, fine arts, information engineering

Source In accordance with the “National List of Low Employment Rate Majors in Recent Two Years” published by the MOE’s Department of Higher Education

government regulation, college recommendation, and two-way selection between students and employers to encourage college graduates to work at the primary level and in small and medium enterprises. On November 28th, 2014, the MOE released the “Notice on Effectively Ensuring National Employment and Entrepreneurship for Graduates of Regular Higher Education Institutions in 2015” (No. 15 [2014] of the MOE) and made arrangements for employment and entrepreneurship. After 12 years of development, China has formed a system of employment policies for college students, which consists of six parts, namely, primary-level employment in urban and rural areas, employment in small and microenterprises, self-employment policies, enlistment in the army, employment of unemployed college graduates, employment services and assistance. The specific contents of these policies are shown in Table 6.16. As a kind of public policy, employment promotion policies for college students with the government as the leading role realize market-based full employment

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College …

195

Table 6.16 Employment promotion policies for college graduates Name

Content

Primary-level employment in urban and rural areas

(i)“College Students ‘Go West’ Volunteer program” (organized by four departments including the Central Committee of the CCYL and the MOE in 2003); (ii) “Three Supports and One Assistance” program (namely, taking primary-level posts in education, agriculture, health care and poverty relief launched by such eight departments as the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the former Ministry of Personnel and the MOE in 2006); (iii) “Plan on Special Post for Rural Teachers at Compulsory Education Stage” (implemented by four departments including the MOE in 2006); (iv) “College Graduate Village Officials program” (carried out by four departments, for instance, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee and the MOE in 2008)

Employment in small and micro enterprises

(i) For the small and micro enterprises that recruit college graduates in the graduation year, sign labor contracts with a period of more than one year and pay social insurance fees in full and on time, they would be provided with one-year social insurance subsidies and the implementation period of the policy would close at the end of 2015. (ii) The small and micro science and technology enterprises that recruit a certain proportion of college graduates in the graduation year can apply for small-sum guaranteed loans up to RMB two million and enjoy a financial discount. (iii) The enterprises that conduct preemployment training can get subsidies concerning the training (continued)

through policy guidance. Table 6.16 shows that China’s employment policies for college students encourage them to take jobs at the primary level or in small and microenterprises and to start businesses independently. The original goal of the country is to encourage college graduates to work at the primary level, which is constructive and is conducive to accumulating more human resources in rural areas, the Western region and ethnic minority areas. However, primary-level employment and employment in the western region do not conform to the general law on employment transformation and the expansion of employment opportunities. Due to the low level of urbanization in rural areas and the western region, the limited scale and consumption capacity of the market and the inadequate development of the tertiary industry, the only way is to transfer rather than absorb the labor force. Therefore,

196

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Table 6.16 (continued) Name

Content

Self-Employment Policies

Carrying out the plan to guide college students toward starting their own businesses (2014–2017) and promoting the improvement and implementation of preferential policies to support entrepreneurship: for the small and micro enterprises established by college graduates, the country should implement such preferential tax policies as halving corporate income tax, and temporarily exempting value-added tax and business tax when monthly sales don’t exceed RMB 20,000 according to regulations. College graduates who are engaged in self-employment can enjoy relevant preferential tax policies in accordance with regulations; the government should accelerate the development of entrepreneurship bases and increase funding to support entrepreneurship, and strengthen education and services on starting up in business

Enlistment in the army

Tuition reimbursement policies: no more than RMB 6,000 per person per year for undergraduates and higher vocational college students; up to RMB 8,000 per person per year for postgraduates; a maximum of RMB 10,000 per person per year for doctoral students

Employment of unemployed college graduates Including unemployed college graduates in the scope of public employment services; continuing to follow the graduates’ information and provide services for them before and after their graduation; combining the needs of local industrial development and the graduates’ willingness and demands for internships in all regions and creating more internship opportunities; facilitating the special action on helping the graduates secure jobs through their skills (continued)

the current employment promotion policies against urbanization can only have a short-term effect and will fundamentally fail to help college students achieve full employment and high-quality employment. 2. Special employment promotion policies for ethnic minority college students (1) Employment problems of ethnic minority college students receiving great attention from the country

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College …

197

Table 6.16 (continued) Name

Content

Employment services and assistance

(i) Employment services: strengthening network information services and establishing and improving the national service platform for public employment information; carrying out public employment service activities on campus; organizing such special service activities as the recruitment week of private enterprises, the employment service month for college graduates and the employment service week; intensifying efforts to improve employment guidance courses and discipline setups. (ii) Employment assistance: giving greater employment support for graduates facing difficulties in securing employment, implementing the “One Student, One Strategy” to offer dynamic management and well-targeted support, and making a good job of giving job-seeking allowances to the graduates whose households are living on subsistence allowances

According to the policy documents issued by the General Office of the State Council, the MOE, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the PRC (MOHRSS), employment policies for ethnic minority college students were launched in 2009, mainly treating ethnic minority college students as groups facing difficulties in finding jobs and providing them with employment assistance. Until now, the measures of these policies have changed from “focusing on employment assistance for graduates from poor families, graduates with disabilities and graduates from ethnic minorities” to “improving the employment of ethnic minority graduates” and from basic regulations to more detailed policy contents, which reflects that the central government attaches great importance to the employment of ethnic minority college students. (2) Content of employment promotion policies for ethnic minority college students The main contents are as follows: (i) obtaining a clear picture of ethnic minority graduates with employment difficulties; (ii) strengthening the training of ethnic minority students on the standard Chinese language and employment skills; and (iii) creating more public service positions concerning agricultural and animal husbandry technology, medical and health care, public security management, bilingual teachers and kindergarten teachers. (iv) implementing the plan of going to the provinces and cities that provide pairing assistance to receive training for unemployed graduates, in addition to which the centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) offering assistance should actively recruit local college graduates in combination with aid

198

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

projects; (v) helping ethnic minority graduates find their jobs as soon as possible by providing job-seeking allowances, special recruitment, key recommendation and “one-on-one” guidance for them, and meeting their basic employment needs; (vi) adapting to the needs of local economic and social development and timely adjusting the setups of the disciplines and majors of colleges in ethnic minority areas; (vii) offering such public service jobs at the primary level as medical and health services and agricultural and animal husbandry production guidance, and giving social insurance subsidies and public service position subsidies; (viii) providing ethnic minority college graduates with more opportunities when special projects recruit personnel; (ix) giving priority to ethnic minority college graduates under the equal conditions when recruiting civil servants, staff for public institutions and employees for large and medium state-owned enterprises in ethnic minority areas. (3) Implementation of employment promotion policies for ethnic minority college students The following section analyzes the implementation situation of the policies from the central and local levels. The first concerns the central level. In 2013, the MOHRSS launched a pilot project for the employment of college graduates in Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province, and explored a long-term mechanism to promote the employment of ethnic minority college graduates. The MOHRSS guides the regions paired up to assist Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang toward including college graduates who are from aid regions and seek jobs here in the scope of employment policy support, and the central SOEs undertaking the pairing assistance tasks should actively create more employment opportunities for local graduates in accordance with aid projects. Since 2012, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), the MOE, the NEAC and other departments have hosted three special recruitment fairs of the central SOEs for college graduates from Qinghai, Tibet and Xinjiang, and public employment services have been strengthened. It is stipulated that the central and local governments should actively give preferential treatment to ethnic minority candidates when recruiting civil servants. The second concerns the local level. In 2012, Qinghai implemented 18 policies and measures for college graduates in the Tibetan ethnic areas, such as relaxing age restrictions and the requirements for college degrees and raising the admission ratio of the students who should work in the Tibetan ethnic areas after graduation, and 3,118 graduates were admitted to government offices and public institutions at the primary level in the Tibetan ethnic areas; in Xinjiang, approximately 40% of graduates were employed within the system per year; local graduates made up 50% in the civil service admission examination of the four prefectures in southern Xinjiang (namely, Hotan Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture, Kashgar Prefecture, and Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture), and 80% of over 40,000 special-post teachers were ethnic minority graduates (Sun Qiang et al. 2012). This demonstrates that the government gives strong policy support to the employment of ethnic minority college students, which to a great extent dominates their employment choices.

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College …

199

3. Effect analysis of employment promotion policies for college students in ethnic minority areas According to China’s administrative system and policy path, the implementation of employment policies for college students follows a top-down policy; that is, the employment policies at the local level all insist on the policies for primary-level employment or employment in small and microenterprises and self-employment. However, due to the gaps in local financial resources and economic development levels, there are some differences in fiscal and tax policy support for self-employment, the subsidies of employment policies for small and microenterprises, and the subsidies for vulnerable college students with employment difficulties. Pairing assistance helps college students in ethnic minority areas develop distinctive ethnic features. (1) Primary-level employment in urban and rural areas Primary-level employment in urban and rural areas encourages college graduates to work at the urban and rural primary levels, in the Western region, and in ethnic minority areas, mainly by implementing programs such as the “Three Supports and One Assistance” program, Plan on Special Post for Rural Teachers, College Graduate Village Officials program, College Students “Go West” Volunteer program, and Free Normal Education program. In 2014, policies encouraging college graduates to work at the urban and rural primary levels among ethnic minority areas had a significant effect. The primary level programs in Guizhou recruited 18,834 college graduates in total, 18.16% of all the graduates5 ; the service plan of “Going Down to the Primary Level” was carried out in Yunnan, and 4,512 college graduates were employed through primary level programs such as the “Go West” Volunteer program, “Plan on Special Post for Rural Teachers” and “Three Supports and One Assistance” program; Guangxi recruited 11,124 personnel for primary level programs, and the average annual growth rate of recruits in the past three years was 21.85%.6 Qinghai fully implemented the policies of tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment for college graduates who work at primary level institutions below the county level in remote and poor areas and stipulated that those graduates who engage in professional and technical work in areas below the county level or in the six autonomous prefectures of Qinghai (Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures of Haibei, Huangnan, Hainan, Guoluo, Yushu, and Haixi) can be exempted from foreign language examination when applying for corresponding titles7 ; Ningxia encouraged qualified higher education institutions to introduce preferential primary-level policies. For instance, North Minzu University 5

Guizhou Education Department: “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of Graduates from Regular Higher Education Institutions of Guizhou”, January, 2015. 6 Education Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region: “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates of Guangxi”, December, 2014. 7 Qinghai Education Department: “The Employment Situation of College Graduates in Qinghai 2014”, December, 2014.

200

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

provided one-time cash allowances of RMB 500 for graduates who participate in various primary-level employment programs. (2) Employment in small and microenterprises Employment in small and microenterprises means encouraging small and medium enterprises to hire college graduates through social insurance subsidies, preemployment training subsidies, small-sum guaranteed loans and other policies and measures. Combining the requirements of the urbanization process and the equalization of public services, Yunnan encourages and leads graduates to work at the urban and rural primary levels, in remote and poor areas, and in medium, small and microenterprises. By December 30th, more than 85,000 graduates in Yunnan have chosen to work in counties or at the primary level that are below the county level and in medium and small enterprises, accounting for 57.5% of the employed graduates.8 Qinghai has timely provided social insurance subsidies and one-time incentive funds for new jobs in enterprises employing college graduates, which has further strengthened the support for the employment and entrepreneurship of college students in the Tibetan ethnic areas. According to the statistics, the social insurance subsidies and one-time incentive funds used to promote employment are approximately RMB 20.1 million, and vocational training subsidies amount to RMB 15.51 million. All kinds of enterprises registered in Xinjiang, as well as enterprises undertaking production and operation and engineering projects, since January 1st, 2011, can enjoy a discount of RMB 50,000 per person per year when they hire graduates from the three prefectures in southern Xinjiang, ethnic minorities or females graduating from college or technical schools with the Employment and Unemployment Registration Certificate, sign labor contracts with a period of more than one year and pay social insurance fees in accordance with regulations, and obtain loans from financial institutions specified by the country. (3) Self-employment The self-employment policies encourage college students to start their own businesses through employment guidance, entrepreneurship training, and preferential policies that support college students’ entrepreneurship. Yunnan includes employment and entrepreneurship education in its teaching plan and fully implements the “Yunling plan to guide college students toward starting their own businesses” and promotes the combination of entrepreneurship education and practice, entrepreneurship guiding service and projects, policy support and the construction of an entrepreneur platform. In 2014, the Yunnan provincial government and higher education institutions held a total of 107 entrepreneurship competitions and more than 820 entrepreneurship lectures and forums, in which more than 180,000 students participated, and 8

Yunnan Education Department: “2014 Annual Report on Employment Quality of College Graduates of Yunnan”, December, 2014.

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College …

201

1,810 graduates successfully realized their entrepreneurship through policy support. Guangxi strengthened the self-employment education for college graduates through the selection of college graduates’ entrepreneurship demonstration bases in Guangxi (RMB 200,000 in rewards for the selected higher education institution, RMB 2.6 million reward fund in total), establishment of entrepreneurship bases, and holding of Guangxi college students entrepreneurship competitions. Xinjiang implemented the entrepreneurship training program for college graduates, increased the allowances for entrepreneurship training to RMB 600 per student, and started the courses of career development and employment guidance for college students. For small and microenterprises established by college graduates in Qinghai, preferential tax policies were implemented, including halving corporate income tax, temporarily exempting value-added tax and business tax with monthly sales of not more than RMB 20,000. (4) Employment services Employment services mainly refer to the services provided by higher education institutions in opening up the employment market and providing job information. By July 2014 in Ningxia, a total of 18 “two-way selection” employment activities for graduates were organized, providing 28,000 jobs, and a total of 367 information sessions were held in higher education institutions, providing more than 15,800 jobs. As of December 2014 in Guizhou, over 1,200 on-campus job fairs have been held, offering approximately 180,000 jobs. In Yunnan, college-local, college-industry, and college-enterprise cooperation have been carried out. In 2014, more than 3,400 campus recruitment events were held, offering over 330,000 pieces of job information. Since 2013, provincial finance has set up a special fund of RMB five million each year to subsidize campus recruitment activities carried out by higher education institutions. As of July 15th in Guangxi, the Human Resources and Social Security Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region held 17 regional “two-way selection” job fairs and online fairs in which 3,416 employers participated and 88,281 jobs were provided. Higher education institutions among the autonomous region held 239 campus “two-way selection” job fairs in which a total of 9,359 enterprises participated and approximately 300,000 jobs were offered.9 Xinjiang led higher education institutions to hold 1,086 on-campus job fairs and various special recruitment activities with a ratio of graduates to jobs of 1:1.4. Moreover, Xinjiang promoted the employment of free normal students, making 669 national free normal college graduates and 1,347 targeted-area free normal college graduates from the Class of 2014 in the autonomous region work as teachers. (5) Employment assistance The employment assistance provides job-seeking allowances and employment guidance for graduates from urban and rural poor families, graduates from urban zeroemployment families, and graduates who received student loans in college. In 2013, Guizhou began to provide one-time job-seeking allowances of RMB 500 per person 9

Education Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region: “The Employment Rate of New College Graduates in Guangxi Exceeded 80% in 2014”, July 28th, 2014.

202

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

for those who receive employment assistance. To date, over RMB 6.5 million has been distributed to more than 13,000 college graduates in Guizhou who are eligible for job-seeking allowances. In 2014, people from the 8,737 families receiving subsistence allowances, three Tibetan counties, and eight small ethnic minority groups and college graduates with disabilities in the graduation year in Yunnan received one-time job-seeking allowances of RMB 1,000 per person; Guangxi established graduate files for “double-difficulty” graduates (who have both financial and mental difficulties) and held two “employment training classes for extremely poor graduates and on-site job fairs,” providing more than 1,000 jobs and giving graduates who participate in the training job-seeking allowances of RMB 300 per person; Guangxi Normal University provided employment allowances at the ratio of RMB 600 per person for “double-difficulty” graduates to RMB 800 per person for graduates with disabilities and distributed a total of RMB 60,200 assistance funds in 2014; Xinjiang established a database of employment information for poor graduates and provided assistance such as free skills training and job-seeking allowances; Qinghai has offered college graduates with disabilities with job-seeking allowances since 2014, giving each person a one-time allowance of RMB 900. (6) Employment support and aid Employment support and aid in ethnic minority areas mainly refer to the employment policy system in the areas developed by provinces and cities that provide pairing assistance and various central SOEs. At present, employment support and aid mainly include three parts, namely, employment aid to Tibet, employment aid to Xinjiang and employment aid to Qinghai, supporting the employment of college graduates in Tibet, Xinjiang and Qinghai. The first part is the employment aid to Tibet. In 2010, the Fifth Central Symposium on Tibet Work put forward that “we should attach great importance to the employment aid to Tibet and provinces, cities and enterprises paired up to assist Tibet should recruit a certain number of Tibetan college graduates every year.” The employment aid to Tibet has become an important channel for the employment of Tibetan college graduates. First, remarkable results have been achieved in employment aid to Tibet. According to statistics, over the past three years since the launch of employment aid to Tibet in February 2012, more than 22,000 jobs (including 259 jobs in public institutions) have been provided for Tibetan college graduates by various provinces, cities and central SOEs assisting Tibet, and a total of 949 college graduates have been employed outside the autonomous region. Second, supportive policies have been fully implemented by the government of the autonomous region. It is stipulated that Tibetan college graduates who work in the region can receive travel allowances of RMB 1,000 and living allowances of RMB 3,600, and in the past three years, a total of RMB 1.166 million has been given to graduates who work outside the region.10 Third, the working mechanism of employment aid to Tibet has become more complete. Most provinces and cities, such as Beijing and Jiangsu, include 10

“Documentary on the Achievements of Provinces (Cities) Paired up to Assist Tibet in Implementing the Employment Aid to Tibet”, Tibet News, November11th, 2014.

6.3 Analysis of Employment Promotion Policies for College …

203

Tibetan college graduates in the scope of supportive policies for graduates of the province (city). Shanghai provides allowances of RMB 13,000 per person per year for employers recruiting Tibetan college graduates.11 In general, focusing on college graduates, the employment aid to the Tibet program has effectively broadened the employment channels for college graduates in Tibet. With policies of primary-level employment and small and microenterprises employment, Tibet has achieved the goal of helping all college graduates find jobs for four consecutive years. The second part is the employment aid to Xinjiang. At the second Central Symposium on Xinjiang Work held in May 2014, it was clearly stated that the scale of employment for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang should be expanded in an orderly manner. Yin Weimin, Minister of the MOHRSS, proposed that in the future, the promotion of employment in Xinjiang will be the first task of providing pairing assistance to Xinjiang and that the government should expand local employment on a large scale and encourage employment in inland cities.12 In terms of policy implementation, during the new round of providing pairing assistance to Xinjiang, a total of 23,000 unemployed college graduates were organized to go to provinces and cities paired up to assist Xinjiang for training and employment.13 On October 29th, 2014, 489 Xinjiang workers went to work in Guangdong. This was the first time since the second Central Symposium that Xinjiang and Guangdong organized special trains to export the labor force on a large scale.14 Generally, the key to employment aid to Xinjiang is the orderly transfer of surplus agricultural labor to inland cities. More efforts are required to encourage Xinjiang college graduates to work in inland cities. The third part is the employment aid to Qinghai. This program provides strong support for promoting the employment of Qinghai college students through financial support from provinces and cities that provide pairing assistance and ministries and commissions, vocational skills training, and special job fairs. The SASAC, together with the MOE, the MOHRSS, and the NEAC, representing central SOEs, held two special recruitment activities for college graduates from Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang in June 2012 and January 2013, providing nearly 7,600 jobs and creating opportunities and stages for the employment and career development of college graduates in the three regions.15 In 2014, Tianjin held an employability training class and a car repair class for college graduates from the Tibetan ethnic areas in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in which more than 100 unemployed college graduates 11

“Initial Establishment of the Working Mechanism for the Employment Aid to Tibet in Provinces (Cities) Paired up to Assist Tibet”, Tibet News, November 13th, 2014. 12 “MHRSS: Promoting Employment in Xinjiang as the First Task of Pairing up to Assist Xinjiang”, People’s Daily, September 9th, 2014. 13 Department of Economic Development of the NEAC, “Materials Compiled by the Economic Development Research Team for the Central Ethnic Work Conference (Ethnic Minority Areas)”, March 2014, p. 357. 14 Liu Yi, “489 Xinjiang Workers Going to Work in Guangdong”, Nanfang Daily, October 30th, 2014. 15 “The Central SOEs Invested RMB 22.8 Billion in Assisting Qinghai with 7,600 Jobs Last Year”, March 8th, 2013, the website of China Economy (http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/zg/201303/08/t20 130308_24182416.shtml).

204

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

participated; Jiangsu provided RMB 3.24 million for the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to improve the employability of college graduates and vocational skills training for farmers and herdsmen.16 Since 2010, Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures of Guoluo and Hainan have organized more than 200 Tibetan college graduates to go to Shanghai and Jiangsu to participate in vocational skills training and employment internships.17 In 2010, Qinghai came up with the opinion on provinces and cities assisting Qinghai increasing their pairing assistance to the employment of college graduates in various prefectures, strengthened cooperation with the relevant departments of these provinces and cities, and strove to create more jobs and opportunities for college students’ internships, employment training, and skills training in these provinces and cities.

6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Insufficient employability of college graduates in ethnic minority areas Ethnic minority college graduates lack advantages in some aspects, such as basic knowledge, professional quality, and language expression, and stand at a weak position in the job market, the major causes for which are the low quality of basic education and poor effect of bilingual education in ethnic minority areas. (1) Low-quality basic education Ethnic minority areas are mostly in remote and poverty-stricken areas, with insufficient investment in education and a shortage of teaching faculties, which to a certain extent restricts the development of students from primary and secondary schools on their learning potential and their ability to comprehensively grasp basic knowledge. The inequitable distribution of education resources leads to different starting lines for college students in ethnic minority areas and nonethnic minority areas, and it is difficult to eliminate this gap in future studies. (2) Poor effect of bilingual education Due to the poor effect of bilingual education, language has become the biggest obstacle for ethnic minority college students to find jobs. In the agricultural and pastoral areas of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, teachers of the Han nationality are few, and despite teaching local students Chinese, they fail to communicate with students’ parents. In contrast, teachers of ethnic minorities can communicate with 16

“Completed Investment of RMB 813 million, More than 340 Projects Providing Employment Assistance to Qinghai Have Been Implemented”, November 25th, 2014, the website of Qinghai News (http://www.qhnews.com/newscenter/system/2014/11/25/011565783.shtml). 17 Xin Qin, “Provinces and Cities Assisting Qinghai in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang Provide Platform for Graduates Employment”, Qinghai Daily, October 17th, 2013.

6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates …

205

their parents but are poor in Chinese. As a result, the quality of Chinese language teaching is not ensured, and a good language foundation for children is not laid, directly affecting their learning of professional knowledge in college and their future competitiveness in the labor market. In addition, without fully considering the acceptance of ethnic minority masses and the ability of bilingual teachers, the education pattern that is implemented by administrative means and adopts the one-size-fits-all approach has led to the failure of bilingual education to achieve the expected results. 2. Backward level of higher education in ethnic minority areas The development of higher education provides strong human resources for urbanization. Over the past 15 years, higher education in ethnic minority areas has undergone rapid development, but its overall level is still underdeveloped. For example, in 2012, the number of college students per 100,000 population in ethnic minority areas reached 1,647, while the numbers in the country and the Central and Eastern regions were 2,335, 2,407 and 2,924, respectively.18 The overall backwardness of higher education in ethnic minority areas hinders the improvement of the employability of local college students and is the direct cause of their unemployment. (1) Insufficient investment in higher education Insufficient investment is a significant factor retarding the development of education in ethnic minority areas. The reason for the inadequate investment in higher education is that the government, against the backdrop of the industrialization of education, has compressed or even given up its financial responsibility for education, and as a result, the government’s investment in education has not increased with the improvement of economic and financial resources. After the adoption of the tax-sharing system, local governments have become the main source of college education investment, and correspondingly, education investment is increasingly localized. Consequently, economically developed areas invest more in education, and economically underdeveloped areas, especially ethnic minority areas, have many debts in education. Insufficient investment in higher education directly makes the materials and manpower in regular higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas inadequate, which is reflected in insufficient discipline and majors, weak faculty, scarce school laboratories, inadequate practice bases required for classroom teaching, and insufficient platforms for social practice and scientific experiments, thereby affecting students’ operational skills and social adaptability. (2) Serious loss of outstanding teachers Due to the low average wage in ethnic minority areas and lack of incentives in the salary mechanism, higher education institutions have difficulty retaining outstanding teachers and talent, thus failing to form a stable and high-quality teaching team and resulting in poor teaching quality. For example, restricted by history, natural conditions, and the social economy, Qinghai has suffered from serious brain drain and seen the number of students soaring after the expansion of college enrollment, which 18

Calculated in accordance with China Statistical Yearbook 2012.

206

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

has made teachers scantier and is an important restricting factor for the connotative development of higher education in Qinghai. Over the past 20 years, Xinjiang has lost more than 200,000 talents, of which more than half are senior teachers, academic leaders, backbones of technological innovation and young and middle-aged professionals,19 greatly affecting teachers’ enthusiasm for work and giving rise to the loss of outstanding young backbone teachers in some schools. In this context, the teaching quality of higher education and the employability of college students are directly affected by the loss. (3) Mismatch between the major setups of higher education institutions and the economic structure The mismatch between the major setups of higher education institutions and the economic structure in ethnic minority areas has both common and special reasons. The common reason is that higher education institutions do not have the autonomy to set up majors and that they seek large-scale and comprehensive development. Under the current system, the major setups of higher education institutions are reviewed and approved by the national competent departments of education administration. As the review and approval takes some time, adjustments in majors lag behind the requirements of the labor market. Blindly pursuing large-scale and comprehensive development, higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas did not fully consider the regional industrial structure, economic structure, labor demand and other factors when setting up their majors, resulting in the deviation of the major setups from local economic development. The special reason is that the distinctive majors of local higher education institutions cannot meet the needs of regional economic development. The distinctive majors or key disciplines are mainly studies on ethnicity and folklore, and professional courses and scientific research tasks concerning local economic development are rarely valued. For example, Qinghai urgently needs all kinds of practical, operational and professional talent, but the basic theoretical studies in universities of Qinghai have various types and are in large numbers, and practical majors are scarce. Furthermore, the supply of Xinjiang science and engineering graduates with associate’s degrees is far from meeting the needs of local employers. The unreasonable major setups of colleges will inevitably lead to a serious structural problem, namely, the coexistence of talent surplus and talent shortage in ethnic minority areas. In addition, in terms of curriculum design and talent training, the training plan for academic talent is indiscriminately adopted, and in the teaching mode, students are passive receivers, which makes them lack innovative and practical skills to meet the employment needs of enterprises. (4) Backward development of vocational and technical education The overall development level of vocational education is low, which is manifested in the extreme shortage of double-position teachers and training equipment. Local 19

Department of Economic Development of the NEAC, “Materials Compiled by the Economic Development Research Team for the Central Ethnic Work Conference (Ethnic Minority Areas)”, March 2014.

6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates …

207

governments in some ethnic minority areas prioritize developing regular higher education institutions, and the blind expansion of college enrollment has encouraged more people to favor such colleges and despise vocational and technical education. As a result, the growth rate of the enrollment of regular higher education institutions has outpaced the economic development rate in ethnic minority areas, and college graduates have outnumbered the jobs that the national government agencies and public institutions can offer, giving rise to a serious imbalance between the supply and demand of labor in the public sector and the short supply of mediumand high-level professional and technical talent required by the production departments of enterprises. The significantly higher employment rate of higher vocational college students than that of undergraduates and postgraduates can serve as the best example. Furthermore, the slower development of vocational and technical education than that of general higher education has resulted in an insufficient supply of talent with secondary vocational education for the demands of economic development in ethnic minority areas. 3. Backward level of economic development in ethnic minority areas Limited by complex historical, social and political factors, natural resources and ecological environmental conditions, the overall level of economic development in ethnic minority areas is low, and the long-term implementation of capital-intensive and energy-intensive development strategies has formed an extensive economic growth mode that consumes high resources and is driven by investment. The problem of unbalanced industrial structure and economic structure has not been solved, and the economy in ethnic minority areas is unable to create enough jobs to absorb the labor force. (1) Low level of economic development in ethnic minority areas The aggregate economy and industrial structure determine the economy’s capacity for job creation. The aggregate economy in ethnic minority areas rose from RMB 751.298 billion in 1998 to RMB 5,851.852 billion in 2012, a 6.79-fold increase in 15 years, and its share of the national GDP rose from 8.9% in 1998 to 11.8% in 2012.20 However, compared with the land area occupied by ethnic minority areas, the total GDP there accounts for a smaller proportion of the national GDP, and the GDP growth rate in ethnic minority areas is obviously slower than that in the Eastern region. In this context, the employment opportunities that ethnic minority areas can offer are relatively limited. Due to factors such as culture, attachment to the hometown and eating habits, ethnic minority college students in Xinjiang and Tibet often choose to return to their hometowns for employment, which will inevitably aggravate the difficulty of employment for those students. (2) Unreasonable industrial structure in ethnic minority areas In 2012, the proportion of employees in the primary, secondary and tertiary industries nationwide was 33.6%, 30.3% and 36.1%, respectively, and the proportion in 20

Calculated in accordance with China Statistical Yearbook (1999, 2013).

208

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

ethnic minority areas was 50.1%, 16.6% and 33.3%, respectively (see Table 6.17). In contrast, the proportion of employees in the primary industry in ethnic minority areas is higher, that in the secondary industry is far below the national level, and that in the tertiary industry is near the national level. The secondary industry has the lowest capacity for job creation, as the industry is dominated by mining, energy and raw materials industries, which are unable to create enough jobs to absorb high-quality labor forces. The proportion of employees in the tertiary industry in ethnic minority areas is higher, but they are concentrated in traditional service industries such as Party and government bodies and public institutions, and producer services such as finance and logistics are underdeveloped. Accordingly, jobs in the tertiary industry are insufficient for college students. (3) Low level of urbanization in ethnic minority areas Serving as the geographical space of economic growth, cities play a significant role in promoting employment and improving the division of labor based on specialization. Ethnic minority areas are generally faced with problems of city-industry separation, weak industrial support, low levels of urbanization and unbalanced regional development. For example, in Xinjiang, the population is mainly concentrated in Urumqi city, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture and Kashgar Prefecture, while Kelamayi city, Urumqi city, Shihezi city, Hami city and other regions have the Table 6.17 Number and proportion of employees in the three industries in the eight ethnic provinces at the end of 2012 Province

Employees

Employees in the three industries Proportion of employees in the (10,000 persons) three industries (%) The primary industry

The secondary industry

The tertiary industry

The primary industry

The secondary industry

The tertiary industry

Guizhou

1825.82

1189.04

238.1

398.68

65.1

13.1

21.8

Guangxi

2768

1481

520

767

53.5

18.8

27.7

Yunnan

2881.9

1636.57

388.65

856.68

56.8

13.5

29.7

Tibet

202.06

93.6

27.1

81.36

46.3

13.4

40.3

Xinjiang

1010.44

492.36

157.71

360.37

48.7

15.6

35.7

Inner Mongolia

1304.9

583.4

236.1

485.4

44.7

18.1

37.2

Ningxia

344.5

167.1

56.9

120.5

48.5

16.5

35

Qinghai

310.89

115.09

74.52

121.28

37

24

39

Ethnic minority areas

10,648.51

5758.16

1699.08

3191.27

50.1

16.6

33.3

National total

76,704

25,773

23,241

27,690

33.6

30.3

36.1

Source Calculated in accordance with China Statistical Yearbook 2013

6.4 Major Problems Facing the Employment of College Graduates …

209

highest nonagricultural development. The unbalanced regional development is especially reflected in the significantly different urbanization between southern Xinjiang and northern Xinjiang, wherein the former has a low urbanization rate and a large poor population. For another example, Qinghai has seen slower urbanization than industrialization, faster land urbanization than population urbanization, and incomplete urbanization. In addition, ethnic minority areas have seen the universal phenomenon of city-industry separation. As industrial parks are far away from urban infrastructure and population centers, it is difficult for cities and towns to provide public service for park construction, and college graduates are unwilling to work in places with low levels of urbanization and poor infrastructure. 4. Unsound employment service system in ethnic minority areas Before the mid-1990s, China uniformly enrolled students by virtue of examinations and uniformly assigned jobs to college graduates. In the late 1990s, due to the largescale expansion of college enrollment, which led to the substantial increase in the number of college students, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and the streamlining of state institutions, employment channels were not enough for college students, and an employment service system was established. However, the system develops slowly, failing to give full play to its function of providing employment services for college students. (1) Meaningless employment guidance in higher education institutions The meaningless college employment guidance in ethnic minority areas is especially reflected in three aspects. First, the content of the employment guidance and service is single. Employment guidance agencies in higher education institutions are mainly responsible for organizing on-campus job fairs, gathering employment information, collecting statistics on graduates and their employers, and distributing files but are not doing enough in career guidance and planning, resuming writing and interview skills counseling, and rarely paying attention to the development of students’ potential and the cultivation of their entrepreneurial ability. Although most higher education institutions offer employment guidance courses, indoctrination teaching featuring little integration of theory with practice is often adopted in these classes, thus causing an insignificant actual effect. Second, the personnel providing employment guidance are not professional enough. Highly relying on administrative means, the employment guidance team of higher education institutions lacks systematic professional training, has obviously insufficient information and knowledge reserves, and fails to provide high-level guidance services. In this case, a considerable number of students know little about the operating conditions of the labor market and the employment situation and feel confused about what they should do after graduation and where the future of their careers is. (2) Low level of employment service information networks To date, China has not established a national unified and specialized public employment service website. The public employment service information network is shared

210

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

within regions and departments, making it impossible to share employment information nationwide, which hinders the match between supply and demand information. Higher education institutions have generally established employment network information platforms, but their development is extremely unbalanced. With obvious employment advantages, key universities in economically developed areas have welldeveloped employment information networks that provide adequate employment information for students. However, local regular higher education institutions, especially those in ethnic minority areas, have obviously lagging employment information networks, which fail to provide sufficient information for graduates. (3) Weak coordination between employment service agencies Weak coordination between employment service agencies and poor employment management systems has led to the decentralization of public employment service resources. Employment service agencies of personnel, labor, education and other competent departments work independently, deal with problems without considering the root causes, and fail to research and analyze the employment and entrepreneurship service system targeting college students from a systematic, coordinated and holistic perspective. As a result, the various links of employment services are not connected, making it difficult to systematically solve graduates’ difficulties in finding jobs and weakening the social effects of public employment services.

6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Optimizing the construction of the employment service system for college students Public employment services provide employment information, help find jobs and promote labor flows. Optimizing the construction of the employment service system for college students will help break the dual labor market segmentation, promote the free flow of human resources and equalize access to public employment services. (1) Establishing an information-based employment service system Efforts should be made to build an employment information network platform for college students that collects and integrates employment information by using the network, media, WeChat and other modern information technologies for support and therefore ensures that graduates can receive job information anytime and anywhere. A national public job bank that contains both the recruitment information from employers and the job application information of college graduates should be established and open to all recruiters and job seekers free of charge to reduce the job search cost for college students. A unified and open network system for information on the supply and demand of human resources should be built to optimize and integrate employment information resources. The employment information websites of

6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of college …

211

all colleges and universities should no longer be independent of each other but should be open and interconnected, thus realizing the exchange and sharing of employment information. (2) Enhancing the coordination of employment service agencies The government should give full play to the function of resource integration by coordinating and integrating the public employment service resources of departments of personnel, labor and education to achieve the seamless connection of employment services for college graduates. Market resources should also be mobilized to expand talent recruitment channels by developing staffing agencies, for which the government should make unified regulations on recruitment registration and fees. The government shall give various preferential policies to enterprises that provide internship positions and guide colleges and enterprises to establish internship mechanisms and entrepreneurship platforms for college students, thus creating a good employment and entrepreneurship environment for them. (3) Improving the actual effect of employment guidance in higher education institutions The improvement of the actual effect of employment guidance in higher education institutions shall begin with making the personnel professional and the guidance diversified and through the whole phases. First, the personnel engaged in employment guidance should be more professional. The existing personnel shall be better regulated and trained and joined by newly hired entrepreneurs and psychologists as a way to combine theory and practice. Second, diversified employment guidance services should be provided. A college-enterprise joint training system should be implemented, a tutorial system for interns should be established, and a practice base integrating internship and employment should be built. Social organizations and employers can also be invited to offer entrepreneurship lectures and forums and organize entrepreneurship competitions or enterprise training courses. Third, employment guidance shall be through the whole phases. Targeted career guidance should be given to college students in different phases, and employment information services and job-seeking counseling should be well provided for unemployed college graduates. 2. Adjusting the industrial structure, improving the level of urbanization and developing an economy with regional characteristics for greater capacity for job creation The fundamental reasons for the weak capacity for job creation in ethnic minority areas lie in the unreasonable industrial structure, lagging secondary and tertiary industries, the insufficient aggregate economy and the low level of urbanization. To pursue a larger aggregate economy and greater capacity for job creation in ethnic minority areas, the industrial structure needs to be adjusted, urbanization needs to be improved and an economy with regional characteristics needs to be developed. (1) Accelerating the adjustment of industrial structure

212

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

Accelerating the adjustment of industrial structure is the fundamental support for the greater capacity for job creation in ethnic minority areas. Ethnic minority areas should fully implement industrial policies to boost employment and entrepreneurship and support policies to encourage the development of labor-intensive industries. The areas should also promote their adjustments of industrial structure through differentiated industrial policies and guide industries with bright outlook and enterprises with advanced technology and equipment to transfer to ethnic minority areas by undertaking the construction of industrial transfer demonstration zones. Inner Mongolia should rely on its resource advantages to build a modern coal chemical production demonstration base and a base of green agricultural and livestock product production, processing and export. Xinjiang should persist in promoting social stability through employment and improvement of people’s livelihood, develop light industries such as the textile industry and food processing industry, and focus on creating jobs for local college graduates and local workers. Qinghai should speed up the construction of circular industrial chains, such as new energy, new materials, salt lake chemical industry, nonferrous metals and the intensive processing of biological resources, in a bid to expand the province’s capacity for job creation. (2) Improving the level of urbanization Cities and towns are the geographical space for ethnic minority areas to achieve full employment. The advancement of urbanization in ethnic minority areas is conducive to accelerating the marketization process in ethnic minority areas and increasing the efficiency of resources and economic benefits. The government should exempt ethnic minority areas from the local supporting funds for infrastructure construction, fully subsidize social development and public welfare projects concerning education, health, culture and infrastructure, strengthen infrastructure construction in ethnic minority areas, and improve urban capacities for offering public service and security. It is necessary to propel industrial concentration and city-industry integration, cultivate small and micro businesses, develop labor-intensive industries such as light industries and create jobs by developing the modern service industry in cities, thus enhancing the capacity of cities and towns to attract people and provide jobs. (3) Developing an economy with regional characteristics Developing an economy with regional characteristics is the only way to change the mode of economic growth in ethnic minority areas. Ethnic minority areas should take the regional conditions into account, formulate economic development strategies in line with reality, and pursue a road of regional economic development with local characteristics. For example, ethnic minority areas should exploit their tourism resources by exploring local customs and natural resources to develop tourism and promote employment and economic growth; border trade should be boosted to drive employment and improve the masses’ living standards; Xinjiang should take the Silk Road Economic Belt as an opportunity to build Xinjiang into an important hub for transportation, trade and logistics, finance, culture and science and medical service on the Belt; Inner Mongolia should serve as a bridgehead in China’s northward development, develop border trade and build international passageways through the

6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of college …

213

strategy of opening up in border areas and the policy of enriching border areas and their residents. 3. Boosting the balanced development of basic education in ethnic minority areas and raising the actual effect of bilingual education (1) Boosting the balanced development of basic education in ethnic minority areas To realize balanced development in ethnic minority areas, it is necessary to solve the problem of unfair education among regions. A policy system conducive to the development of basic education in ethnic minority areas should be established, and more attention should be given to improving the school performance, teaching workforce and quality of basic education in ethnic minority areas. First, financial input in basic education should be increased. The central government should proactively assume financial responsibility, establish a sound fiscal transfer payment system and increase investment in basic education in ethnic minority areas. Second, a mechanism guaranteeing the salaries of teachers in basic education in ethnic minority areas should be established to prevent the loss of outstanding teachers in the areas due to low salaries and to ensure a stable team of teachers. Third, ethnic minority areas should implement free education in senior high schools to improve the rate of entering higher education institutions. (2) Raising the actual effect of bilingual education The important factors affecting the effect of bilingual education involve the start time of bilingual education and the quality of bilingual teachers. First, bilingual education should start in kindergartens. As the time of babbling is the best time for humans to learn languages, bilingual education should be done sooner rather than later, and children should begin to learn Mandarin at the preschool stage in kindergartens. Second, the team of “bilingual” teachers should be built up. The “Plan on Special Post for Bilingual Teachers” should be followed to appropriately create more vacancies in public institutions. The training of bilingual teachers should be increased, and targeted-area free normal college graduates should be scaled up. The living allowance standard for rural teachers and special-post teachers should also be raised. Last, bilingual education should avoid being implemented by administrative means. We should do a good job in the education and publicity about the standard Chinese language and make bilingual education more accepted by ethnic minority masses in ethnic minority areas, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet. 4. Increasing investment in higher education and adjusting the professional courses in higher education institutions to the economic structure for greater development of vocational and technical education It is necessary to increase investment in higher education and adjust the design of professional courses in higher education institutions. Higher education should be

214

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

based on the reality of economic and social development in ethnic minority areas and should focus on vocational education and the training of practical talent to promote vocational and technical education and provide talent support for ethnic minority areas to undertake industrial transfer from the Eastern region. (1) Increasing investment in higher education Issues concerning education involve not only the amount of investment but also the fairness of investment, which should especially be weighted toward the poor. On the one hand, the accessibility and fairness of basic public services need to be taken into consideration; on the other hand, the quality of services should also be continuously improved to meet people’s multilevel educational needs. The localized financial input in education leads to insufficient investment in higher education in ethnic minority areas, which directly restricts the establishment of laboratories and the improvement of faculty. Therefore, the central government should prioritize higher education in ethnic minority areas, provide economic support for the development of higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas, and sharpen students’ operational skills and social adaptability through the refinement of the teaching environment and faculty to enhance students’ employability. (2) Adjusting the majors and curriculum design in higher education institutions In an era when higher education is popular, higher education institutions should adhere to autonomy and flexibility in deciding their majors and training modes. First, higher education institutions should have the autonomy to set up majors. Colleges and universities in ethnic minority areas should appropriately reduce majors with low employment rates, increase emerging disciplines and majors that meet the needs of the adjustment of regional industrial structure, and pay attention to the cultivation of technical and practical talent, according to factors such as the employment rates of majors, the industrial structure and labor market demands in the regions. Second, distinctive majors or key disciplines should satisfy the needs of regional economic development. The research projects on basic theories should be trimmed down, and professional courses and research tasks related to local economic development should be added. Last, curriculum designs should be more flexible and practical to increase college students’ internship opportunities in enterprises and familiarize them in advance with the employment needs of enterprises and the skills required by them. (3) Establishing an attractive salary mechanism for teachers of higher education institutions Establishing an attractive salary mechanism for teachers of higher education institutions aims to retain outstanding talent. To ensure that they are willing to stay on, it is necessary to raise the salaries of college and university teachers, establish a sound reward system for scientific research, and provide the teachers with good benefits in housing, education and working environment. At the same time, a training and further education mechanism for teachers of higher education institutions should also

6.5 Suggestions for Promoting the Employment of college …

215

be established to improve their professional skills and comprehensive quality. Professional teachers from colleges and universities in ethnic minority areas are encouraged to go to inland cities for further study to continuously improve their expertise, knowledge and teaching skills, thus refining the quality of higher education in ethnic minority areas. (4) Promoting the development of vocational and technical education The key to advancing vocational and technical education is to rid local governments of the motive for building new regular higher education institutions and to restrain existing regular higher education institutions from being profit-driven to seek large-scale and comprehensive development. College and university enrollment needs to decrease, and instead, secondary and higher vocational and technical colleges should increase their enrollment. More efforts should be made to build up the teaching workforce and students’ fundamental abilities with vocational education as the focus. Secondary and higher vocational and technical colleges should center on the resource advantages and economy with local characteristics in ethnic minority areas, explore majors that have local ethnic cultural features and conform to the economic development of ethnic regions, and train practical and technical talents in fields such as the processing of ethnic handicrafts and the musical instruments of ethnic minorities to provide talent support for the growth of the economy with local characteristics in ethnic minority areas. 5. Deepening the reform of the personnel system of public officials, implementing the talent strategy in ethnic minority areas and strengthening financial support to effectively solve the brain drain in ethnic minority areas (1) Deepening the reform of the personnel system of public officials At the time of the planned economy, the central government adopted mandatory fiscal measures that required developed coastal areas to pay a higher proportion of fiscal revenue. Through such arrangements of “cutting peaks to fill valleys,” the central government gives fiscal subsidies to the underdeveloped areas in the Central and Western regions. The state’s investment in and the layout of infrastructure construction also give priority to the Central and Western regions. To ensure that outstanding talent is willing to work in ethnic minority areas, higher levels of salaries and benefits are offered with extra commendations for their dedication. However, under the market economy, the government encourages some people and some regions to become rich first, making the economic gap between regions increasingly wider, yet the fiscal transfer payment of the central government is no longer weighted toward the Western region as it was during the planned economy period. With unbalanced economic growth among regions, outstanding talent staying in ethnic minority areas not only has no guaranteed salary but also faces many other difficulties, which leads to the failure to retain and attract excellent and top-notch talent. Some outstanding personnel accumulated over the years have also left on a large scale. Officials assisting the Central and Western regions are not abundant and lack the desire to take root

216

6 Employment Difficulties of College Students in Ethnic Minority Areas …

in the regions in the long run. The reform of the personnel system of public officials should be deepened through establishing a long-term incentive mechanism for working in ethnic minority areas, “linking rank with benefits” and establishing an allowance and subsidy mechanism, thus gradually increasing living allowances in ethnic minority areas and impoverished areas, raising the proportion of allowances in impoverished and remote areas in the total fiscal revenue, and solving the brain drain problem and ensuring stable members in the public official positions in ethnic minority areas with financial support. (2) Introducing special policies to help minority college students find jobs The central government should put in place special policies to solve the employment problem of ethnic minority college students in Xinjiang. Ethnic minority college students should be guided to find jobs in ethnic minority areas and should also be encouraged and supported to work in inland cities. First, they should be guided to find jobs locally. The businesses invested by central SOEs or inland enterprises and the assistance projects in Xinjiang should mainly recruit ethnic minority college students, who must achieve a certain proportion of the hired personnel every year. Second, ethnic minority college students should be encouraged and supported to work in inland cities. The colleges and universities in the provinces and cities paired up to assist Xinjiang should expand their enrollment in Xinjiang and encourage and guide Xinjiang ethnic minority graduates to work in these provinces and cities after graduation. The plan for the targeted employment of Xinjiang ethnic minority college graduates inland should be implemented. The state organs and public institutions and the public institutions in the provinces and cities paired up to assist Xinjiang and central SOEs should preferentially hire or separately recruit Xinjiang ethnic minority college graduates. Inland enterprises should enjoy social insurance subsidies, tax relief and other policies after recruiting Xinjiang ethnic minority college graduates.21

21

Department of Economic Development of the NEAC, “Materials Compiled by the Economic Development Research Team for the Central Ethnic Work Conference (Ethnic Minority Areas)”, March, 2014, p. 55.

Chapter 7

Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural Residents Toward the Mobile Population and Migrants in Ethnic Minority Areas

Since the reform and opening up, the labor mobility between urban and rural areas in China has intensified, which is particularly reflected in the irresistible historical trend of the rural labor force going to cities for business and work. With a large number of rural residents flowing to cities, China’s urbanization has developed rapidly. In 2011, China’s urbanization rate reached 51.27%, exceeding 50% for the first time, which marks that China’s development has entered a new stage, and urbanization following industrialization has become a new driver for economic and social development.1 Western ethnic minority areas are economically underdeveloped in China. In 2012, the per capita GDP of the eight ethnic provinces was 80.04% of the national average. In addition, Inner Mongolia had a higher urbanization rate (the proportion of urban residents) than the national average (see Fig. 7.1), but Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang all saw rates below the national average. Consequently, compared with the whole country, ethnic minority areas have slower economic development and urbanization progress. In this new stage of China’s development, ethnic minority areas must accelerate the development of urbanization to catch up with other areas of the country. To promote the urbanization of the western ethnic minority areas, the social integration supported by government departments, the self-adjustment of the mobile population and the recognition of local residents in the cities where the mobile population moves should all play a role. In this way, urban residency to rural migrant workers can be granted,2 and the possible “social gap” prevented.3 The progress of urbanization should become an important concern of Chinese academia and government departments.

1

Society of China Analysis and Forecast (2012) edited by Ru Xin, Lu Xueyi and Li Peilin, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2011. 2 Wen Jun, “The Motive of Farmers’ Transformation into Townspeople and Its Supporting Systems”, Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), Issue 4, 2006. 3 Zhang Yi, “Migrant Workers’ Willingness of Hukou Register and Policy Choice of China Urbanization”, Chinese Journal of Population Science, Issue 2, 2011. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_7

217

218

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

National Total Inner Mogolia

Guangxi

Guizhou

Yunnan

Tibet

Qinghai

Ningxia

Xinjiang

Fig. 7.1 2012 Urbanization rates in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the country (%). Source Compiled and calculated in accordance with the relevant statistics from the “National Data” of the NBS website

7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses In China, with huge population mobility, some new social phenomena and problems have become increasingly prominent. Therefore, the transfer and employment of the labor force have been hot topics for international and domestic scholars over the past 20 years. Literature about the transfer of labor force in China is abundant, and with the study of a great deal of literature, the author summarizes it into three categories. The first is the research on the mechanism for the mobility of the labor force. In this aspect, the mainstream view is that the unbalanced dual economy arising from the urban–rural dual structure is the basic factor for Chinese rural migrant workers to go to other cities for work.4 The view is broadly consistent with the theory proposed by William Arthur Lewis. The second is the research on the living and working conditions and the impact of migrants in the cities where they work. This aspect mainly focuses on the objective impact of migrants on the local labor market and the unfair treatment imposed on them. Cai Fang described the occupational segregation, differences in wages and social security and disadvantages in life and culture that migrants encountered in their workplaces.5 Sociologists and economists, including Li Peilin, Tian Feng, Wang Guixin, Luo Enli, Liu Chuanjiang, Zhou Ling, Li Shuzhuo, Ren Yike and Jin Xiaoyi, also elaborated on the status quo and obstacles of migrants to integrate into local 4

Cai Fang, Du Yang and Wang Meiyan, “Household Registration System and Labor Market Protection”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 12, 2001; Li Qiang, “Dual Labor Market in Chinese Cities and Underlying Elites”, Tsinghua Sociological Review, Special Issue, 2000; Chinese Social Stratification in the Transition Period, Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 2002; “An Analysis of Push and Pull Factors in the Migration of Rural Workers in China”, Social Sciences in China, Issue 1, 2003; Sun Liping, “Formation of the Bottom Society under the Reaccumulation of Resources”, Strategy and Management, Issue 1, 2002. 5 Cai Fang, “Marginalized Migrant Labor Force”, China Opening Journal, Issue 6, 2004.

7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses

219

society from the perspective and logic of the transfer of labor force.6 Ye Juntao, Jiang Jianyong and Qian Wenrong believe that from the perspective of social integration and social identity, the integration of migrants into the life of the places where they move should be a two-way interactive process that involves the adaptation and integration of migrants to local life and the acceptance of local residents toward migrants.7 Wang Chunguang believes that whether migrants identify with the communities where they move depends not only on whether they regard local communities as their homes but also on whether citizens of local communities recognize migrants as local residents.8 The third is the research on the attitudes and evaluations of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers, which are also the concern of this chapter. At present, studies on the attitudes and evaluations of residents of inflow regions (local residents) toward migrants mainly focus on the attitudes and evaluations of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers. Such studies largely fall into two categories, with one being the descriptions of the attitudes of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers and the other being the analysis of the influencing factors of the attitudes of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers. In the first category, most of the existing studies study the attitudes of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers from social identity, social distance, social integration and other theoretical perspectives. Representing “the degree of closeness between a group and an individual”,9 social distance can measure the degree of understanding, sympathy and intimacy between individuals and between ordinary social relations,10 and social distance can be divided into two levels, namely, the level of social contact and that of subjective feelings. Therefore, some scholars utilize social distance to measure the attitudes of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers. As an important part of a person’s self-concept, social identity can affect individual social attitude and behavior,11 and it is the self-identification of individuals and groups and the recognition of others to their social identities and roles in a 6

Li Peilin and Tian Feng, “Intergenerational Comparison of the Social Integration of Migrant Workers in China”, Chinese Journal of Sociology, Issue 5, 2012; Wang Guixin and Luo Enli, “A Study on the Current Situation of Peasant Migrants’ Social Integration in Shanghai”, Journal of East China University of Science and Technology (Social Science Edition), Issue 22, 2007; Liu Chuanjiang and Zhou Ling, “Social Capital and the Urban Integration of Migrant Workers”, Population Research, Issue 5, 2004; Li Shuzhuo, Ren Yike and Jin Xiaoyi, “A Research on the Social Integration of Chinese Migrant Rural Workers and Its Influencing Factors: an Analysis Based on the Social Support Network”, Population and Economics, Issue 2, 2008. 7 Ye Juntao, Jiang Jianyong and Qian Wenrong, “On the Influencing Factors of Urban Residents’ Attitudes Toward Rural Migrant Workers”, Zhejiang Social Sciences, October 2011. 8 Wang Chunguang, “Social Identity of the New Generation of Rural Hobo and Merger of Urban and Rural”, Sociological Studies, Issue 3, 2001. 9 Lewis A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought, translated by Shi Ren, China Social Sciences Press, 1991. 10 Lu Guoxian, “The Social Distance Between Rural Migrant Workers and Urban Residents in Chinese Large Cities in a Positive Approach”, Journal of Chinese People’s Public Security University (Social Sciences Edition), Issue 4, 2006. 11 Tafel H., Turner J. C., “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior”, In Worchel S., Austin W. (eds), Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1986, pp. 7–24.

220

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

variety of social networks.12 With the goal of building a benign and harmonious society, social integration is a process of mutual cooperation and adaptation between individuals, between different groups, and between different cultures.13 According to the definition of J. L. Freedman and other scholars, an attitude is the firm psychological tendency of an individual toward a particular thing, idea or person, and is composed of cognition, emotion and behavior tendency.14 With the deepening marketization of the labor force, the attitudes of local urban residents toward rural migrant workers are contradictory. On the one hand, urban residents actively or passively accept rural migrant workers to a certain extent and recognize their existence in the city. On the other hand, urban residents generally have a negative attitude toward rural migrant workers. Lu Guoxian divides urban residents’ attitudes toward rural migrant workers into two categories, with one being positive, affirmative and sympathetic attitudes and the other being prejudice and discrimination (prejudiced attitude representing the social distance between urban residents and rural migrant workers). By surveying 212 residents in Haidian District, Beijing, he finds that in terms of the sympathetic attitude, more than 80% of the urban residents agree that rural migrant workers have contributed to the city and provided convenience to urban residents, and nearly half believe that Beijing’s policies have greatly restricted rural migrant workers. With regard to discrimination, 70% of urban residents hold that rural migrant workers have disrupted urban security and damaged the urban environment, more than half have owed the traffic jam to rural migrant workers, and nearly 40% believe that rural migrant workers have threatened the jobs of local urban residents. Furthermore, he applies the theory of social distance to analyze the relationship between urban residents and rural migrant workers and concludes that most urban residents are exclusive to rural migrant workers and that the exchanges between the two parties are unequal. The social distance between rural migrant workers and urban residents is long, which means their relationship is not profound, and as the communication opportunities are few, the subjective distance between the two parties is relatively large.15 Jing Zhizheng and Guo Hong applied case study methods to investigate the integration of new migrants in several communities in Chengdu and concluded that urban community residents generally have an intolerant or indifferent attitude toward

12

Zheng Hangsheng, Research Reports on China Social Development 2009—Toward a More Consensus Society: Challenges of Social Identity and Its Countermeasures, China Renmin University Press, 2009. 13 Ren Yuan and Wu Minle, “Social Integration of Urban Residents: Literature Review”, Population Research, Issue 3, 2006. 14 J. L. Freedman, D. O. Sears and J. M. Carlsmith, Social psychology, translated by Gaodi, Gaojia, etc., Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 1986. 15 Lu Guoxian, “The Social Distance Between Rural Migrant Workers and Urban Residents in Chinese Large Cities in a Positive Approach”, Journal of Chinese People’s Public Security University (Social Sciences Edition), Issue 4, 2006.

7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses

221

migrants. Urban residents do not care about the living conditions of migrants, and they also discriminate against their identities and occupations.16 Liu Linping surveyed 500 citizens living in the old city area of Guangzhou with questionnaires in which 11 descriptions concerning rural migrant workers—five positive ones and six negative ones—were presented to analyze citizens’ agreement degree toward these descriptions. The result shows that these citizens’ evaluations toward rural migrant workers are generally below the neutral level.17 Zhang Xueyun, through conducting a questionnaire survey of 621 registered permanent residents of the urban area of Tianjin, finds that between urban residents and rural migrant workers, there exists obvious alienation in psychology and distance in emotion; in addition, the urban residents hold a “general exclusion and part acceptance” attitude toward rural migrant workers, which means that they reject the group of rural migrant workers but accept some of them. They basically recognize the workers’ role in the city but support restricting their rights. A considerable proportion of citizens lack understanding and sympathy toward rural migrant workers, and they believe it is common that rural migrant workers are restricted from some rights. In addition, they hold a negative evaluation of rural migrant workers who, in their opinion, would bring about a series of social problems.18 Ye Juntao, Jiang Jianyong and Qian Wenrong surveyed 389 adults with registered permanent residence in the urban area of Hangzhou. They find that 46.1% of the surveyed residents hold a positive attitude toward rural migrant workers, 18.8% hold an entirely negative attitude and the rest are in between. Thus, it could be concluded that Hangzhou residents generally hold a negative attitude toward rural migrant workers.19 Hu Rong and Wang Xiao defined “social distance” as the willingness of citizens to associate with migrants, which can be regarded as citizens’ attitudes and behavioral tendencies toward migrants. They, based on their research, find that most urban residents are willing to associate with migrants. Specifically, 60.63% are willing to communicate with them, 58.41% show their desire to work with them, 53.65% want to be their neighbors and 50.08% wish to be their close friends. However, fewer than 40% of citizens or their children are willing to marry migrants.20 Tang Youcai and Fu Ping analyzed the data of the 2005 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) and discovered that citizens maintain a relatively long social distance from migrants, but the situation is different as social relationships and associations change. With 16

Jing Zhizheng and Guo Hong, “The Community Integration and Social Exclusion of New Urban Immigration—the Case from Chengdu Urban Community”, Northwest Population Journal, Issue 2, 2007. 17 Liu Linpin, “Interaction and Attitude: Rural Migrant Workers in the Eyes of Urban Residents”, Journal of Sun Yat-sen University (Social Science Edition), Issue 2, 2008. 18 Zhang Xueyun, “‘General Exclusion and Part Acceptance’—Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Urban Residents and Rural Migrant Workers”, Social Sciences in Guangxi, Issue 5, 2008. 19 Ye Juntao, Jiang Jianyong and Qian Wenrong, “On the Influencing Factors of Urban Residents’ Attitudes Toward Rural Migrant Workers”, Zhejiang Social Sciences, Issue 10, 2011. 20 Hu Rong and Wang Xiao, “The Social Distance Between Social Capital and Urban Residents and Rural Migrant Workers”, Social Science Research, Issue 3, 2012.

222

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

closer social relationships and deeper social association, citizens hold an increasingly conservative attitude. A dominant proportion of citizens are willing to maintain ordinary relationships with migrants, but in regard to closer social relationships, such as family and kinship relationships, the proportion drops drastically to only over 40%.21 The second is the influencing factors of citizens’ attitudes toward rural migrant workers. Citizens’ attitudes toward rural migrant workers vary with individual economic and social features, such as gender, occupation, education level, economic and social strata, and social capital, and are influenced by the local economic and social environment. Research conducted by Zhang Xueyun shows that individual features can exert some influence on the relationship between citizens and rural migrant workers. Citizens with higher income, compared with those with lower income, show more sympathy, acceptance and tolerance as well as less rejection and exclusion toward rural migrant workers; compared with those with lower professional identity, citizens with higher professional identity are more willing to embrace rural migrant workers and demonstrate less rejection and exclusion; upper-class citizens have less prejudice and exclusion toward rural migrant workers.22 Wang Jiashun, based on the data of the CGSS in 2005, constructed a multidimensional linear model of whether it is fine for urban residents to see migrants move in their cities against the backdrop of regional disparities. He finds that individual economic and social features, together with the local institutional environment, have a noticeable influence on their attitudes. Older female citizens who live in a city with many registered permanent residents and sound housing security and are subjectively in a relatively low social and economic status are more reluctant to see migrants move in. In addition, citizens living in a city that bears much pressure to supply public goods and provides fine public goods and services are even more reluctant.23 Tang Youcai and Fu Ping, from the perspective of social identity, conducted an empirical study on the attitudes of urban residents toward migrants. They reach the conclusion that the higher the status of urban residents is, the more friendly and easy-going they are toward migrants, and the narrower the subjective social distance between citizens and migrants is; in contrast, the lower the status of urban residents is, the more exclusive they are, and the longer the subjective social distance between citizens and migrants is. They summarize the phenomenon as the “people of the similar class repelling each other” paradox, which means that people of different

21

Tang Youcai and Fu Ping, “‘Does Similar Class Repel Each Other’?—Problems Concerning the Social Distance Between Chinese Urban Residents and Migrants”, Journal of East China University of Science and Technology (Social Science Edition), Issue 5, 2012. 22 Zhang Xueyun, “‘General Exclusion and Part Acceptance’—Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Urban Residents and Rural Migrant Workers”, Social Sciences in Guangxi, Issue 5, 2008. 23 Wang Jiashun, “A Study on the Attitudes of Urban Residents Toward Migrants with Regional Disparities—Based on the 2005 National Comprehensive Social Survey Data”, Chinese Journal of Sociology, Issue 6, 2010.

7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses

223

groups show more alienation and rejection toward those of the similar class, as they enjoy more similarities and belong to or approach the same social class.24 Some scholars have carried out research concerning the attitudes and evaluations of citizens of in-flow cities toward rural migrant workers. However, these studies contain some shortcomings. First, studies fail to balance attention toward different research areas; that is, they lack enough attention to Western ethnic minority areas, especially ethnic minority counties. Second, they lack important research perspectives; that is, there are few studies on the attitudes and evaluations of residents with rural hukou toward migrants. The first shortcoming mainly results from the fact that the scales of the mobile population in eastern and central China are larger than the scale in western China, and compared with counties, large cities witness more concentrated and mobile populations. Hence, the problems regarding the mobile population in the large cities of eastern and central China are easily noticed. However, with the industrial transfer in recent years and the influences brought by land and labor costs, labor-intensive industries have moved to the central and western regions, and the big picture featuring the industrial and labor transfer from the eastern region to the central and western regions is taking shape.25 At the same time, with years of efforts, China has slowed its development speed from over 10% to less than eight percent since 2011, while most western provinces and autonomous regions keep their development speed at over 10%; the central and western regions, instead of the eastern region, are becoming the new drive for economic growth. In the foreseeable future, Western ethnic minority areas will see a larger-scale migrant labor force. In addition, there are huge gaps between the western ethnic minority areas and the eastern and central regions and between counties and large cities in economic, social and cultural development. Consequently, counties in the western ethnic minority areas have different bases in the employment environment, conditions and capacity, which means that the problems concerning migrants in these counties should be given more attention. The second shortcoming mainly results from the population of in-flow regions (or local population) not being divided into specific groups. In accordance with the classification of hukou (urban hukou and rural hukou), the local population can be divided into the population with urban hukou and that with rural hukou. Urban and rural residents differ in aspects such as social and economic features, so they may hold different attitudes and evaluations toward the migrant labor force. On such a basis, this chapter focuses on underdeveloped Western ethnic minority areas. Once the mechanism for the transfer and mobility of the labor force exerts influence, migrant workers would bring about what changes to the social and economic environment of inflow regions and how local residents26 recognize these changes 24

Tang Youcai and Fu Ping, “‘Does Similar Class Repel Each Other’?—Problems Concerning the Social Distance Between Chinese Urban Residents and Migrants”, Journal of East China University of Science and Technology (Social Science Edition), Issue 5, 2012. 25 Rural Migrant Workers Begin to Transfer to the Central and Western Regions”, New Business, March 22nd, 2010; “The Increasing Center of Rural Migrant Workers Has Been Shifted to the Central and Western Regions for Three Consecutive Years”, Beijing Business Today, May 28th, 2013. 26 Local residents in this chapter refer to those with urban or rural hukou of the county.

224

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

from their perspectives. Based on the micro survey data, this chapter chooses rural and urban residents in the counties of the Western ethnic minority areas and studies their attitudes and evaluations toward migrants to prevent the possible “social gap.” Based on the literature review mentioned above and preliminary observations and thinking, the author believes that the attitudes of rural and urban citizens in the 16 counties and cities of the surveyed ethnic minority areas toward migrants are affected not only by their social and economic features but also by local economic and resource conditions and social and cultural environments. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are put forward. Hypothesis one: The attitudes of local residents in Western ethnic minority areas toward migrants are different. Residents with urban hukou, female residents, residents of higher education levels, younger residents, and residents of higher income levels, compared with residents with rural hukou, female residents, residents of lower education levels, older residents, and residents of lower income levels, are inclined to embrace positive attitudes toward migrants. According to self-interest theory,27 local residents who feel competition for employment opportunities and resources from migrants are inclined to embrace a negative attitude toward them.28 Generally, compared with residents with urban hukou, male residents, residents of higher education levels, younger residents, and residents of higher income levels, surveyed residents with rural hukou, female residents, residents of lower education levels, older residents and residents of lower income levels usually get hired in the working fields which require fewer techniques29 and are the main battlefields of migrants and local residents to replace and compete with each other, so these residents are likely to embrace a negative attitude toward migrants who would grab their resources and employment opportunities. Hypothesis two: Compared with the surveyed ethnic minority residents, the surveyed Han residents display a more positive attitude toward migrants. Given that the research covers the local residents of all ethnic groups in Western ethnic minority areas, the ethnic differences in the local residents’ attitudes toward migrants are noteworthy. On the one hand, studies show that there is an income gap between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in Western ethnic minority areas; that is, the income of the latter lags behind that of the former.30 The above literature indicates that income level has a significant impact on the attitude toward rural 27

Burns, P. and Gimpel, J., “Economic Insecurity, Prejudicial Sterotypes, and Public Opinion on Immigration Policy”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 11, 2000, pp. 201–225. 28 Ye Juntao, Jiang Jianyong and Qian Wenrong, “On the Influencing Factors of Urban Residents’ Attitudes Toward Rural Migrant Workers”, Zhejiang Social Sciences, Issue 10, 2011. 29 Wang Guixin, Shen Jianfa and Liu Jianbo, “Citizenization of Rural Migrant Workers in the Cities of China”, Population and Development, Issue 1, 2008. 30 Jorn Gustaffson and Li Shi, “The Ethnic Minorit-Minority Income CaP in Rural China during Transition”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 51, No. 4, July 2003; Ding Sai, “The Ethnic Minority-Majority Income Gap in Rural China”, China Labor Economics, Issue 4, 2006; Liu Xiaomin, “The Comparative Studies on the Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas from the Ethnic Point of View: Taking Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan as Example”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 4, 2013.

7.1 Research Problems and Hypotheses

225

migrant workers coming from other places. On the other hand, objectively speaking, it is difficult for various ethnic minorities with different languages, ethnic cultures, customs, outlooks on values and lives to recognize migrants in a short period. Hypothesis three: Compared with the respondents who are not CPC or CCYL members, the respondents who are CPC or CCYL members display a more positive attitude toward migrants. On the one hand, the respondents who are CPC or CCYL members are superior in social capital. On the other hand, the country now becomes increasingly tolerant toward the mobile population and constantly enacts relevant policies to provide support for the mobile population and rural mobile population in particular. It is well known that, in principle, it is the responsibility of the CPC and CCYL members to uphold the policies of the Party and the state; therefore, it is not beyond our expectations that the respondents who are CPC or CCYL members display a more positive attitude toward migrants. Hypothesis four: Counties (cities or banners) with a stronger accumulation of resources attract more migrants, but residents in these places display a more negative attitude toward migrants. According to the spatial economy put forward by the American economist Paul Robin Krugman, unbalanced regional development will lead to a resource agglomeration effect; that is, all kinds of resources (including population resources) will be accumulated in places with a stronger accumulation of resources (economically developed cities and regions), which leads to the accumulation of more resources in economically developed regions that will, as a result, become more prosperous.31 According to the “2013 National Survey of Migrant Workers”, in 2013, the total number of rural migrant workers nationwide was 268.94 million, among which 166.1 million left their hometowns and worked in other places. In the Eastern region, rural migrant workers mainly leave their hometowns and search for jobs within the provinces where they reside, while rural migrant workers in the Central and Western regions mainly search for jobs in other provinces, and 82.7% of the rural migrant workers from the Western region working in other provinces flood into the Eastern region.32 That is, the eastern region is the main destination of the migrant labor force. The above literature mainly focuses on the attitudes of urban residents in the Eastern region toward the migrant labor force, and it can be concluded that the economically developed eastern region with a stronger accumulation of resources accepts a sizeable number of the migrant labor force, but on the whole, local residents display a negative attitude toward the labor force. During the implementation of the strategy for large-scale development of western China, all ethnic minority areas have, based on their own advantageous resources, dedicated themselves to developing industries with local advantages to achieve leapfrog development. For economically underdeveloped ethnic minority areas, poor 31

Krugman P. “Increasing Returns, Monopolistic Competition, and International Trade” Journal of International Economics, No. 9, 1979. 32 NBS: The “2013 National Survey of Migrant Workers”, the website of the NBS (http://www. stats.gov.cn/tjsi/zxfb/201405/t20140512_551585.html), published on May 12th, 2014.

226

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

accumulation of resources and relatively low economic development levels will give rise to fewer chances of nonagricultural employment in the localities, and therefore, the local surplus labor is likely to tend to search for jobs in more distant places. For example, surplus labor in Guizhou mainly flows into developed provinces and cities such as those on the southeast coast of China, and the proportion of rural surplus labor working within the provinces where they reside is very small.33 Consequently, the proportion of local urban and rural residents whose relatives seek work in other locations is higher, and according to the psychological concept of “empathy”,34 it is possible that the residents display a more positive attitude toward the migrant labor force. In contrast, if the localities are capable of accumulating resources and then providing more jobs, the labor force will be more dependent on the local job market, and they will regard local resources and local household registration as a kind of comparative advantage and therefore view the migrant labor force as competitors for resources and opportunities and display a negative attitude toward them. A region with a stronger accumulation of resources is also one with a relatively higher level of economic development. In this chapter, a county’s accumulation of resources will be represented by its per capita GDP.

7.2 Data Sources and Sample Distribution The microdata in this chapter come from the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century”, a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS. In 2013, this project set up 16 subprojects that conducted comprehensive surveys of the economic and social development of 16 counties (cities or banners), including Ejin Horo Banner and Ewenki Autonomous Banner in Inner Mongolia, Huzhu Tu Autonomous County in Qinghai, Sunan Yugu Autonomous County in Gansu, Lijiang City, Cangyuan Va Autonomous County, Dali City and Yingjiang County in Yunnan, Kashgar City, Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, Karakax County and Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County in Xinjiang, Zhenning Buyei and Miao Autonomous County, and Kaili City, Taijiang County and Sandu Shui Autonomous County in Guizhou. Meanwhile, the project team conducts sample surveys with questionnaires of the urban and rural households and the communities where they reside in the 16 counties (cities or banners). Each county (city or banner) has 400 household samples with a total sample of 6,535 of the 16 counties (cities or banners). When the team carries out the door-to-door household survey, the questionnaires are mainly answered by one of the major household members at home. The survey adopted the 33

Li Zhilong, “One-way Flow of Labor in Guizhou: Reasons, Implications and Solutions”, Journal of Guizhou College of Finance and Economics, Issue 3, 2009. 34 Wei Yuan, “Empathy: Special Concept in the Association Between Psychological Counseling and Therapy”, Chinese Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation, Issue 40, 2005.

7.2 Data Sources and Sample Distribution

227

urban and rural stratified random sampling method. As this chapter focuses on the attitudes of the urban and rural residents in the surveyed counties (cities or banners) toward the migrant labor force and their assessments of the labor force, only the 6,290 respondents who have registered permanent residence of a locality will be taken into account.35 Their basic information is shown in Table 7.1. Table 7.1 briefly introduces the demographic, social and economic features of the respondents. Their average age is 45 years old; males account for approximately 60%; CPC and CCYL members account for fewer than 20%; more than 80% get married; over 60% have an educational background of primary school and junior high school; 60% have a rural hukou; and more than 70% are ethnic minorities. This chapter focuses on the attitudes of local residents toward migrants. It does not abstractly analyze attitudes by terms such as “social distance” or “social identity” but by two questions in the questionnaire. The first one is “if you are one of the registered local households, your attitude toward migrants is: (i) very welcoming; (ii) welcoming; (iii) unwelcoming; (iv) very unwelcoming; (v) uncertain or not caring.”

35

According to the data of the sixth population census, the proportion of the migrants who live in a county and have been away from their household registration areas for over six months and whose hukous are in another county in the total population is 12.8%. The proportions of the Eastern region are mostly higher than the national level, and the proportions of the Western region, especially the proportions of Tibet (8.68%), Yunnan (8.56%), Guangxi (8.16%), Guizhou (7.50%) and Gansu (6.36%), are mostly lower than those of the Eastern region (Calculated in accordance with relevant data of Tables 7.1–7.2 and 7.1–7.4 in the Tabulation on the 2010 Population Census of the People’s Republic of China). In addition, according to other statistics, in all the 166.1 million rural migrant workers who leave their hometowns and work in other places in 2013, 52.5 million of them flow into the Western region, accounting for 31.61% of the total, and among which 11.3511 million flow into small cities (including counties and towns) in the Western region, accounting for 6.83% of the total (rural migrant workers who leave their hometowns and work in other places in this circumstance refer to the rural migrant workers working outside of the towns of their registered permanent residence, and the proportions will be much smaller if the above “towns” are changed into “counties”) (Calculated in accordance with relevant data of the “2013 National Survey of Migrant Workers” published by the NBS, the website of the NBS). In summary, the proportion of migrant labor force in the Western region in the local population is lower than that in the Eastern region, and these labor force mainly gather in cities above the county (city or banner) level (78.4%). It can thus be inferred that there are much more migrants including the migrant labor force and their family in cities above the county (city or banner) level than in cities of the county (city or banner) level, so the proportion of migrants in the cities of the county (city or banner) level in western ethnic minority areas in the local population is much smaller than that in the cities above the county (city or banner) level. In general, given that the proportions (over three percent) of migrants in the 16 counties (cities or banners) of the surveyed six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the local total population and the proportions of migrants in cities of the county (city or banner) level in the western ethnic minority areas in the local total population calculated in accordance with the sixth population census and the “2013 National Survey of Migrant Workers” are taken into account, it can be concluded that data in this chapter are representative. In addition, although there are few households who don’t have registered permanent residence of a locality in all the surveyed sample households, local residents are the research object in this chapter. As a result, the research results will not be affected.

228

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Table 7.1 Distribution of the basic information about respondents (Unit: %) Variable

Proportion

Variable

Proportion

Ethnicity

Gender

Variable

Proportion

Political affiliation

Male

58.6

Han nationality

23.8

CPC member

18.0

Female

41.4

Ethnic minorities

76.2

CCYL member

5.8

Sample size

6161

Sample size

6059

Non-communist parties

0.1

Masses

75.9

0–15

0.8

Unmarried

8.0

Others

0.3

16–29

13.2

Married for the first time with a spouse

80.3

Sample size

6120

30–39

21.9

Remarried with a spouse

2.5

Education

40–49

29.6

Divorced

2.2

No education

9.9 28.3

Age

Marital status

50–59

17.0

Widowed

6.9

Primary school

60 and above

17.5

In a cohabitation relationship

0.1

Junior high school

Sample size

6290

Sample size

6124

Senior high school 16.6

Nature of hukou Rural hukou

60.6

Urban hukou

39.4

Sample size

6151

Associate’s degree and higher

13.3

Sample size

6135

Note As variables have missing values, the sample sizes of variables are different

The second one is “if you hold an unwelcoming attitude, the reasons are (please choose three in order of importance). (i) I can’t stand their behaviors; (ii) the employment opportunities for local residents decrease after they arrive; (iii) they make money from the locals without making contributions to the local areas; (iv) they destroy the local living environment; (v) they damage the local resources and natural environment; (vi) no reason; (vii) conflicting values.” Inspired by scholars such as Liu Linping,36 the author adopts the method of assigning the welcome degree and conducts the multiple linear regression analysis. To better distinguish the degree of local urban and rural residents’ attitudes toward migrants, the attitudes of registered local households toward migrants are assigned 36

Liu Linping, “Interaction and Attitude: Rural Migrant Workers in the Eyes of Urban Residents”, Journal of Sun Yat-sen University (Social Science Edition), Issue 2, 2008.

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

229

according to the following rules: three points for very welcoming, one point for welcoming, minus one for unwelcoming, and minus three for very unwelcoming, zero for uncertain. Therefore, for any subsample, the average score is between minus three and three points. A score of zero means a neutral attitude, a positive score means a welcoming attitude, and vice versa.37

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis 1. A descriptive analysis of the attitudes of local urban and rural residents toward migrants (1) Attitudes of urban and rural residents in different provinces and autonomous regions toward migrants The attitudes of local respondents toward migrants are shown in Table 7.2. The results of statistical analysis show that in the six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guizhou,38 the surveyed local residents hold very positive attitudes toward migrants: 78.76% of the respondents hold welcoming or very welcoming attitudes toward migrants, 11.1% show unwelcoming or very unwelcoming attitudes, and 10.14% hold attitudes of “uncertain” or “not caring”. This means that the vast majority of the respondents welcome migrants. Table 7.2 Attitudes of the surveyed local residents in different provinces to migrants (Unit: %) Inner Mongolia

Qinghai

Gansu

Yunnan

Xinjiang

Guizhou

Total

Very welcoming

16.56

35.93

17.93

35.08

34.21

50.99

35.56

Welcoming

34.17

52.51

35.35

49.42

41.81

42.11

43.2

Unwelcoming

29.04

9.3

2.53

12.49

7.21

3.07

10.03

Very unwelcoming

2.23

0.25

0.51

0.74

2.29

0

1.07

Uncertain/not caring

18

2.01

43.69

2.28

14.48

3.83

10.14

Total

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Sample size

761

398

396

1625

1526

1565

6271

37

A similar example is the scoring rules of the FIFA “Golden Globe” selection, that is, the three individuals selected by each judge are assigned five points, three points, and one point, respectively. 38 The surveyed areas include 16 counties (cities) in the six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guizhou which are referred to as the “six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions” as follows for the sake of simplicity.

230

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Table 7.2 also shows that there are significant differences in the welcome degree of migrants among urban and rural residents in different provinces and autonomous regions. The respondents with the lowest proportion of “welcoming” or “very welcoming” attitudes toward migrants are from Inner Mongolia, only 50.73% of whom hold those attitudes, far below the total average level of 78.76%. The proportion of respondents in Inner Mongolia holding attitudes of “unwelcoming” or “very unwelcoming” reaches 31.27%, which is two to ten times that of respondents from other provinces and autonomous regions. The proportion of respondents in Gansu holding attitudes of “welcoming” or “very welcoming” accounts for 53.28%, slightly higher than that of respondents in Inner Mongolia. Guizhou is the province with the highest proportion of “welcoming” or “very welcoming” attitudes toward migrants (93.1%), and the proportion of “very unwelcoming” attitudes is zero. Obviously, the different attitudes of respondents in Inner Mongolia and Gansu and respondents in Guizhou relate to the differences in the natural resources of the surveyed areas and the differences in their economic structures and levels of economic development. Among the three provinces and autonomous regions of Qinghai, Yunnan and Xinjiang, urban and rural respondents’ attitudes toward migrants lie between those of Inner Mongolia and Guizhou. (2) Attitudes of residents with different household registrations and genders toward migrants As shown in Table 7.3, obvious differences exist in the attitudes of local residents toward migrants from the perspectives of household registration and gender. It can be seen that in terms of household registration, the proportion of local residents with urban hukou holding “very welcoming” attitudes is higher than that of residents with rural hukou (five percentage points higher). Those with urban hukou show more positive welcoming attitudes. The proportion of negative attitudes of “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” among local residents with rural hukou is higher than that of those with urban hukou (4.47 percentage points higher). From the perspective of attitude assignment, the average score of respondents with rural hukou reaches 1.5, higher than the 1.32 of those with nonrural hukou. In terms of gender, showing more positive attitudes of welcoming, the local males have a higher percentage of “very welcoming” attitudes than females (approximately three percentage points higher). There is no obvious gender difference in negative attitudes of “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” toward migrants. (3) Attitudes of residents in different ethnic groups and of different political affiliations toward migrants As shown in Table 7.4, differences exist in the attitudes of respondents to migrants from the perspectives of ethnic group and political affiliation. It can be seen that, in different ethnic groups, the proportion of ethnic minority respondents with negative attitudes of “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” toward migrants is higher than

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

231

Table 7.3 Attitudes of residents with different household registrations and genders to migrants (Unit: %) Rural hukou

Urban hukou

Total 1*

Male

Female

Total 2

Very welcoming

33.98

39.04

35.98

37.25

34.3

36.03

Welcoming

44.56

41.77

43.46

43.4

43.42

43.41

Unwelcoming

10.82

6.78

9.23

9.48

8.96

9.26

Very unwelcoming

1.13

0.7

0.96

1

0.9

0.96

Not caring/uncertain

9.5

11.7

10.37

8.87

12.42

10.34

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Sample size

3714

2418

6132

3597

2545

6142

Note * Some samples have different deficiencies in variables such as household registration, ethnicity, gender, age and education level, which leads to inconsistency between the aggregated samples and the total samples in aspects of urban and rural areas, ethnicity, gender, age and education level, and the inconsistency between the proportion of the samples classified in this way and the total samples

that of the Han nationality (2.74 percentage points higher), and their unwelcoming attitudes are more obvious. There is not much difference between the ethnic groups who hold positive attitudes of “very welcoming” and “welcoming” to migrants. For attitude assignment, the average score of the Han respondents reaches 1.41, and the average score of the ethnic minority respondents is 1.39. In terms of political affiliation, the proportion of respondents who are CPC and CCYL members holding attitudes of “very welcoming” and “welcoming” is 3.65 percentage points higher than that of those who are not CPC or CCYL members and of holding “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” attitudes, 1.64 percentage points lower than that of those who are not CPC or CCYL members. In summary, compared to ethnic minorities and those who are not CPC or CCYL members, residents of Han nationality or who are CPC and CCYL members have more positive attitudes toward migrants. (4) Attitudes of residents of different education levels toward migrants Table 7.5 shows that the proportion of respondents with an associate’s degree or higher who hold “very welcoming” attitudes toward migrants is the highest. At the same time, the highest proportion of respondents who hold negative attitudes of “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” are the same groups as above. Therefore, from the perspective of education level, differences exist in the attitudes of local residents toward migrants but are not significant. (5) Attitudes of respondents of different ages toward migrants As shown in Table 7.6, the attitudes of respondents toward migrants differ from age to age. It can be seen that 95.75% and 80.58% of respondents aged zero to 15 and above 60, respectively, who hold attitudes of “very welcoming” and “welcoming” are the highest proportions among all age groups. Correspondingly, the proportions of “unwelcoming” and “very unwelcoming” are the smallest. This shows that residents

232

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Table 7.4 Attitudes of residents in different ethnic groups and of different political affiliations toward migrants (Unit: %) Han nationality

Ethnic minorities

Total 1

Non-CPC and non-CCYL members

CPC and CCYL members

Total 2

Very welcoming

35.12

36.2

35.95

34.53

40.11

35.86

Welcoming

44.3

43.19

43.45

43.97

42.04

43.51

Unwelcoming

7.93

9.7

9.28

9.68

8.13

9.31

Very unwelcoming

0.21

1.19

0.96

0.99

0.9

0.97

Not caring/uncertain

12.45

9.72

10.36

10.84

8.82

10.36

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100

100

100

Sample size

1438

4693

6131

4651

1451

6102

Table 7.5 Attitudes of residents of different education levels toward migrants (Unit: %) No education

Primary school

Junior high school

Senior high school, specialized secondary school and vocational high school

Associate’s degree or higher

Total

Very welcoming 35.04

33.33

37.45

34.68

40.32

35.97

Welcoming

46.3

42.83

43.65

37.87

43.43

44.3

Unwelcoming

9.42

9.61

9.02

8.57

10.17

9.3

Very unwelcoming

0.33

1.1

0.72

1.18

1.47

0.96

Uncertain/not caring

10.91

9.66

9.99

11.92

10.17

10.33

Total

100

100

100

100

100

100

Sample size

605

1728

1952

1015

816

6116

of younger and older age groups have a clear welcoming attitude toward migrants. The attitudes of residents of other age groups have no obvious differences. 2. Relationship between the respondents’ attitudes toward migrants and local resource accumulation Table 7.7 shows the economic situation and the average scores of the welcome degree of migrants among urban and rural residents in the 16 surveyed counties (cities or banners). The counties (cities or banners) with a relatively high per capita GDP have relatively high proportions of the secondary industry and urban residents; that is, the counties (cities or banners) with a relatively high level of economic development also

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

233

Table 7.6 Attitudes of different-aged residents toward migrants (Unit: %) Very welcoming

0–15

16–29

30–39

40–49

50–59

60 and above

Total

38.3

35.7

35.93

36.32

36.27

35.93

35.56

Welcoming

57.45

44.65

42.31

43.05

42.36

44.65

43.2

Unwelcoming

0

10.7

10.2

9.57

8.61

7.41

10.03

Very unwelcoming

0

1.24

1.65

0.95

0.39

0.47

1.07

Not caring/uncertain

4.26

7.71

9.9

10.12

12.38

11.54

10.14

Total

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Sample size

47

804

1333

1798

1034

1066

6082

enjoy a relatively high level of industrialization and urbanization. In this chapter, the per capita GDP of the 16 surveyed counties (cities or banners) is used as the variable representing the economic development level to study the relationship between the level of local economic development and the welcome degree of migrants among urban and rural residents. Table 7.7 shows that in Ewenki Autonomous Banner, Inner Mongolia, local residents hold the least welcoming attitude toward migrants, and the average score of the welcome degree is only 0.307, but its per capita GDP ranks second among the 16 counties, reaching RMB 64,387. In contrast, the average scores of the welcome degree of migrants among the respondents in Sandu Shui Autonomous County, Taijiang County and Zhenning Buyei and Miao Autonomous County in Guizhou are approximately two, while the GDP per capita of the three counties is relatively low. To directly analyze the relationship between the economic and resource conditions and the residents’ attitudes toward migrants in the 16 surveyed counties (cities or banners), a scatter plot (see Fig. 7.2) is made with the ranking of the per capita GDP of the county from low to high (1–16) as the horizontal axis and the ranking of the respondents’ attitude scores toward migrants from low to high (1–16) as the vertical axis. In Fig. 7.2, the surveyed area whose position is more to the left has a lower ranking of the per capita GDP, which reflects that the area faces worse economic and resource conditions; the surveyed area in the upper position enjoys a higher ranking of the respondents’ attitude scores, indicating that more residents show a positive attitude toward migrants. The two surveyed areas in the lower-left position of Fig. 7.2, namely, Karakax County in Xinjiang and Cangyuan Va Autonomous County in Yunnan, fall outside the overall pattern of the scatter plot. Karakax is located in Hotan Prefecture in southern Xinjiang, where the Uygur population in Xinjiang is most concentrated, and Cangyuan is also a place where people of ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities and the proportion of the local Va population makes up over 80%. The data demonstrate that although the per capita GDP of Karakax is only RMB 4,741, the lowest among the 16 surveyed counties, and the per capita GDP of Cangyuan is also relatively low, the respondents in the two surveyed counties express a very negative attitude toward migrants. In addition, the per capita GDP of Taxkorgan Tajik

234

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Table 7.7 Economic situation and average scores of the welcome degree of migrants among urban and rural residents in the 16 surveyed counties (cities or banners) Province

County (city) Industrial structure (%) Primary industry

Inner Mongolia

Secondary industry

Tertiary industry

Per capita GDP (RMB)

Proportion of urban residents (%)

Average score of the welcome degreea

Ejin Horo Banner

1.12

62.75

36.13

268,758

63.57

0.722

Ewenki Autonomous Banner

7.91

69.34

22.75

64,387

81.25

0.307

Qinghai

Huzhu Tu Autonomous County

21.42

44.57

34.01

17,622

16.13

1.783

Gansu

Sunan Yugu Autonomous County

15.06

68.29

16.65

64,500

31.09

0.849

Lijiang City

Yunnan

Xinjiang

Guizhou

17.25

42.28

40.47

16,870

28.58

1.767

Cangyuan Va 27.32 Autonomous County

40.81

31.87

13,145

23.97

0.838

Dali City

7.63

50.28

42.09

38,774

56.30

1.525

Yingjiang County

29.67

48.30

22.03

18,663

30.96

1.703

Kashgar City

3.94

34.37

61.69

24,042

61.28

1.176

Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County

14.68

52.86

32.46

18,248

27.79

2.109

Karakax County

46.04

8.61

45.35

4741

5.96

0.667

Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County

18.13

59.97

21.90

52,323

55.12

1.239

Zhenning Buyei and Miao Autonomous County

13.77

31.68

54.55

15,562

24.52

1.907

Kaili City Taijiang County

6.91

34.54

58.55

25,606

57.39

1.671

23.51

23.64

52.86

13,934

22.88

1.934 (continued)

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

235

Table 7.7 (continued) Province

County (city) Industrial structure (%)

Sandu Shui Autonomous County

Primary industry

Secondary industry

Tertiary industry

23.97

16.45

59.58

Per capita GDP (RMB) 9795

Proportion of urban residents (%)

Average score of the welcome degreea

12.79

2.095

Note a means that the average scores of the welcome degree of migrants among urban and rural residents in the 16 surveyed counties are used to conduct the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the result of which shows that the value of F is 79.87 and the difference is significant at the level of one percent Sources The average scores of the welcome degree are calculated in accordance with the questionnaire survey data in this chapter; the proportion of urban residents is from the book compiled by the Population Census Office of the State Council and the Department of Population and Employment Statistics of the NBS: Tabulation on the 2010 Population Censue of the PRC by County; other data are calculated and collated according to the relevant data of the Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2013, the Inner Mongolia Statistical Yearbook 2013, the Gansu Statistical Yearbook 2013, the Guizhou Statistical Yearbook 2013, the Yunnan Statistical Yearbook 2013 and the Qinghai Statistical Year 2013

Fig. 7.2 Ranking of the per capita GDP of the county and the respondents’ attitude scores toward migrants in the 16 surveyed counties (1–16)

Autonomous County ranks only in the middle among the 16 surveyed counties, but the welcome degree of migrants among the residents ranks first. In fact, Kazak among the ethnic minorities in Xinjiang is famous for its extraordinary hospitality. In Fig. 7.3, the sample data of Karakax and Cangyuan are discarded as special cases. It can be found that the per capita GDP of the 14 surveyed counties is significantly negatively correlated with local residents’ attitudes toward migrants, which

236

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Fig. 7.3 Ranking of the per capita GDP of the county and the respondents’ attitude scores toward migrants in the surveyed counties (except Karakax and Cangyuan)

indicates that the higher the economic level of the surveyed county (city or banner), the more negative local residents’ attitudes toward migrants. In other words, the better the economic and resource conditions of the surveyed county (city or banner), the more negative local residents’ attitudes toward migrants. This conclusion disproves Hypothesis one. 3. Reasons for the unwelcoming attitudes of the respondents toward migrants To determine why some residents hold an unwelcoming attitude toward migrants, a question is set in the questionnaire, namely, “If you hold an unwelcoming attitude, what are your reasons? (please choose three in order of importance),” and seven reasons are provided for the question as choices, which can be classified into two categories. One is the “economic and resource factors”: “the employment opportunities for local residents decrease after they arrive;” “they make money from the locals without making contributions to the local areas;” “they destroy the local living environment;” and “they damage the local resources and natural environment.” The other is “social and cultural factors”: “I can’t stand their behaviors;” “conflicting values;” and “no reason.” In the questionnaire, each respondent has to select the three most important ones from the seven above reasons for the unwelcoming attitudes of the respondents toward migrants in order of importance. To find the most important one among the three selected by a respondent, each reason is scored in the study based on the following rules: five points for the most important reason, three points for the more important reason and one point for the important reason. Therefore, in any sample, only when the average score of a reason exceeds one point can the reason be regarded as a relatively definite one. The scores of reasons why local residents hold an unwelcoming attitude toward migrants are shown in Table 7.6.

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

237

Table 7.8 Scores of the reasons for the unwelcoming attitudes of the respondents toward migrants in provinces and autonomous regions Inner Mongolia Qinghai Gansu Yunnan Xinjiang Guizhou Total Disgusting behaviors

0.75

1.68

1.09

1.21

1.56

1.08

1.13

Squeezing the job market

1.38

1.79

1.00

1.85

2.27

1.65

1.74

Making money 1.36 from the locals without making contributions to the local areas

1.47

1.00

1.67

1.18

1.04

1.40

Destroying the living environment

1.94

0.87

1.18

1.16

1.24

1.27

1.44

Damaging the natural environment

1.90

0.97

1.73

1.56

0.99

1.73

1.55

No reason

0.22

0.39

0.00

0.38

0.25

0.59

0.31

Conflicting values

0.40

0.82

0.09

0.33

0.26

0.96

0.41

Sample size

240

38

11

218

135

49

691

According to the analysis, the most important reasons for the unwelcoming attitudes of the respondents toward migrants are “squeezing the job market” and “damaging the natural environment” with scores of 1.74 points and 1.55 points, respectively (see Table 7.8), followed by “destroying the living environment,” “making money from the locals without making contributions to the local areas,” “disgusting behaviors,” “conflicting values” and “no reason” with scores of 1.44 points, 1.40 points, 1.13 points, 0.41 points and 0.31 points, respectively. It can be concluded that the main reasons why urban and rural residents in the surveyed areas hold an unwelcoming attitude toward migrants are economic and resource factors instead of social and cultural factors. In terms of provinces and autonomous regions, there are interprovincial differences for these reasons. The respondents in Inner Mongolia are more likely to choose two reasons, namely, “destroying the living environment” and “damaging the natural environment,” which score 1.94 points and 1.90 points, respectively. The possible reason is that the surveyed areas in Inner Mongolia have superior resource conditions, such as grassland and mineral resources, the basis that local residents depend on for their production and livelihood, but it is assumed that the utilization or destruction of natural resources is increased when migrants come to do business and work. However, the respondents in Xinjiang are more sensitive to another two reasons, namely, “disgusting behaviors” and “squeezing the job market”, with scores of 1.56 points and 2.27 points, respectively, which are consistent with most people’s intuitive experience.

238

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

4. Comprehensive analysis of the respondents’ attitudes toward the migrant labor force As the literature written by Liu Linping and others has analyzed the factors influencing local residents’ attitudes toward rural migrant workers by assigning attitudes and adopting the multiple linear regression model,39 in the following part the author also uses the method of analysis in the literature to measure the impact of local resource accumulation and the economic conditions and demographic features of the households of respondents on local residents’ attitudes toward migrants. The explained variable (or dependent variable) of the model is the value of each respondent’s attitude toward the migrant labor force, while the explanatory variables (or independent variables) include the per capita GDP of the county of respondents, the urbanization rate of the county and the per capita household income of the respondents, and the control variables consist of the hukou, gender, ethnicity, age, political affiliation and education level of the respondents. The ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression model (R1) is as follows: R1 : Attitude = a +



βi · Xi

If the samples are divided into respondents with urban hukou (U) and respondents with rural hukou (R) to be calculated, the regression equations are R2 and R3: R2 : Attitudeu = a + R3 : Attituder = aa +

 

βi · Xi βi · Xi

where Attitude as the explained variable represents the “scores of the residents’ attitudes toward the migrant labor force,” βi is the regression coefficient, Xi refers to the independent variables including hukou, ethnicity, gender, education level,40 age, age squared, political affiliation, the logarithm of per capita household income, the logarithm of per capita GDP of the county, and the urbanization rate of the county. The evaluation results of the regression models are shown in Table 7.9. The linear fitting degree of the three regression models is relatively high and is significant at the 1% level. The following findings can be obtained from the regression results. 39

Liu Linping, “Interaction and Attitude: Rural Migrant Workers in the Eyes of Urban Residents”, Journal of Sun Yat-sen University (Social Science Edition), Issue 2, 2008. 40 The “education levels” are surveyed according to education degrees, including “(1) No education; (2) Primary school; (3) Junior high school; (4) Senior high school; (5) Specialized secondary school; (6) Vocational high school or skilled workers school; (7) Associate’s degree; (8) Bachelor’s degree; (9) Master’s degree.” In the following analysis, for the convenience of statistics and measurement, the expression of the degrees is replaced by the years of education, namely, no education by zero, primary school by six years, junior high school by nine years, senior high school (or specialized secondary school, or vocational high school or skilled workers school) by 12 years, associate’s degree by 14 years, bachelor’s degree by 16 years and master’s degree by 19 years.

7.3 The Results of Statistical Analysis

239

Table 7.9 Multiple regression analysis of scores of local residents’ attitudes toward migrants Independent variable

Model 1 (R1) Regression coefficient

Standard error

Model 2 (R2)

Hukou (1 = rural hukou)

−0.1485***

0.0475

Ethnicity (1 = Han nationality)

0.0874*

Gender (1 = female) Education

Model 3 (R3)

Regression coefficient

Standard error

Regression coefficient

Standard error

0.0475

0.1341**

0.0602

−0.0129

0.0759

−0.0785**

0.0396

−0.1030 *

0.0594

−0.0525

0.0530

0.0254

0.0222

−0.0366

0.0322

0.0803***

0.0312

Age

−0.0078

0.0074

0.0192

0.0126

−0.0134

0.0095

Age squared

0.0001

0.0001

−0.0002

0.0001

0.0001

0.0001

Political affiliation (1 = CPC member and CCYL member)

0.1554***

0.0493

0.2929***

0.0678

−0.0021

0.0714

Logarithm of per capita household income

−0.0732***

0.0197

−0.0059

0.0330

−0.1168***

0.0254

Logarithm of per capita GDP of the county

−0.1215***

0.0334

−0.1716 ***

0.0528

−0.0487

0.0461

Urbanization rate of the county

−0.0063***

0.0014

−0.0048**

0.0019

−0.0085***

0.0020

0.3608

2.9754***

0.6325

3.3363***

0.4629

Constant term 3.6909*** R2 (AdjR2)

0.0427 (0.0408)

0.0464 (0.0422)

0.0449 (0.0422)

Prob > F

0.0000

0.0000

0.0000

Sample size

5179

2069

3110

Note ***, **, and * indicate that the two-tailed test is significant at the levels of 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively

First, generally speaking, with other conditions given, residents with rural hukou are more negative toward migrants compared with those with urban hukou. Male residents are more positive toward migrants than female residents, and the difference in their attitudes is statistically significant. These two conclusions can be mutually confirmed with the relevant results in Table 7.3 and are consistent with Hypothesis one.

240

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

Second, residents with higher education levels are more positive toward migrants. This conclusion generally corresponds with Hypothesis one in this chapter but has a different significance level. That is, with only the samples in this chapter concerned, the higher the residents’ education levels are, the more positive they are toward migrants, but it is not statistically inferred. Third, the regression coefficients of age and age squared reveal that age and residents’ tendency of attitude do not stand in a simple linear relationship. Specifically, as age increases, the attitude of local residents toward migrants is negative at first and then gradually becomes more positive, presenting a U-shaped curve. However, this conclusion is only suitable for the samples in this chapter and is not statistically inferred. This result is consistent with Wang Jiashun’s related research conclusions. Fourth, compared with the respondents who are not CPC or CCYL members, respondents who are CPC or CCYL members are more positive toward migrants. This conclusion is mutually confirmed with the results in Table 7.4 and is consistent with Hypothesis three. Additionally, it can be found from Table 7.9 that the significant difference in political affiliation is very significant (a significance level of 1%), and its regression coefficient is also the largest among all variables, which means that the political affiliation of the respondents has the greatest impact on their attitudes toward migrant workers. Fifth, Han residents are more positive toward migrants than ethnic minority residents. This conclusion can be mutually confirmed with the relevant results in Table 7.4 and is consistent with Hypothesis two. However, it can be found from Table 7.9 that the significant difference in ethnicity is not significant (a significance level of ten percent), and the regression coefficient is not particularly large (0.0874). It can be said that compared with political affiliation and hukou, the ethnicity of the respondents has a relatively small influence on their attitudes toward migrants. Sixth, the higher the income levels of the respondents are, the greater they tend not to welcome migrants, which is statistically significant. This conclusion is opposite to the relevant parts in Hypothesis one. Seventh, the stronger the accumulation of resources in the county of the respondents (or the higher GDP per capita the county has), the more negative the residents’ attitudes toward migrants are, which is statistically significant. This conclusion is consistent with Hypothesis four. Looking from the variable of hukou, three conclusions can be drawn as follows. First, among respondents with urban hukou, Han residents, male residents, residents who are members of the CPC or CCYL, residents with low per capita household income and residents living in counties with a low per capita GDP and low urbanization rate are more positive toward migrants. In terms of education and age, the respondents do not have significantly different attitudes toward migrants. Second, among respondents with rural hukou, residents of higher education levels, residents with lower per capita household income and residents living in counties with lower urbanization rates have a more positive attitude toward migrants, while the significant differences in ethnicity, gender, age, political affiliation and per capita GDP of the county are not obvious. Third, by comparing the attitudes of residents with urban and rural hukou toward migrants, it can be concluded that the significant differences in

7.4 Main Conclusion and Discussion

241

the ethnic group, gender, political affiliation and the economic development level of the counties are significant among residents with urban hukou but small among residents with rural hukou. The significant differences in education and economic status are significant among residents with rural hukou but not among those with urban hukou. Only the significant differences in the urbanization rate of the county are significant among both residents with urban hukou and residents with rural hukou, but its difference and influence are more significant (the regression coefficient is greater) among the latter than the former (the latter with a significance level of one percent, the former with a significance level of five percent).

7.4 Main Conclusion and Discussion Normally, the massive flow of the labor force will inevitably bring different types of externalities to the residents in the places where the labor force flows in. On the one hand, the migrant labor force working and doing business in the local areas can promote local economic and social development to a certain extent; on the other hand, the migrant labor force can also replace local residents in their jobs and thus stand in a competitive relationship with them.41 In addition, migrants’ investment and development in local areas may cause damage to local resources and the environment. Therefore, there are differences in local residents’ attitudes toward migrants, and their attitudes are influenced by their own economic and social characteristics as well as the economic and social development of their counties (cities or banners). Through the above econometric analysis, the following main conclusions are drawn in this chapter. (i) The vast majority of local residents hold a welcoming or very welcoming attitude toward migrants. (ii) Residents with urban hukou, male residents, residents of higher education levels, Han residents and residents who are CPC or CCYL members tend to have a more positive attitude compared with those with rural hukou, female residents, residents of lower education levels, ethnic minority residents and residents who are not CPC or CCYL members. (iii) The stronger the accumulation of resources in the county of the respondents, the more negative the residents’ attitudes toward migrants. (iv) The main reasons for the unwelcoming attitudes of urban and rural residents in the surveyed areas toward the migrant labor force are economic factors instead of social and cultural factors. Consequently, the four research hypotheses put forward in this chapter are supported by empirical data to a certain extent, but there exists a difference in statistical significance. It is necessary to discuss the conclusions that are quite different from those of previous studies and the assumptions that are not supported by empirical data. First, the conclusion of existing relevant studies is that urban residents generally have a negative attitude toward the migrant labor force. The conclusion of this chapter, however, is that the vast majority (78.76%) of the respondents are welcoming or very 41

Wang Guixin, Shen Jianfa and Liu Jianbo, “Citizenization of Rural Migrants During Urbanization in China”, Population and Development, Issue 1, 2008.

242

7 Research on the Attitudes of Urban and Rural …

welcoming to migrants. The author found that the existing research was basically carried out in metropolises. Generally, residents in small cities (such as counties) live and work at a slower pace and have relatively little pressure, so they are more relaxed in getting along with others. Moreover, the level of economic development in ethnic minority areas is relatively low, and migrant workers and businessmen can promote local development, making them more accepted by local residents as a whole. In addition, it is obvious that the accumulation of resources (level of economic development) of metropolises is much stronger than that of counties (cities or banners) in western ethnic minority areas, which also indirectly confirms Hypothesis four in this chapter: residents in counties (cities or banners) with a stronger accumulation of resources display a more negative attitude toward migrants. Second, the higher the income levels of the respondents are, the greater they tend not to welcome migrants, which is statistically significant. This conclusion is opposite to the relevant parts in Hypothesis one. As shown in the above conclusions, the comparison of the attitudes of residents with urban and rural hukou toward migrants reveals that the significant difference in the economic status of the respondents is very significant among residents with rural hukou but not among residents with urban residents. This indicates that the conclusion drawn based on the overall sample that “the higher the economic status of the respondents is, the greater they tend not to welcome migrants” is determined by the attitudes of residents with rural hukou toward migrants. The higher the income of residents with rural hukou, the greater the probability that they will go to cities and towns to do business and work and the greater the possibility that they will compete with migrants in the job market. Therefore, the higher the economic status of residents with rural hukou, the more negative their attitudes toward migrants. In July 2014, the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Promotion of Reform of the Household Registration System, marking that the further promotion of the reform of the household registration system began to be put in full action. Predictably, with the household registration system being reformed, society will be increasingly open, and population mobility will become the norm. At the same time, to help the western region achieve the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects simultaneously with the other regions of China in 2020, all ethnic minority areas will take various measures to accelerate industrialization and urbanization, so the migrant population in western ethnic minority areas will become increasingly larger. On the one hand, with the entry of an increasing number of migrants, some new social problems will become increasingly prominent. In particular, the entry of migrant Han nationalities and nonmajority ethnic groups of the local areas may cause conflicts among ethnic groups due to competition for economic resources and opportunities. On the other hand, the attitudes of local residents toward migrants may have a potential impact on the reform of the household registration system. Under the household registration system, the separated interests of and psychological segmentation between local residents and migrants may interact with each other, which may hinder the subsequent household registration reform. Therefore, to prevent possible “social gaps,” to win the support of most people for the household registration reform and to reduce the obstacles to urbanization in western ethnic minority areas, we should

7.4 Main Conclusion and Discussion

243

attach importance to the attitudes of local residents and pay special attention to the following points: first, the human capital of vulnerable groups in ethnic minority areas in the West region should be improved, including women, older residents, less educated individuals and those with rural hukou, to enhance their employment competitiveness. Targeted vocational and technical training can be carried out for them. Second, respect should be shown for the customs and habits of local ethnic minorities, whose legitimate rights and interests should also be effectively protected. Skills training for the ethnic minority labor force should be strengthened, and a certain proportion of local ethnic minorities hired in various local enterprises (including investment enterprises) should be stipulated. For ethnic minority teenagers who have not yet entered the job market, more opportunities should be offered to them to study and receive training in inland cities42 to lay a sound foundation for them to enter the labor market in the future.

42

For example, “Xinjiang senior high classes” aim to help Xinjiang ethnic minority students obtain better senior high education in the more developed parts of China and “Tibetan classes” aim to help Tibetan ethnic minority students enjoy better education in the more developed parts of China.

Chapter 8

Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences in the Housing Values of Households in the Counties of Ethnic Minority Areas

With China’s economic reform and development, residents’ incomes and household property in urban and rural areas have continued to grow. Studies have shown that the housing values per capita of urban residents nearly quintupled from 1995 to 2002.1 Furthermore, the national average price of commercial housing in 2010 was 2.44 times higher than the original price in 1998.2 The increasingly rising housing prices are determined both by the important position of the real estate industry in China’s national economy and by the unsaturation of the real estate market due to China’s low per capita GDP and level of urbanization. While urban housing prices are rising across the board, the development of the rural real estate market lags far behind. As a result, the share of the net housing values of rural households in the net value of their total assets continues to rise but is always lower than that of urban households.3 As housing is an important form of household asset, an increasing number of people, with the improvement of their living standards, are paying attention to housing quality and the living environment. The “Well-off Housing Index in China” shows that the well-off housing index rose from 62.0 in 2005 to 74.2 in 2014.4 In the context of the increasingly expanding income gap, property in China is accumulating rapidly, but its distribution is significantly unequal. The China Development Report of People’s Well-Being 2015 shows that the Gini coefficient of household property in China increased from 0.45 in 1995 to 0.73 in 2012. The top one percent of households own approximately one third of the country’s property, and the bottom

1

Li Shi, Wei Zhong and Ding Sai, “Empirical Analysis of the Inequality and the Reason of Chinese Residents’ Property Distribution”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 6, 2005. 2 Chen Feng, Yao Xiaoying and Li Kunpeng, “Real Estate Wealth Effect of Middle and Higher Income Family in China and Its Structural Discrepancy”, The Journal of World Economy, Issue 9, 2013. 3 Liang Yunwen, Huo Zhen and Liu Kai, “An Empirical Study of Wealth Distribution of Urban and Rural Households in China”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 10, 2010. 4 E. Fan, “Well-off Housing Index in China”, Insight China, Issue 11, 2015. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_8

245

246

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

25% hold only approximately one percent of the total property.5 Moreover, studies have confirmed that the difference in the housing values owned by households is the main reason for the gap in household property.6 As a traditional symbol of wealth in China, housing is now the most desired goods for many households. The significance of residential housing for people’s livelihood has been reflected in government work reports since 2000 and has been a concern of people from all sectors of society. In addition, as one of China’s pillar industries, the real estate industry directly affects the development of the national economy. Due to certain difficulties in obtaining the housing data of households, analysis and research on the difference in the housing values of households of varied ethnicities in ethnic minority areas have not been found thus far. Based on the survey data of 18 counties in 2014 from the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and major special project of Innovation Program of the CASS, this chapter seeks to analyze the inequality of the housing values per capita of households and reflect the gap in the property per capita owned by households to some extent. Specifically, the following questions will be answered. First, how large are the urban–rural and ethnic differences in the average housing values per capita of households in the counties of ethnic minority areas? Second, what is the degree of urban–rural and ethnic inequality of the housing values per capita of households in the counties of ethnic minority areas? Finally, how large influence do regional and ethnic factors have on the inequality of the housing values per capita of households in the counties of ethnic minority areas? To answer the last question, the decomposition approach is adopted.

8.1 Literature Review In the critical period of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, people’s quality of life and well-being depend on both their income and property. In general, income refers to all the money received by an individual or household in a certain period (usually a year), which represents the flow amount of money per unit time. In contrast, housing owned by an individual or household is an asset and can be used for living purposes, and with its value being represented as the net monetary value at a certain point in time, it stands for the amount of money reserved at a point in time. There is an interaction between income and housing, in which the past flow amount will inevitably affect the current amount reserved, and the current amount reserved will certainly influence the future flow amount. In most countries, housing 5

Li Jianxin, Ren Qiang, Wu Qiong and Kong Tao, China Development Report of People’s Well-Being 2015, Peking University Press, 2016. 6 Zhao Renwei and Ding Sai, “Research on the Chinese Residents’ Property Distribution”, published on Research on the Income Distribution of Chinese Residents III by Li Shi, Shi Taili, and Björn Gustafsson, Beijing Normal University Publishing House, 2008, p. 259.

8.1 Literature Review

247

is the most important investment a household makes. With the continuous increase in national housing assets and changes in their distribution pattern, the gap in the ownership of housing values by households will have an important impact not only on the real estate market and the stability of the macroeconomy but also on long-term changes in the future income distribution. Since the market-based reform of urban housing, housing has been an important real property, and privatization has transformed the urban capitals accumulated under the institutional factor for a long time into the housing values owned by urban citizens. Due to the widening gap between the rapidly increasing prices of urban housing and the artificially set value of rural housing, urban and rural residents have seen a huge difference in their assets.7 In addition, the housing inequality of urban residents in China is also expanding as the profitability of housing remains high against the backdrop of the fast-growing housing prices, and the increase in housing demand for investment purposes will further push up housing prices and increase the difficulty of buying houses for households with low net assets. The asymmetry in housing demand for investment purposes is amplified and superimposed on that in housing demand for living, which has magnified housing inequality.8 By analyzing and studying the data of the CHIP, Li Shi and other scholars found that the Gini coefficient for net housing values per capita of rural households was 0.47 in 1995, that of urban households was 0.82, and that of households in the country was 0.64. In 2002, the Gini coefficients for net housing values per capita of rural and urban households were both 0.54, and the coefficient of households in the country was 0.67. Moreover, the gap in the housing values of households is the most important factor causing the inequality of household property.9 Studies on the impact of household structure on housing assets show that household income plays the most important role in determining the living area of urban households. The higher the average years of schooling, the proportion of labor force and the number of members in a household are, the larger the living area and asset value are. The household gender structure, the ratio of the number of migrants to the total population of the household, and the housing value are negatively correlated.10 By analyzing and studying the housing inequality according to one percent of the data from Beijing’s population census in 1995 and the data from Beijing’s population census in 2000, Huang Youqin and other scholars found that people with high education and Beijing hukou or household registration, and working in state-owned

7

Shen Mingrui, “Dual Housing Institution for Urban and Rural Area: Perspective of Healthy Development of China’s Urbanization”, City Planning Review, Issue 11, Vol. 35, 2011. 8 Chen Yanbin and Qiu Zhesheng, “How Does Housing Price Affect Household Saving Rate and Wealth Inequality?”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 10, 2011. 9 Li Shi, Wei Zhong and Ding Sai, “Empirical Analysis of the Inequality and the Reason of Chinese Residents’ Property Distribution”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 6, 2005. 10 Guo Lin, “The Impact of Family Structures on Family Physical Assets—Taking Housing as an Example”, Contemporary Economy & Management, Issue 8, Vol. 35, 2013.

248

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

enterprises and public institutions, have much better housing conditions than other people.11 Based on the data of the population census in 2000, John R. and other scholars analyzed the housing data of the eight major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Harbin, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Xi’an and found that the housing inequality among households in China, same as the income inequality, stems from the orientation of the macro policy in the early stage of the reform and opening up. The welfare housing obtained by the employees of state-owned enterprises and public institutions and the rapid increase in the housing price, have made the difference in the housing distribution increasingly obvious.12 Given the long history of studying housing inequality in academia abroad, the research perspectives have been constantly enriched. They not only pay attention to the changing of the inequality but also make cross-tabulation analysis to aspects such as income distribution, poverty, ethnicity, education and choice of residence. After studying the UK’s housing market and the effects government’s housing policies, Isobel Anderson and Duncan Sim found that the inequality of income distribution and property in the UK, caused by the continuous expansion of the unequal distribution of the housing values of households, became ever severe over the past thirty years.13 Lauren J. Krivo and Robert L. Kaufman, based on the life cycle theory, studied and analyzed the living quality and real estates distribution of African Americans, Hispanic, Asian and non-Hispanic whites, showing that the inequality of living quality and housing truly exists between whites and other groups of people, and the gap between whites and blacks or Hispanic tends to be wider. Moreover, the probability of black and Hispanic families getting various housing loans is lower than that of whites, which is an important reason for the slow growth of their housing values.14 Scholars such as David M. Brasington used the housing date of urban areas in 2000 from the U.S. Census Bureau to study the choice of housing among different races, and confirmed that the housing price is an important influencing factor for the division of residential areas formed by urban families of different races inhabiting in concentrated communities in the USA. The housing price elasticity coefficient is 0.19, income elasticity coefficient that affects the division of residential areas is −0.23, education elasticity coefficient is −0.21 and real estate elasticity coefficient −0.15.15 11 Youqin Huang and Leiwen Jiang, “Housing Inequality in Transitional Beijing”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 33, 2009, pp. 936–956. 12 John R. Logan, Yiping Fang and Zhanxin Zhang, “Access to Housing in Urban China”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 33, 2009, pp. 914–935. 13 Isobel Anderson & Duncan Sim eds., Housing and Inequality, Routledge, 2012. 14 Lauren J. Krivo and Robert L. Kaufman, “Housing and Wealth Inequality: Racial—Ethnic Differences in Home Equity in the United States”, Demography, Vol. 41, No. 3, August 2004, pp. 585–605. 15 David M. Brasington, Diane Hite and Andres Jauregui, “House Price Impacts of Income, Education, and Age Neighborhood Segregation”, Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2015, pp. 442–467.

8.2 Research Data and Methods

249

At present, there are few research results on the inequality of house value in China’s academia. A crucial reason is the lack of data due to the high cost of large sample data. In addition, there have been forty years since the implementation of the reform and opening up in China, but the reform of the housing system began in the 1990s. The housing values of households cannot be accumulated overnight. Instead, it will take a long time. With a gradual increase in household wealth, the different economic behaviors caused by housing and housing value between households are emerging constantly. Compared with the above research results, the research scope of this chapter is limited to the counties of ethnic autonomous areas, and it explores the specific differences in the housing owned by residents from the perspectives of urban–rural areas and ethnicity. Since real estate is currently the most important component of household property, especially for urban households, it is possible to roughly understand the differences in the distribution of property in different regions and ethnic households.

8.2 Research Data and Methods The questionnaire survey of urban and rural areas in 2014 (referred to as the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas”) was carried out in 18 counties and cities from ten provinces and autonomous regions,16 namely, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Sichuan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. This survey is part of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and a major special project of the Innovation Program of the CASS. The survey is conducted by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS, and through cooperation with the XJNU, Guangxi University for Nationalities, Tibet University, and the MUC, a professional survey team is set up with its main members being postgraduates and undergraduates majoring in Ethnology and Sociology and with survey experience and specifically adopting the stratified random sampling method. First, 18 counties and cities are selected from ethnic autonomous areas. Second, the urban and rural surveyed communities or administrative villages in counties and cities are based on representative economic development (high, medium, and low development) of local urban and rural areas and major ethnic groups. Finally, 400–500 questionnaires in each county and city 16

The 18 surveyed counties are: Bailang County, Nagqu County, Lhasa City, and Luozha County in Tibet; Daur Autonomous County of Daur Autonomous Banner of Morin Dawa in Inner Mongolia; Shanshan County in Turpan City, Fuyun County, and Wuqia County in Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang; Xunhua County and Dari County in Guoluo Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai; Hongsipu District in Ningxia; Longlin Autonomous County, Longsheng Autonomous County, Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County in Guangxi; Changyang Tujia Autonomous County in Hubei; Mao Xian County in Ngawa Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan; Changbai Korean Autonomous County in Jilin; and Jingning She Autonomous County in Zhejiang.

250

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

are divided into urban and rural parts according to the local urbanization rate, and random systematic sampling is applied to the households at the selected community or administrative village level. To reduce the replacement rate, members of the survey teams in various areas have made great efforts.17 The questionnaire involves economic development, social undertakings, ethnic culture, ethnic policies, ethnic relations, social security, social harmony and other aspects. A total of 7,341 urban and rural households are surveyed. The specific samples are shown in Table 8.1. The distribution of sample size in Table 8.1 shows that among the surveyed samples, the urban sample size is mostly smaller than the rural sample size, with the exception of Changbai Korean Autonomous County, Jilin, where there are more urban samples than rural samples; in Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, Hubei, the urban and rural samples differ slightly, with the difference being only approximately five percentage points; among the total samples of Xinjiang’s Shanshan County in Turpan Region, Fuyun County, and Wuqia County in Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture, the rural sample exceeds the urban sample by 17 percentage points; the difference in sample size between urban and rural areas in other regions is more significant. The abovementioned sample distribution is consistent with the low urbanization rate in the sampling areas. This chapter analyzes the differences in the housing values of households between urban and rural residents and households of different ethnic groups, with the surveyed groups being limited to those with housing property rights. When estimating the degree of inequality in the distribution of real estate, this chapter will use relevant inequality indexes, one of which is the Gini coefficient, which is also the most commonly used index to measure the degree of inequality at home and abroad; the second one is the decile method, which can visually show the gap numerically. On this basis, this chapter will also apply the decomposition approach of the Theil index to analyze the extent to which the overall inequality of real estate is due to the gap between different groups (as opposed to within-group inequality). Moreover, the advantage of adopting the Theil index is that the decomposition result does not depend on whether the between-group contribution or the within-group contribution is calculated first, and the sum of the weights used is one. These advantages will be lost when other inequality indexes are used.18 The Theil index is actually a group of indexes with different parameters. This chapter only uses an index with a parameter of zero, which is also called the mean log deviation (MLD). The MLD index can usually be decomposed into the within-group inequality and the between-group differences, which can be used in this chapter to analyze the gap between urban and rural areas, Han nationality and ethnic minorities, the gap within the same group, and their contribution rate to the overall gap.

17

For details of sampling method, please refer to the “Survey Questionnaire Analysis 2013·Comprehensive Volume”, China Social Sciences Press, 2015, pp. 3–5. 18 Shorrocks, A. and G. Wan, “Spatial Decomposition of Inequality”, Journal of Economic Geography, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 59–82.

8.2 Research Data and Methods

251

Table 8.1 Distribution of samples in the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014 Sample size

Proportion in the total sample (%)

Proportion of rural sample (%)

Proportion of urban sample (%)

6.4

63.48

36.52

Region Inner Mongolia

471

Jilin

461

6.3

44.69

55.31

Zhejiang

436

5.9

77.06

22.94

Hubei

427

5.8

52.69

47.31

Guangxi

1203

16.4

68.50

31.50

Sichuan

400

5.4

63.00

37.00

1507

20.5

78.90

21.10

Qinghai

Tibet

843

11.5

80.14

19.86

Ningxia

400

5.4

79.00

21.00

Xinjiang

1193

16.3

58.51

41.49

Total

7341

100

68.39

31.61

1959

26.7

59.37

40.63

449

6.1

80.36

19.64

Surveyed households Han Nationality Hui Tibetan

1741

23.7

75.65

24.35

Uygur

279

3.8

75.63

24.37

Miao

149

2

79.87

20.13

Zhuang

363

4.9

69.15

30.85

85

1.2

47.06

52.94

Korean Nationality Dong

118

1.6

79.66

20.34

Yao

343

4.7

74.05

25.95

Tujia

283

3.9

48.76

51.24

Kazak

220

3

51.82

48.18

0.9

88.89

11.11

She

63

Kyrgyz

272

3.7

47.79

52.21

Daur

180

2.5

67.78

32.22

Qiang

352

4.8

66.19

33.81

Salar

378

5.2

95.24

4.76

Other ethnic groups

105

1.4

54.29

45.71 (continued)

252

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

Table 8.1 (continued)

Total

Sample size

Proportion in the total sample (%)

Proportion of rural sample (%)

Proportion of urban sample (%)

7339

100

68.39

31.61

Note Other ethnic groups refer to ethnic groups whose total number of cases in the actual investigation is less than 30. Specifically, they include Mongolian, Yi, Buyei, Manchu, Bai, Hani, Li, Lahu, Dongxiang, Naxi, Tu, Mulam, Maonan, Gelo, Uzbek, Ewenki, and Lhoba. Another two surveyed households did not reveal which ethnicity they belong to

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis 1. Distribution of the housing values of the surveyed rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas The analysis of the housing values of households in this chapter is based on the market prices of owned housing estimated by the households in the questionnaire survey. During the survey, researchers learned about and mastered the distribution of local housing prices in advance and further determined the values of local housing with different sizes after determining the surveyed communities. In the household survey, the respondents who are sure about their housing values can report the values and fill them out by themselves; for those who cannot give a clear answer about the values, the researchers can estimate the values according to the living area, building quality and local housing prices and then solicit opinions from them; when the values cannot be estimated or the respondents show different opinions from the researchers, these housing values are blank and treated as the missing values in the analysis of this chapter. According to the population of each surveyed household, the housing value per capita of each household can be calculated. The survey data of housing market values indicate that although most estimated values obtained from the survey are calculated in the unit of RMB 1,000, the market values can be used for the analysis of differences in different regions and ethnic groups, as housing is the largest asset of each household, and its market values often gain great attention and high credibility. According to the distribution of housing values, to reduce errors, this chapter adopts the truncated method to discard five percent of the maximum and minimum values. The international analysis and comparison of household property mostly treat the property values per capita of households as the unit, but in fact, people often also pay attention to the housing values of households. Therefore, Table 8.2 shows the specific distribution of the housing values and housing values per capita of rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas. In Table 8.2, regarding the average housing values and average housing values per capita of the surveyed households in the 18 counties of the ten provinces and autonomous regions, rural households have lower average values than urban households, and the urban–rural gap in the average housing values of households is smaller than that of the average housing values per capita of households. The average

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis

253

Table 8.2 Distribution of the housing values of the rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas Housing values of households

Total

Housing values per capita of households

Average Standard value deviation (RMB)

Rural/urban Sample Average Standard Rural/urban Sample (%) size value deviation (%) size (RMB)

197,466 172,432

75.95

4778

54,037

57,525.3 59.52

4754

Rural

180,579 165,528.4

3367

44,967

50,406.9

3344

Urban

237,764 181,707.5

1411

75,547

66,904.1

1410

Northern Han

139,858 103,677.1 76.56

748

51,427

51,363.8 58.66

748

Rural

122,726 100,111.7

407

38,922

39,679.4

407

Urban

160,306 104,295.4

341

66,352

59,208.8

341

Southern Han

291,360 221,549.1 76.11

444

92,923

90,608.9 77.70

442

Rural

257,346 213,827.5

257

82,908

93,636.2

256

Urban

338,107 224,007.5

187

106,706

84,591.6

186

1436

44,104

47,810.2 69.85

Northern 165,896 148,492.6 92.08 Ethnic Minorities

1429 1036

Rural

162,082 153,025.9

1043

39,423

43,799.1

Urban

176,018 135,393.8

393

56,443

55,238.3

2150

53,549

53,280.3 51.56

2135

393 Southern 219,205 182,753.5 64.21 Ethnic Minorities Rural

194,500 170,976.5

Urban

302,898 196,239

1660

44,050

44,235.5

1645

490

85,439

66,986.9

490

Tibetan

191,159 180,058.2 68.46

1118

42,907

50,547.8 54.77

Rural

177,076 167,819.7

925

37,494

41,426.5

911

Urban

258,659 218,045

193

68,455

75,824.8

193

Zhuang

224,661 184,600

Rural

197,369 173,153.7

Urban

286,067 195,688.9

Tujia

281,767 172,711

68.99

79.25

1104

247

54,135

46,482.5 56.21

246

171

43,633

39,017

170

76

77,625

53,090

215

86,531

68,847

76 60.43

215

Rural

249,818 167,264.7

110

65,561

46,724.7

110

Urban

315,238 172,759.5

105

108,499

80,701

105

Kazak

196,803 143,754.7 89.89

183

52,375

45,684.8 72.33

183

Rural

187,250 169,514.1

100

44,630

47,138

100

Urban

208,313 104,543.9

83

61,706

42,289.4

83 (continued)

254

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

Table 8.2 (continued) Housing values of households Average Standard value deviation (RMB)

Housing values per capita of households

Rural/urban Sample Average Standard Rural/urban Sample (%) size value deviation (%) size (RMB)

Kirgiz

93,262 70,140.7

118

30,644

25,991.9 70.62

Rural

76,155 59,051.2

71

26,288

24,313.2

71

Urban

119,106 77,927.3

47

37,225

27,298.8

47

Hui

212,457 156,674

Rural

200,603 151,812.8

63.94

75.28

350

57,077

52,407

287

51,495

46,665.9

62.41

118

350 287

Urban

266,460 168,066.6

63

82,507

67,920.3

Yao

182,261 147,255.8 73.40

225

43,300

36,824.3 62.07

225

169

37,583

32,223

169

56

60,552

44,132

69,671

54,486.5 76.27

267

63,935

55,527.7

190

83,823.3 49,374.3

77

Rural

167,183 135,553.5

Urban

227,762 171,409

Qiang

270,659 186,731.1 74.52

267

Rural

246,368 185,489.4

160

Urban

330,597 177,092.3

77

63

56

Note Calculated in accordance with the data of the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014

housing value per capita of 4,778 surveyed households is RMB 54,037, and the average housing value per capita of the surveyed rural households reaches RMB 44,967, accounting for 59.52% of that of the surveyed urban households, but the average housing value of the surveyed rural households makes up 75.95% of that of the surveyed urban households. From the perspective of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, the urban–rural gap in the average housing values per capita of the northern Han households is larger than that of the southern Han, while the urban–rural gap between northern and southern ethnic minority households shows the opposite situation. In urban and rural areas, the average housing values of the northern Han households surveyed are lower than those of the northern ethnic minority households surveyed, while the southern Han households surveyed have higher average housing values than the southern ethnic minority households surveyed. The average housing value per capita of the northern Han households surveyed is 55.34% of that of the southern Han, and in rural areas the former accounts for 46.95% of the latter, and in urban areas the former makes up 62.18% of the latter. The average housing value per capita of the northern ethnic minority households surveyed is 82.36% of that of the southern ethnic minority households surveyed, and in rural areas the former is 89.50% of the latter and in urban areas the former 66.06% of the latter. The average housing value per capita of the rural northern ethnic minority households surveyed is higher than that of the rural northern Han households surveyed, while in urban and rural areas, the average housing values per capita of the southern Han households surveyed are higher than those of the southern ethnic minority households surveyed. Specifically, for the surveyed rural and urban households of the Tibetan, Zhuang, Tujia, Kazak, Kirgiz, Hui, Yao and Qiang, the average housing values per capita of the

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis

255

surveyed urban households are higher than those of the surveyed rural households. The average housing values of the southern Tujia and Qiang households surveyed are the two highest, and the urban–rural gaps in the average housing values of the northern Tibetan and Kirgiz households surveyed are the two largest. Due to the differences in the population of rural and urban households from different ethnic groups, although the average housing values and average housing values per capita of households are both higher in urban areas than in rural areas and in South China than in North China, the urban–rural gap in the average housing values of households is smaller, and there are also differences among different ethnic groups. 2. Inequality of the housing values of the surveyed rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas According to the data of the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014, the housing values and housing values per capita of the surveyed rural households are lower than those of the surveyed urban households, the reasons for which are the differences in building structures and, more importantly, the market prices of real estate. This chapter only attempts to measure the specific differences in the housing values of the surveyed rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the 18 surveyed counties of the ten provinces and autonomous regions by using the Gini coefficient method and the Theil index method (see Table 8.3). The Gini coefficient for housing values of households of the 18 counties in the ethnic autonomous areas of the ten provinces and autonomous regions in Table 8.3 is lower than that for housing values per capita of households. The former coefficient is 0.451, and the latter one is 0.494. Compared with the Gini coefficient for national income of 0.47319 in 2013 published by the NBS, the Gini coefficient for housing values of households of the counties in the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014 is lower, but the Gini coefficient for housing values per capita of households is higher. Generally, in a country that implements the market economy, the inequality of residents’ family wealth is mostly more severe than that of residents’ income distribution.20 In terms of the urban and rural areas of counties in ethnic autonomous areas, the Gini coefficient for housing values of rural households is 0.468 and that of urban households is 0.408; the Gini coefficient for housing values per capita of rural households is 0.499 and that of urban households is 0.435. According to the data of the CHIP, in 1995, the Gini coefficient for net housing values per capita of rural households in the country is 0.47 and that of urban households is 0.82; the Gini coefficient for net housing values per capita of households in the country is 0.64; in 2002, the Gini coefficients for net housing values per capita of both rural and urban households in the country are 0.54, and the Gini coefficient for net housing values

19

“Gini Coefficient for National Income in 2013 Is 0.473, the Lowest in Nine Years”, January 20th, 2014, http://money.163.com/14/0120/10/9J1B601E002550O9.html. 20 D. G. Champernowne and F. A. Cowell Eds, Economic Inequality and Income Distribution, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 202.

256

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

Table 8.3 Inequality of the housing values and housing values per capita of the households in the surveyed areas Housing values of households

Housing values per capita of households

Gini coefficient

Sample size

Gini coefficient

Sample size

Total

0.451

4778

0.494

4754

Rural

0.463

3367

0.499

3344

Urban

0.408

1411

0.435

1410

Northern Han

0.390

748

0.457

748

Rural

0.420

407

0.472

407

Urban

0.345

341

0.401

341

Southern Han

0.421

444

0.484

442

Rural

0.450

257

0.520

256

Urban

0.372

187

0.426

186

Northern Ethnic Minorities

0.454

1436

0.495

1429

Rural

0.470

1043

0.495

1036

Urban

0.406

393

0.465

393

Southern Ethnic Minorities

0.440

2150

0.481

2135

Rural

0.450

1660

0.478

1645

Urban

0.361

490

0.397

490

Tibetan

0.479

1118

0.521

1104

Rural

0.473

925

0.496

911

Urban

0.461

193

0.527

193

Zhuang

0.431

247

0.448

246

Rural

0.450

171

0.458

170

Urban

0.366

76

0.365

76

Tujia

0.343

215

0.398

215

Rural

0.362

110

0.379

110

Urban

0.311

105

0.374

105

Kazak

0.375

183

0.417

183

Rural

0.434

100

0.453

100

Urban

0.281

83

0.341

83

Kirgiz

0.392

118

0.440

118

Rural

0.356

71

0.440

71

Urban

0.368

47

0.406

47

Hui

0.377

350

0.448

350

Rural

0.383

287

0.442

287

Urban

0.323

63

0.448

63

Yao

0.408

225

0.440

225 (continued)

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis

257

Table 8.3 (continued) Housing values of households

Housing values per capita of households

Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient

Sample size

Sample size

Rural

0.397

169

0.434

169

Urban

0.403

56

0.395

56

Qiang

0.376

267

0.393

267

Rural

0.405

160

0.425

190

Urban

0.288

77

0.303

77

Note Calculated in accordance with the data of the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014

per capita of households in the country is 0.67.21 Comparatively speaking, after over ten years, the inequality of housing values per capita of households of counties in the ethnic minority areas is lower than the national level, achieving a higher degree of equality. What is noteworthy is that according to calculation results of the data of the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” 2014, the inequalities of housing values or housing values per capita of rural households in the ethnic autonomous counties are higher than those of urban households. After urban–rural comparison, the following results can be found. The inequality of housing values per capita between the northern Han households in urban and rural areas is lower than that between the southern Han households in urban and rural areas, but the inequality of housing values per capita between the northern ethnic minority households in urban and rural areas is higher than that between the southern ethnic minority households. Although the inequality of housing values per capita of the surveyed urban Tibetan households is higher than that of the surveyed rural Tibetan households and the Gini coefficient for housing values per capita of the rural Hui households is slightly lower than that of the urban Hui households, the inequalities of housing values per capita of rural households of other ethnic groups are higher than those of the respective urban households. The inequality of housing values of households varies with different ethnicities. The inequality of housing values of the surveyed Tibetan households is the highest, with a Gini coefficient of 0.479, and the following rankings, from the second to the bottom, are the surveyed households of northern ethnic minorities, southern ethnic minorities, Zhuang, southern Han nationality, Yao, Kirgiz, northern Han nationality, Hui, Qiang, Kazak and Tujia. In terms of the inequality of housing values per capita of households, the surveyed Tibetan households top the list followed by the surveyed households of northern ethnic minorities, southern Han nationality, southern ethnic minorities, northern Han nationality, Zhuang, Hui, Yao, Kirgiz, Kazak, Tujia and Qiang, an order different from that of the housing values of households.

21

Li Shi, Wei Zhong and Ding Sai, “Empirical Analysis on the Inequality and the Reason of China Residents’ Property Distribution”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 6, 2005.

258

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

To understand the inequality distribution of the housing values of households of the counties in ethnic minority areas in a more tangible way, the housing values per capita of households are analyzed by the conventional decile method (see Table 8.4). The data in Table 8.4 display the relative proportions of housing values per capita of households owned by each group, which shows, with values, the distribution inequality of housing values per capita of households. Ten percent of the aggregate housing values per capita of households of the lowest group (Group One) in the decile groups of the housing values per capita of households of the surveyed counties in the ethnic minority areas only account for 1.09% of the aggregate housing values per capita of all households, while ten percent of the aggregate housing values per capita of households of the highest group (Group Ten) account for 33.96%, which means that the value of Group Ten is nearly 33 times as high as that of Group One. The aggregate housing values per capita of the households of the lowest 1/3 of the total groups, that is, Groups One to Three, account for 7.32% of the aggregate values of all households, while the aggregate values of the highest 1/3, that is, Groups Eight to Ten, account for 64.85%, sharply different from the former three groups. In terms of rural areas, the proportion of the aggregate housing values per capita of households is 1.31% for the lowest group, 31.53% for the highest group, 7.19% for the lowest 1/3, that is, Groups One to Three, and 62.41% for the highest 1/3, that is, Groups Eight to Ten. In the decile groups of the housing values per capita of urban households, the proportion is 1.13% for the lowest group and 29.54% for the highest group; the proportion is 7.54% for the lowest 1/3, that is, Groups One to Three, and 60.49% for the highest 1/3, that is, Groups Eight to Ten. The data show that the distribution disparities in the decile groups of the housing values per capita of urban households are lower than those of total and rural households. Table 8.4 also presents the distribution of the decile groups of the housing values per capita of different ethnic households to compare the housing values per capita of these households. In all the surveyed urban and rural households, the decile groups’ disparities of the northern Han and ethnic minorities are less obvious than those of the southern Han and ethnic minorities. In terms of the surveyed northern Han households with a balanced distribution, 30.34% of them fall into the lowest 1/3 of the total, that is, Groups One to Three in the decile groups of the housing values per capita of households, and 28.87% fall into the highest 1/3, that is, Groups Eight to Ten. In terms of the surveyed northern ethnic minority households, 40.18% fall into the lowest 1/3, that is, Groups One to Three in the decile groups of the housing values per capita of households, and 21.7% fall into the highest 1/3, that is, Groups Eight to Ten. Compared with northern Han households, there are more northern ethnic minority households in the groups with low housing values per capita of households, which means that fewer northern ethnic minority households are in the groups with high housing values per capita of households. In addition, the proportion of the surveyed northern Kazak households falling into the lowest groups of one to three is 27.87%, and the proportion falling into the highest three groups is 28.42%, representing a balanced distribution. The proportion of the surveyed Kirgiz households falling into the lowest groups of one to three reaches 50%, and the proportion falling into the highest groups of eight to ten is 11.02%, representing an obvious gap. In terms of

2

3

4

5

2.57

1.31

1.13

Rural

Urban 3.58

3.31

4.09 9.74

3.81

3.34 3.35

5.66

5.85 8.37

8.07

12.66

6

10.50

12.86

5.97

7

13.30

10.03

13.32

8

7.1

14.41

4.57

4.98

8.95

15.13

8.54

1.86

4.92

18.64

8

Southern Han

Southern Ethnic Minorities

Tibetan

Zhuang

Tujia

Kazak

Kirgiz

Hui

3.26

8.94

13.77

10.77

4.98

10.85

14.21

Northern Ethnic Minorities

10.56

8.02

Northern Han

Total

9.14

16.95

15.85

5.12

9.35

14.22

11.76

9.05

15.12

11.76

9.43

7.63

9.29

4.19

7.32

8.15

7.82

5.43

7.77

6.95

10.86

11.02

6.56

9.3

10.57

10.24

10.49

7.24

9.66

11.36

21.71

16.1

18.03

16.74

17.89

13.5

15.13

12.22

15.54

17.38

6

4.24

9.84

5.12

6.5

5.62

6.18

3.39

5.18

5.08

10

5.93

11.48

13.95

10.57

7.07

9.7

12.44

8.12

11.9

Proportions of different ethnic households in the decile groups of the housing values per capita of households

2.83

2.14

1.09

Total

Proportions of the decile groups of the housing values per capita of households

1

Table 8.4 Decile groups of the housing values per capita of households in ethnic minority areas

10

4.24

10.93

18.6

10.57

5.43

9.27

15.16

7.42

10.29

17.65

20.85

17.58

9

10.29

0.85

6.01

21.86

9.76

6.88

9.93

25.11

6.16

6.68

29.54

31.53

33.96

10

350

118

183

215

246

(continued)

1104

2135

442

1429

748

1410

3344

4754

Sample size

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis 259

3

Qiang

4.3

11.55

13.42

5.47

9.42

12.95

10.00

2.73

4.0

18.31

8.71

7.69

Northern Ethnic Minorities

Southern Han

Southern Ethnic Minorities

Tibetan

Zhuang

Tujia

Kazak

Kirgiz

Hui

Yao

12.43

3.83

16.9

7.0

2.73

9.41

13.5

10.91

11.55

Northern Han

12.78

5.99

11.56

7.11

Rural

2

1

Yao

Table 8.4 (continued)

10.06

5.92

12.68

11.0

1.82

10

11.64

9.3

7.81

11.39

8.85

6.37

17.78

3

13.02

6.97

11.27

12.0

7.27

5.88

9.33

8.57

6.64

8.98

9.58

5.24

8.89

4

8.88

12.54

11.27

17.0

5.45

12.94

9.66

10.03

8.59

10.42

10.32

10.11

12.89

5

14.79

11.15

11.27

14.0

15.45

11.18

10.1

11.31

8.59

10.71

11.55

14.61

13.78

6

12.43

19.86

9.86

10.0

16.36

12.94

11.64

12.4

10.55

13.32

14.0

8.24

6.67

7

4.73

7.32

0.0

8.0

12.73

7.06

8.01

8.45

7.81

5.5

7.37

17.6

7.11

8

10.65

14.98

7.04

9.0

19.09

11.76

7.57

11.06

15.63

9.56

9.58

15.73

8.89

9

5.33

8.71

1.41

8.0

16.36

8.82

5.6

7.9

24.61

5.79

4.42

13.11

5.33

10

169

287

71

100

110

170

911

(continued)

1645

256

1036

407

267

225

Sample size

260 8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

7.37

3.16

8.78

11.4

19.85

6.99

5.92

23.32

6.58

1.9

7.23

25.53

6.35

10.71

0.0

Northern Ethnic Minorities

Southern Han

Southern Ethnic Minorities

Tibetan

Zhuang

Tujia

Kazak

Kirgiz

Hui

Yao

Qiang 6.49

12.5

9.52

12.77

4.82

6.67

10.53

7.77

7.96

4.84

9.16

10.56

5.26

3

15.58

10.71

15.87

21.28

20.48

12.38

18.42

14.51

16.53

12.9

14.5

19.35

4.21

4

3.9

8.93

4.76

6.38

9.64

0.0

10.53

3.11

3.88

2.69

5.85

4.11

8.42

5

16.88

12.5

14.29

6.38

12.05

7.62

6.58

5.7

9.59

8.6

10.18

9.38

10.53

6

11.69

7.14

9.52

8.51

12.05

10.48

9.21

7.25

9.59

8.6

8.4

12.61

13.16

7

20.78

5.36

9.52

4.26

13.25

17.14

9.21

6.22

11.63

10.22

7.38

10.85

12.63

8

Note The decile groups in the table follow the ascending order of the average housing value per capita of households

6.49

16.07

7.94

14.89

13.25

7.62

5.26

8.06

13.74

8.21

12.9

2

1

Northern Han

Urban

Qiang

Table 8.4 (continued)

11.69

12.5

12.7

0.0

6.02

16.19

13.16

9.33

13.47

14.52

7.38

6.45

21.05

9

6.49

3.57

9.52

0.0

1.2

20

10.53

11.4

12.65

22.58

3.56

5.57

14.21

10

77

56

63

47

83

105

76

193

490

186

393

341

190

Sample size

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis 261

262

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

the surveyed southern Han households, 52.71% fall into the highest groups of eight to ten, and 19.01% fall into the lowest groups of one to three; however, in terms of the surveyed southern ethnic minority households, 28.9% fall into the highest groups of eight to ten, and 31.48% fall into the lowest groups of one to three, representing a balanced distribution. The distribution of the housing values per capita of the surveyed southern Tibetan households is similar to that of the surveyed southern Yao households, and for both of these households, there are more of them falling into the lowest groups of one to three than the highest groups of eight to ten. In terms of the surveyed Tujia and Qiang households, the proportions of them falling into the highest groups of eight to ten reach almost 50%, and the proportions falling into the lowest groups of one to three are approximately 10% and 15%, respectively. The proportions of the surveyed southern Zhuang households and the surveyed Hui households in both North and South China in the ten groups are evenly distributed. Among all the surveyed rural and urban households, the northern Han and northern ethnic minority households have a generally consistent distribution of housing values per capita of households. Both take up a slightly higher proportion in Groups One to Three than in Groups Eight to Ten but are evenly distributed in the ten-decile groups with low, medium or high values. Of the surveyed southern Han households, both rural and urban families constitute nearly half (48.05% and 47.32%, respectively) of the total households in Groups Eight to Ten and 17.58% and 19.89%, respectively, in Groups One to Three. The rural and urban households of southern ethnic minorities also have a relatively uniform distribution, except that the urban households enjoy a slightly higher proportion than the rural households in the groups with high housing values per capita of households. By looking at all the surveyed rural and urban households more specifically by ethnicity, it can be found that both rural and urban southern Tibetan households are alike in the distribution, which is also similar to the overall situation of all the surveyed rural and urban households. The rural Zhuang households are evenly distributed in the ten decile groups with low, medium or high values, while the urban Zhuang households reach a proportion of 32.9% in Groups Eight to Ten yet only 22.37% in Groups One to Three, namely, groups that have low housing values per capita of households. Of the surveyed Tujia households, rural and urban families constitute half of the total in Groups Eight to Ten but merely 16.19% and 7.28%, respectively, in Groups One to Three. The proportions of rural and urban families of the surveyed Yao or Qiang households are basically equal. Both the rural and urban households of the Yao ethnic group make up one-third of the total households in Groups One to Three, respectively, ten and 18 percentage points higher than the proportions in Groups Eight to Ten. Likewise, both the rural and urban households of the Qiang ethnic group make up a higher proportion in the groups with high housing values per capita of households than in the groups with low values, but the gap between the two types of groups among rural Qiang households is six percent larger than that among the urban ones. The surveyed northern Kazak households in both rural and urban areas present a unimodal distribution, while the Kirgiz households show a right-skewed distribution, with nearly half of them falling into Groups One to Three yet less than one tenth falling into Groups Eight to Ten. The surveyed Hui

8.3 Empirical Result and Its Analysis

263

households, scattered in both North and South China, have a generally consistent distribution of housing values per capita in both parts. Rural and urban Hui families alike constitute approximately 31% in Groups Eight to Ten, but in Groups One to Three, rural households account for 18.46%, and urban households account for 23.81%. 3. Decomposition of the inequality of the housing values per capita of households This chapter mainly analyzes the inequality of the housing values per capita of households in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas from the urban–rural and ethnic perspectives, with the regional differences between North and South China taken into consideration at the same time. Accordingly, households of the counties are not only analyzed as a whole group but also classified into several groups, including urban and rural households as well as southern or northern Han or ethnic minority households. With the decomposition of the Theil index, which measures the inequality of the housing values per capita of households, the following Tables 8.5 and 8.6 are obtained. The inequality of the housing values per capita of households in ethnic autonomous areas can be decomposed into three aspects, namely, inequality between urban and rural households, within urban households and within rural households. The results of Table 8.5 indicate that the gap in the housing values per capita among the total households and the households of the Han, ethnic minorities, northern Han, northern ethnic minorities, southern Han and southern ethnic minorities comes mainly from the inequality within the rural and urban households, which contributes 90% to the overall gap. In contrast, the inequality between rural and urban households plays a minor role and only contributes two to ten percent to the overall gap. The contributions of the gaps within urban and rural households are 16.41–35.59% and 55.64–73.8%, respectively, which not only corresponds with the previous conclusion that the inequality within rural households in housing values per capita is greater than that within urban ones but also reveals that all kinds of overall gaps are chiefly caused by the larger inequality within rural households and then by the gap within urban ones. The gap between urban and rural households contributes little to the overall gap. Compared with northern households, the overall gap and the urban– rural gap within southern households are greater, and the gap within rural households contributes significantly to the overall gap within southern households. The overall gap within Han households is on the whole larger than that within ethnic minority households, while the urban–rural gap within the former is smaller than that within the latter. The gap within rural Han households is smaller than that within rural ethnic minority households, but the gap within urban Han households is slightly larger than that within urban ethnic minority households. For both Han and ethnic minority households, the gaps within rural and urban families contribute more to the overall inequality. However, the situation of northern Han and ethnic minority households is the opposite. The urban–rural gap within northern Han households is larger than that within northern ethnic minority households. The contribution of the gap within rural and urban households of northern Han to the overall gap is six percent less than that of northern ethnic minorities.

264

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

Table 8.5 Decomposition of urban and rural inequality of the housing values per capita of households in counties Overall gap

Gap between urban and rural households

0.466

0.030

Gap within urban and rural households

Of which: gap within rural households

Gap within urban households

Total Theil index of Housing values per capita of households

Proportion (%) 100

6.41

0.436

93.59

0.323

69.31

0.113

24.28

Han Theil index of 0.468 housing values per capita of households

0.017

Proportion (%) 100

3.63

0.451

96.37

0.292

62.39

0.159

33.98

Ethnic minorities Theil index of 0.454 housing values per capita of households

0.030

Proportion (%) 100

6.61

0.424

93.39

0.326

71.81

0.098

21.59

Northern Han Theil index of 0.399 housing values per capita of households

0.035

Proportion (%) 100

8.77

0.364

91.23

0.222

55.64

0.142

35.59

Northern ethnic minorities Theil index of 0.465 housing values per capita of households

0.013

Proportion (%) 100

2.80

0.452

97.2

0.328

70.54

0.124

26.66

Southern Han Theil index of 0.470 housing values per capita of households

0.008

Proportion (%) 100

1.7

0.462

98.3

0.305

64.89

0.157

33.40 (continued)

8.4 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications

265

Table 8.5 (continued) Overall gap

Gap between urban and rural households

Gap within urban and rural households

Of which: gap within rural households

Gap within urban households

Southern ethnic minorities Theil index of 0.439 housing values per capita of households

0.043

Proportion (%) 100

9.79

0.396

90.21

0.324

73.80

0.072

16.41

Compared with Table 8.5, Table 8.6 shows more about the inequality between urban and rural, southern urban and rural as well as northern urban and rural households of the Han and ethnic minorities, the inequality within Han and ethnic minority households along with their contributions to the overall inequality. On the whole, wherever the households are, the gap between Han and ethnic minority households is small. Except for the gap between rural southern Han and ethnic minority households contributing 5.84% to the overall gap, the other gaps between Han and ethnic minority households in North or South China and urban or rural areas all contribute less than two percent, which is negligible. The Theil indexes of Han and ethnic minority households also confirm the previous conclusion based on the Gini coefficient; that is, the inequality within ethnic minority households significantly exceeds the inequality within Han households and contributes much more to the overall inequality of the housing values per capita of households. The inequality within rural ethnic minority households is higher than that within urban households, which shows consistency in both northern and southern households.

8.4 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications The data in this chapter come from the questionnaire survey in 2014 (referred to the “‘Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas’ 2014”) carried out in 18 counties in the ethnic autonomous areas of the ten provinces and autonomous regions. The questionnaire survey is part of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and a major special project of the Innovation Program of the CASS. After analyzing the housing values of households and the housing values per capita of households in these counties, the following conclusions are reached. (i)

After comparing the housing values per capita of households in different regions and from different ethnic groups of ethnic autonomous areas, it can be found that the average housing value per capita of the households in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas is RMB 54,037; the average housing value per capita

266

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

Table 8.6 Decomposition of inequality of the housing values per capita of households of different ethnic groups Overall gap

Gap between Han and ethnic minority households

0.466

0.009

Gap within Han and ethnic minority households

Of which: gap within ethnic minority households

Gap within Han households

Total Theil index of housing values per capita of households

Proportion (%) 100

1.93

0.457

98.07

0.340

72.96

0.117

25.11

Rural Theil index of housing values per capita of households

0.459

Proportion (%) 100

0.007

1.53

0.452

98.47

0.348

75.82

0.104

22.65

Urban Theil index of housing values per capita of households

0.383

Proportion (%) 100

0.001

0.26

0.382

99.74

0.247

64.49

0.135

35.25

Northern rural Theil index of housing values per capita of households

0.440

Proportion (%) 100

0.001

0.23

0.439

99.77

0.324

73.64

0.115

26.13

Northern urban Theil index of housing values per capita of households

0.390

Proportion (%) 100

0.003

0.77

0.387

99.23

0.242

62.05

0.145

37.18

Southern rural Theil index of housing values per capita of households

0.462

Proportion (%) 100

0.027

5.84

0.435

94.16

0.364

78.79

0.071

15.37 (continued)

8.4 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications

267

Table 8.6 (continued) Overall gap

Gap between Han and ethnic minority households

0.334

0.005

Gap within Han and ethnic minority households

Of which: gap within ethnic minority households

Gap within Han households

Southern urban Theil index of housing values per capita of households

Proportion (%) 100

1.50

0.329

98.50

0.226

67.66

0.103

30.84

of the surveyed rural households is RMB 44,967, 59.52% of those of surveyed urban households. From the perspective of ethnicity, the urban–rural gap in the housing values per capita of northern Han households is larger than that of southern Han households; the urban–rural gap in the housing values per capita of northern ethnic minority households is smaller than that of southern ethnic minority households. In the northern region, the average housing values of both rural and urban Han households are lower than those of both rural and urban ethnic minority households; however, in the southern region, the values of both rural and urban Han households are higher than those of both rural and urban ethnic minority households. Specifically, the average housing values per capita of households from Tibet, Zhuang, Tujia, Kazak, Kirgiz, Hui, Yao and Qiang in urban areas are higher than those in rural areas. The southern Tujia and Qiang households rank first and second in the average housing values of households, while the northern Tibetan and Kirgiz households rank second and first from the bottom in the urban–rural gaps in the average housing values. (ii) The Gini coefficient of the housing values per capita of the surveyed households in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas is 0.494; the coefficient of the surveyed rural households is 0.499 and that of the urban households is 0.435. This indicates that compared with the surveyed urban households, rural households experience a higher degree of inequality in the housing values per capita of households, but the inequality degrees of rural and urban households are not large. Moreover, in regard to the degree of inequality between urban households and their rural counterparts or the degree within rural households and within urban households in the northern region, the Han ethnic group lags behind ethnic minority groups, while in the southern region, the Han ethnic group exceeds ethnic minority groups. According to the inequality degree in the average housing values per capita of the surveyed households, 12 ethnic groups can be listed in descending order: Tibet, the ethnic minority groups in the North, the Han in the South, the ethnic minority groups in the South, the Han in the North, Zhuang, Hui, Yao, Kirgiz, Kazak, Tujia and Qiang. (iii) In the counties of ethnic autonomous areas, the housing values per capita of the households that belong to the group with the lowest values (Group One)

268

8 Urban–Rural and Ethnic Differences …

in the ten groups are only 1.09% of those of the households in the ten groups, and the housing values per capita of the households that belong to the group with the highest values (Group Ten) are 33.96% of those of the households in the ten groups, which means that the values of Group Ten are nearly 32 times higher than those of Group One. Compared with the northern Han households, the northern ethnic minority households are more likely to be included in the groups with low values, and few are in the groups with high values. Among all the southern Han households surveyed, 52.71% belong to Groups Eight to Ten, which have high values, and 19.01% belong to Groups One to Three, which have low values; the southern ethnic minority households, compared with the southern Han households, are evenly distributed in the groups with high values, groups with medium values and groups with low values. (iv) After decomposing the inequality of the housing values per capita of households with the Theil index, the following affirmations can be obtained. First, the gap within rural households and that within urban households contribute to more than 90% of the total gap in the housing values per capita of households, while the gap between urban households and their rural counterparts contributes two to ten percent, which plays a minor role. The inequality of the housing values per capita of households is mainly brought by the inequality within rural areas, and that within urban areas also plays a role; the inequality between urban households and their rural counterparts contributes a little to the total inequality of the housing values per capita of households. Second, disregarding the northern or southern region and rural or urban areas, the gap between the housing values per capita of the Han households and those of ethnic minority households is generally small. The Theil index used to measure the inequality within the Han households and within ethnic minority households proves the conclusion reached with the Gini coefficient, that is, ethnic minority households experience a higher degree of inequality than the Han households, and the gap within ethnic minority households contributes more significantly to the total gap in the housing values per capita of households. The ethnic minority households in rural areas witness a higher degree of housing values per capita than those in urban areas, which shows consistency in both the northern and southern regions. Research on the gap in the housing values of households in different regions and from different ethnic groups of ethnic autonomous areas can exert the following benefits and policy implications. First, it explains the gap and inequality degree in the housing values of households in different regions and from different ethnic groups. The gaps in income distribution and household property have important influences on local economic development, social fairness, and social stability. Through the gap in the housing values of households, the gap in household property can be learned to some extent. From the Gini coefficient and households being divided into ten groups by their housing values per capita, the inequality degree in the housing values per capita of households in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas is not so large and cannot reach the national level. However, the gap and the inequality degree in the

8.4 Brief Conclusions and Policy Implications

269

housing values per capita of Han households and those of ethnic minority households and the gap and the inequality degree within ethnic groups should arouse the attention of academia and local governments. In the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in ethnic autonomous areas, the sound momentum that the inequality degree in the housing values per capita of rural and urban households is not large and ethnic elements exert few influences on the inequality in the housing values per capita of rural and urban households should be kept to protect the harmony and stability of ethnic autonomous areas. Second, exploring the distribution of house property and the gap and inequality in the housing values per capita of rural and urban households from different ethnic groups in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas, from the perspective of research, can lay a foundation for further research on the influencing factors of inequality in the housing values per capita of households and on the interplay between inequality in the housing values per capita of households and income distribution. Third, from the perspective of policy implementation, rural households in the counties of ethnic autonomous areas see a higher inequality degree in the housing values per capita of households. This indicates that rural areas, amid the fact that the total housing values per capita of rural households are lower than those of urban households, witness some poverty-stricken households with terrible living conditions; in the progress of eradicating poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, how to improve the living conditions of poverty-stricken households should be included in the overall plan. In addition, with the efforts to achieve urbanization, the counties of ethnic autonomous areas, while designing policies, should consider how to motivate rural residents to buy houses in cities to grant them urban residency while destocking the real estate industry and consider the gap in the housing values of households by which they can anticipate the boundary of inequality and prevent the degree of inequality from rapidly increasing. In ethnic autonomous areas, the governments at all levels should fully understand that the inequality degree in the housing values of households expanding quickly would result in the fast expansion of the inequality degree of property. In addition, the four decades since the reform and opening up has led to the fast expansion of the inequality degree of household property centered on the real estate, so the state, based on the balance between current development and long-run interests, should formulate and implement a property tax to conduct macroeconomic regulation and control over the inequality in the housing values of households.

Chapter 9

Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas

Poverty, as a historical social phenomenon that is widespread and of worldwide concern, is also a political, economic, social and cultural issue that humans must face and struggle with. The sustained economic growth in modern society has made it possible to alleviate poverty. Since the reform and opening up, China, as the world’s largest developing country with its rapid economic growth, has laid a solid material foundation for eliminating absolute poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. However, China still stands at the turning point of becoming a middle-income country, and its economic foundation is not strong enough. Moreover, as a vast country with uneven regional development, the whole country’s steps toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects are still inconsistent. In 2014, there were still more than 70 million poor people across the country, and if those who are at the margin of the poverty line were concluded, this number would further increase. Rural areas, especially those in ethnic minority areas, are the areas with the highest concentration of poor people. Therefore, poverty and anti-poverty are still major practical issues facing China, as well as hot and difficult issues that the theoretical circle and academia generally pay close attention to. Practice shows that development-oriented poverty alleviation and social security are two effective approaches to solving poverty. To make the strategy of development-oriented poverty alleviation more targeted and effective, General Secretary Xi Jinping, during his visit in Xiangxi, Hunan in 2013, put forward the idea of “targeted poverty alleviation”, emphasizing targeted poverty alleviation and elimination. During the investigation in Guizhou, he proposed that poverty alleviation should focus on the “Six Elements of Targeted Poverty Alleviation,” emphasized that “the implementation of poverty alleviation policies should base on poverty categories, the poor areas and people, the reasons for poverty, and the types of poverty” in the Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum of the year, came up with the idea

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_9

271

272

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

of the “Four Groups of People in Poverty Alleviation”,1 and stated that more than 70 million poor people will be lifted out of poverty by 2020.2 In November 2015, the CPC Central Committee held the National Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development, which further determined the poverty alleviation goals and work requirements for 2016 and the 13th Five-Year Plan period.3 The nationwide battle of development-oriented poverty alleviation has already begun. The difficulty of anti-poverty in ethnic minority areas4 is due to the backward economic development, fragile ecological environment, poor natural conditions, weak infrastructure, low quality of human capital, and insufficient supply of social security systems. Poverty in ethnic minority areas occupies an important strategic position in China’s overall anti-poverty process due to its features, such as being close to the borders, various in ethnicity, rich in resources, and fragile in ecological environment. Poverty in these areas is one of the major issues studied by academia. The existing documents describe the universality and particularity of poverty in ethnic minority areas. Tang Jian and Li Xiaoqing considered that poverty in western minority areas is multidimensional, which is reflected not only in income poverty and consumption poverty but also in the lack of knowledge and skills, insufficient supply of the social security system, and insufficient awareness of the market economy.5 Zhuang Tianhui, Zhang Haixia, and Yang Jinxiu, through research data, proved that

1

“Four Groups of People in Poverty Alleviation” means four groups of poor people, one of which will develop through supporting production and employment, one of which will be settled down by relocation, one of which will be lifted out of poverty through ecological protection and the other one through education-oriented poverty alleviation, and one of which will be supported by subsistence allowance policies. 2 XiJinping, “Work Together to Eliminate Poverty and Promote Common Development”, 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum (Beijing), October 16th, 2015. 3 The four aspects of work deployed by Director Liu Yongfu are: building five integrating platforms of big data, financing, integrated management, work implementation, and poverty alleviation; improving three mechanisms of assessment, evaluation, and withdrawal; and carrying out seven actions including education, health, financial poverty alleviation and transportation poverty alleviation; organizing and implementing ten projects of whole village advancement, vocational education and training, poverty alleviation microfinance, poverty alleviation and relocation, poverty alleviation through e-commerce, poverty alleviation through tourism, poverty alleviation through photovoltaic, poverty alleviation through tree hybridization, poverty-stricken village entrepreneurship training of entrepreneurial leaders who become rich, and programs driven by leading enterprises. See “2015 National Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development in Beijing,” the website of the State Council Office of Poverty Alleviation (http://zhanghz.com.cpad.gov.cn/art/2015/12/29/ art_624_43221.html). 4 From an institutional point of view, China’s ethnic minority areas refer to areas where ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities and implement the system of regional ethnic autonomy. To facilitate analysis at the national level, it generally refers to the “eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions,” namely, the five ethnic autonomous provinces and regions and the three provinces with large ethnic minority populations which are Yunnan, Guizhou, and Qinghai. 5 Tang Jian and Li Xiaoqing, “Strategic Thinking on Anti-poverty in the Rural Areas of the Western Ethnic Minority Areas”, Gansu Agriculture, Issue 12, 2006.

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

273

the direct economic losses and casualties caused by natural disasters are important causes of poverty in ethnic minority areas.6 Chen Quangong and Cheng Xi held that the poverty of ethnic minorities is closely related to the natural geographical environment they reside in, and the study of antipoverty in ethnic minority areas should pay attention to spatial poverty theory.7 Related studies have analyzed the multidimensional causes of rural poverty in ethnic minority areas, mainly including three determined causes, namely, the natural environment, insufficient system supply, and human capital. In response to the perspective of poverty caused by the natural environment, Li Maolin and other scholars proposed that poverty in ethnic minority areas, to a great extent, is connected with the relatively weak natural resource endowment.8 Qu Wei and Tu Qin discussed the impact of the natural geographic environment on poverty from the dual perspectives of development economics and economic geography. They believed that economic and social development can alleviate the negative impact of an unfavorable natural geographic environment on anti-poverty, but the environment is still the main factor leading to poverty.9 Aiming at the cause of insufficient system supply, Liu Mingyu claimed that breaking the urban–rural dual economic structure and eliminating the household registration system and agricultural-related policy monopoly can effectively eradicate the “institutional poverty trap”.10 Yang Ying believed that the root of rural poverty lies in unequal development opportunities and rights for farmers, which is caused by the “improper systems”, and the lack of capacity of farmers is one of the main causes of poverty.11 Aiming at the cause of human capital, Zhang Lijie held that the major reasons for the poverty of human capital in western ethnic minority areas consist of labor market failure, the expected risk of individual investment benefits, the low-level circulation of education, and the blocked natural environment, and the important cause of the poverty of the western ethnic minority areas is the poverty of human capital.12 From the perspective of human resources, Shao Zhizhong argued that the main causes of poverty in ethnic minority areas in the Red River Basin are the 6

ZhuangTianhui, Zhang Haixia and Yang Jinxiu, “Research on the Impact of Natural Disasters on Rural Poverty in Southwestern Ethnic Minority Areas—Based on the Analysis of 67 Villages in 21 National Poverty-stricken Counties”, Rural Economy, Issue 7, 2010. 7 Chen Quangong and Cheng Xi, “Poverty Alleviation in Ethnic Minority Areas from the Perspective of Spatial Poverty Theory”, Journal of South-Central University for Nationalities (Humanities and Social Sciences), Issue 1, 2011. 8 Li Maolin, “Anti-poverty Strategies in Poor Rural Areas in Ethnic Minority Areas”, Economic Herald, Issue 2, 2010. 9 Qu Wei, Tu Qin, et al. “Test of the Poverty Effect of Natural Geographical Environment—An Empirical Analysis of the Influence of Natural Geographical Environment on Rural Poverty”, Chinese Rural Economy, Issue 2, 2012. 10 Liu Mingyu, “Division Impeded and Institutionalized Poverty Trap”, Issues in Agricultural Economy, Issue 2, 2004. 11 Yang Ying, “Adjustment of Anti-poverty Strategy from the Analysis of the Characteristics of Rural Poverty in China”, Social Scientist, Issue 2, 2012. 12 Zhang Lijie, “On Anti-poverty and Human Capital Accumulation in Western Ethnic Minority Areas”, Journal of Ningxia University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), Issue 2, 2006.

274

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

insufficiency and low quality of human resources, the irrational and feminine resident population structure, and the “collective unconsciousness” of human resources.13 In response to the above issues, many experts have put forward anti-poverty countermeasures. Zhao Xi believed that the focus of anti-poverty in western rural areas is to improve farmers’ capabilities of basic subsistence, production and development.14 Zhang Liangjing and others proposed that in the new situation, from an ecological perspective, an ecological anti-poverty strategy should be adopted.15 Li Xiaohui put forward innovative ideas and methods for social poverty alleviation under the new normal in economic development; that is, attention should be given to social poverty alleviation, the precision of poverty alleviation measures and the improvement of the ability of the poor, and the mechanism of social poverty alleviation should be innovated by setting up the mobilization mechanism and investigation system for social poverty alleviation and providing enterprises that engage in poverty alleviation with preferential tax.16 The research group of the China Institution for Poverty Reduction, Beijing Normal University discussed the issue of the governance system of development-oriented poverty alleviation and governance capacity modernization from the perspective of promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.17 Han Xiaobing and Sherab Nyima believed that border areas should establish and improve poverty governance mechanisms that focus on cultivating and developing endogenous poverty alleviation capabilities.18 The abovementioned suggestions mostly focus on development-oriented poverty alleviation, and China has already put many efforts into this field. Research on how to play the role of social security in anti-poverty is relatively weak. Jiang Ximing and Wang Haifang proposed that social security should play a supporting role in the anti-poverty strategy through the establishment and improvement of the social assistance system and the

13

Shao ZhiZhong, “From the Human Resources Factor to See the Poverty in Minority Areas of Hongshui River Valley—Part III of Study on Poverty in Minority Nationality Regions of Hongshui River Valley”, Guangxi Ethnic Studies, Issue 2, 2011. 14 Zhao Xi, “Research on the Anti-Poverty Campaign in the Countryside of China’s West Regions”, Journal of Sichuan University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition), Issue 6, 2006. 15 Zhang Liangjing, Yang Hu and Shang Mingrui, “Ecological Environment in Western Minority Region and Anti-poverty Strategy—A Case of Sunan Yugur Autonomous County”, Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment, Issue 3, 2011. 16 Li Xiaohui, Xu Xiaoxin, Zhang Xiulan and Meng Xianfan, “Responding to the New Economic Normal and Developmental Social Policy Version 2.0—Taking the innovation of social poverty alleviation mechanism as an example”, Jiangsu Social Science, Issue 2, 2015. 17 Research Group of China Institution for Poverty Reduction, Beijing Normal University: “Thoughts on Governance System and Capacity Building for Poverty Alleviation through Development”, Journal of China Executive Leadership Academy Yan’an, Issue 1, 2015. 18 Han Xiaobing, Sherab Nyima, “Thoughts on Governance Innovation and Guarantee of Human Rights of Ethnic Minorities in Border Areas”, Journal of Minzu University of China (Philosophy and Social Science Edition), Issue 1, 2015.

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

275

subsistence allowance system, the social mutual assistance system, the endowment insurance system, and the medical insurance system for rural residents.19 Zhang Haomiao analyzed poverty issues from the aspect of social security. Social security can prevent and alleviate poverty, but if being misconducted, it will lead to dependent poverty and a “poverty trap.”20 From the perspective of the relevance of poverty, poverty risk and social security, Wei Pu held that the socialization of poverty risks in industrial society has given birth to a modern social security system, which has a certain remedial function for poverty risks in a risky society.21 Long Yuqi believed that to improve the anti-poverty role of rural endowment insurance in ethnic minority areas, it is necessary to speed up the full coverage of rural social endowment insurance in these areas, establish a noncontributory pension system based on the household income and expenditure survey, and increase the central government’s transfer payments to rural endowment insurance in these areas.22 At present, China’s anti-poverty policy system in ethnic minority areas consists of an ethnic policy, a development-oriented supportive policy for smaller ethnic groups, a program to enrich border areas and their residents, a social security system, a development-oriented poverty alleviation policy, various other social policies, and economic and regional development policies. The government, market, society, individuals and other entities have joined forces to combat poverty, which formed the framework of China’s poverty alleviation. Influenced by various factors, it is very difficult to lift all households and individuals out of poverty in society as a whole through economic development and development-oriented poverty alleviation. International experience shows that the social security system is the last line of defense to ensure that all members of society do not fall into poverty. To fully lift the poor out of poverty, it is very important to establish and improve the social security system. Ethnic minority areas, especially the rural ethnic minority areas in the western region, are the main target areas of China’s development-oriented rural poverty alleviation policies, and most of the rural poor in China are located in remote mountainous areas and border areas in the western ethnic minority areas. According to data released by the NEAC, the number of rural poor in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions reached 22.05 million in 2014,23 accounting for 31.4% of the country’s rural poverty population, and from 2011 to 2014, the proportions were all above 30%. In recent years, the rate of poverty reduction in the eight ethnic provinces and

19

Jiang Ximing, Wang Haifang, “Social Security System in the Rural Anti-poverty Strategy”, Rural Economy, Issue 6, 2007. 20 Zhang Haomiao, “Analysis on the Issue of Poverty from the Discipline of Social Security”, Lanzhou Academic Journal, Issue 5, 2007. 21 Wei Pu, “Relevance of Poverty, Poverty Risk and Social Security”, Social Science in Guangxi, Issue 2, 2015. 22 Long Yuqi, “Endowment Insurance System and Anti-poverty in Ethnic Areas”, Social Science in Guangxi, Issue 2, 2015. 23 According to the NBS’s sample survey of 74,000 rural households in 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country, it is calculated based on the national poverty line of annual per capita income of RMB 2,300 (at 2010 constant prices).

276

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

autonomous regions has accelerated. Poverty in ethnic minority areas is a difficult issue in the fight against poverty.24 In the anti-poverty policy system in ethnic minority areas, the social security system, which the government is mainly responsible for, exerts the basic anti-poverty effect to guarantee basic needs, especially the urban–rural social assistance system, which plays the most important anti-poverty role. Under the background that the “trickle-down effect” of economic development policies is gradually weakening, the poverty reduction effect of rural development-oriented poverty alleviation policies goes through a marginal decrease, and the scale effects of poverty alleviation by social forces are insufficient, the social security system that targets individuals (households) as the target of policy treatment receives increasing attention in the anti-poverty policy system in ethnic minority areas. In discussing the implementation of the poverty alleviation projects, the 13th Five-Year Plan of CPC Central Committee requires the implementation of subsistence allowances policy, the connection of relief policy and poverty alleviation policy, and that all the poor should be guaranteed.25 The social security system will play a greater part in anti-poverty policies on the basis of orderly connection with other anti-poverty policies. Based on years of in-depth investigations in ethnic minority areas, especially continuous questionnaire surveys in recent years, this chapter analyzes and studies the functional mechanism and anti-poverty effects of the social security system in anti-poverty from the perspective of social security and then proposes to improve the social security system and to further enhance its anti-poverty effect.

9.1 Functions and Principles of Social Security in Anti-poverty The social security system, as an income redistribution system that targets individuals or households, acts as an important part in guaranteeing basic subsistence, alleviating poverty, dispersing risks, and improving welfare. Social security policy often supports its targeted individuals or households in the forms of physical goods, cash, services and so on. The author has performed theoretical and practical research on the functions and contributions of social security in regulating income distribution and narrowing the income gap. The relevant research results have been published in correlative treatises and academic papers.26 24

Department of Economic Development of the NEAC: “Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014”, August 18th, 2015, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov. cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_225897.html). 25 Xinhua News Agency issued with authority: “Central Committee’s Proposal for Formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development”, November 4th, 2015, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2015-11/03/c_1117027676.htm). 26 Edited by Wang Yanzhong, Report on China Social Security Development (2012): Social Security and Income Distribution, Social Science Academic Press, 2012 Edition; Wang Yanzhong; Survey on Redistribution of Social Security in China, Social Science Academic Press, 2013 Edition;

9.1 Functions and Principles of Social Security in Anti-poverty

277

From the perspective of the development of international social security, the social security system mainly provides the multiple types of guarantees mentioned above for poor people or households, low-income workers or households, and all members of society through three major systems, namely, social assistance, social insurance, and social welfare. From the perspective of the development process of China’s social security, for a long period of time, it has gone through the building of a social security system with social assistance and social insurance as its mainstay, but with the improvement of economic and social development, the social security system has been perfected gradually. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China will basically realize a welfare society, and the social welfare system will be further improved. The importance and position of the social welfare system in the social security system will continue to be further improved, and the welfare level that aims at all members of the society will increase gradually. Since the twenty-first century, as a basic system to ensure basic subsistence and alleviate poverty among the poor, the social assistance system has played the most fundamental and important role in the anti-poverty process of the social security system. This feature is particularly significant in ethnic minority areas. Generally, in the process of anti-poverty in ethnic minority areas, the social security system and rural development-oriented poverty alleviation policies, ethnic policies, and population policies join up and form an antipoverty joint force, which improves the development of social members, households and regions in ethnic minority areas from different perspectives, eventually realizing the joint improvement of regional and personal development capabilities. Social insurance, social welfare and social assistance are the three parts at the heart of the social security system of China. The three parts can perform the function of adjusting income to a certain extent, but they differ from one another in the way they function. Generally, the function mechanism of anti-poverty through social security is shown in Diagram 9.1. Specifically, the three kinds of policies in the social security system have had different anti-poverty effects in different ways of their own. 1. The social assistance system has the most immediate anti-poverty effects by guaranteeing the subsistence and development of the poor Social assistance lies at the lowest level of China’s social security system. It mainly depends on government fiscal inputs to ensure the basic life needs of low-income groups by means of cash assistance, physical goods assistance and service assistance. As social assistance directly targets vulnerable groups in society and the poor who, once eligible for assistance, will be assisted without fulfilling the obligation to make payments, it involves the unidirectional enjoyment of rights by the residents and the unidirectional obligations by the government. As a result, the anti-poverty effects exerted by social assistance are the most immediate and obvious, and the effects can be directly mirrored by the guarantee of the basic subsistence of the absolute poverty

Wang Yanzhong; “Research on Social Security Income Redistribution Effect in China”, Economic Research Journal, Issue 2, 2016.

278

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

Diagram 9.1 Mechanism of anti-poverty through social security

population and the reduction of poverty severity of the absolute poverty population and the poverty population with low income. The social assistance system in China mainly comprises the subsistence allowance system and special social assistance programs. The subsistence allowance system extends differential subsidies to people whose household income per capita is below the poverty threshold or the subsistence allowance threshold to ensure their basic life needs, which exerts the most immediate anti-poverty effects on poor or poor households. The subsistence allowance system is the most basic system in China’s antipoverty efforts through social security. Medical assistance, education assistance and housing assistance provide cash assistance for populations whose incomes are near the poverty line and the low-income groups to solve their poverty problems existing temporarily or born out of consumption, such as “falling into poverty because of illness”, “falling into poverty because of education cost” and “falling into poverty because of housing”, and to prevent them from sinking into absolute poverty. From the perspective of the purposes of special assistance programs, medical assistance provides special subsidies to the poor to offset their substantial spending while seeking medical care to prevent their life from falling into the mire because of illness. Education assistance reduces or waives tuition and miscellaneous fees and provides subsidies for tuition fees to children from poor households during their study process of various types and at various levels, and the aim of this assistance is to prevent the low-income households from sinking into absolute poverty because of the education costs of their children and to help these households to get rid of the vicious cycle of “falling into poverty because of illness” and falling into poverty because of their children’s lack of education opportunities. Housing assistance, in essence, is to solve

9.1 Functions and Principles of Social Security in Anti-poverty

279

the low-income households’ problem of not having a permanent residence because of their inability to pay for enough rent in a way that the government pays for the price difference between the market rent and the rent within the residents’ affordability to ensure that the poor or the poor households have somewhere to live. 2. Social insurance aims to reduce poverty risks and improve the anti-poverty effects of the social security system by means of mutual assistance among insured individuals Social insurance lies at the central level of China’s social security system. It guarantees the basic life needs of social members through responsibility sharing and mutual assistance. It highlights the combination of rights and obligations; that is, fulfillment of the payment obligations is the prerequisite for insurance benefits. However, this does not mean that payments are totally equal to benefits; instead, people with higher incomes tend to fulfill more payment obligations, and people with lower incomes can obtain more insurance benefits than their payments allow so that the system’s characteristic of mutual assistance can be fully utilized to adjust the income gap and guard against poverty. Social insurance comprises endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, employment injury insurance and so on. Endowment insurance is the core of the social insurance system. It provides income guarantees for the laborers who are no longer in possession of jobs to bolster their abilities to guard against old-age risks and poverty as a result. In China’s endowment insurance system featuring a “social pooling account plus individual account”, the latter account takes the form of accumulation and no longer possesses the feature of redistribution, while the overall planning fund on a pay-as-you-go basis possessing the feature of redistribution mainly comes from the enterprises’ payments of fees rather than the government, and the overall planning fund of endowment insurance adhering to mutual assistance can be redistributed among the insured individuals. As China’s endowment insurance system is accelerating its pace in urban–rural development coordination and system integration, the system’s coverage becomes wider and its benefits level higher, and the income redistributions between urban and rural areas and among generations and groups with different incomes can be better achieved, which plays a role in narrowing the urban–rural gap, regional gap and the gap among different groups. Medical insurance is an important method for managing illness risks, and its function of income redistribution and characteristics of mutual assistance are the major outcomes of the uncertainty of illness risks and the design principle of the insurance system. Since the probability of people developing diseases, the time when they develop diseases, the types of diseases and the treatment costs are uncertain, once attacked by critical diseases, they are very likely to fall into or sink back into poverty because of them. As a result, a large pool of medical insurance funds gathering the medical insurance contributions of everyone can disperse risks among the insured groups and redistribute the medical resources among people with critical diseases, with minor ailments and people without disease. The anti-poverty mechanism of unemployment insurance is to reduce the number of low-income groups by means of providing unemployment insurance payments to ensure the basic life needs of the unemployed and narrow the income gap and enabling the unemployed to become reemployed in the labor market to become involved in

280

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

the primary distribution. Employment injury insurance refers to an insurance system under which laborers can receive material assistance from the government or society when they are suffering from occupational injuries or occupational diseases, and this insurance performs the functions of the compensation, prevention and recovery of employment injuries, which plays an important role in enabling laborers to return to the labor market and preventing them from falling into poverty because of the income disruption or reduction caused by employment injuries. 3. Social welfare has universal anti-poverty effects by promoting the life quality and development capabilities of all residents with general public services and special welfare Social welfare refers to a social security system under which the government and society meet the life needs of social members and promote their quality of life by means of subsidies, physical supplies and social services. The anti-poverty mechanism and path of the social welfare system lie in promoting the life quality and life security expectations of the targets of policy by means of supplies such as subsidies or services, and during this process, the system can enable the targets of policy to have a good development environment and enhance the development capabilities of both individuals and families. However, as the funding source of social welfare is mainly government spending and social donations that directly target specific people in need of help by means of transfer payments to realize the redistribution of social resources and enhance the income level of vulnerable groups in society and the level of their life quality and welfare, the anti-poverty effects of social welfare are relatively immediate and effective. At present, the social welfare system of China mainly comprises the welfare systems for the elderly, people with disabilities, women and children. Confined by the overall development of the social security system, China’s current social welfare system cannot exert many effects on the anti-poverty endeavor; however, since the system directly provides subsidies or welfare services for the elderly, people with disabilities, women and children, it has had direct anti-poverty effects on these groups. As the construction of the social welfare system captures increasing attention in the process of deepening the reform of China’s social security system, there will be more space for the social welfare system to play a role in the anti-poverty endeavor. For all residents, social welfare also includes compulsory education and the education system supported by the government, the service systems for public health and basic health and a whole set of basic public services. These services constitute the basic system of a society to improve the health of its residents, promote the quality of the labor force and human capital and enhance social development. These public goods or prospective public goods not only cover all residents but also strive for balanced developments among different regions of a country; thus, regions with backward economic and social development can also be helped with fiscal transfer payments from the country and governments at different levels and in different regions.

9.2 Construction of Social Security in Ethnic Minority …

281

Social assistance, social insurance and social welfare provide assistance in forms of cash, physical goods or services for the targets of policy (individuals or households) in different ways to help them eliminate absolute poverty or relative poverty and enhance the development capabilities of both individuals and families. Moreover, as every policy in every social anti-poverty policy system differs in the targeting mechanism of targets and values and principles, strengthening the cohesion and integration between the social security system and other anti-poverty policies and then forming an anti-poverty synergy are the major direction for improving the antipoverty effects in ethnic minority areas in the years ahead. Considering the economic and social development of ethnic minority areas, the social security system will still exert the most basic effects in the anti-poverty endeavor, and social assistance will still play an important role in assisting the poor in rural areas. The social insurance system will exert more effects on anti-poverty with the optimization of urban–rural employment structures and systems, and the social welfare system will have more opportunities to contribute to the anti-poverty endeavor in ethnic minority areas.

9.2 Construction of Social Security in Ethnic Minority Areas and Its Anti-poverty Effects The harsh natural conditions, fragile ecological environment, weak infrastructure, backward economic development and poor quality of human capital of ethnic minority areas combine to make it difficult to fight against poverty in these areas. The economic and social development in the areas display characteristics of a backward economy on the whole, a relatively small aggregate economy, unbalanced industrial structure, limited capacity for job creation, underdeveloped education, insufficient human capital accumulation, harsh natural conditions and environmental protection conditions. Poverty in ethnic minority areas occupies an important strategic position in the overall layout of China because the areas are on the border, vary in ethnicity and have rich resources but fragile ecology. The anti-poverty task in ethnic minority areas is very tough due to such characteristics as the wider range of areas in poverty, higher poverty headcount ratio, higher severity of poverty, tremendous difficulties in poverty eradication, higher proportion of population returning to poverty, great difficulties in eradicating poverty and multidimensional poverty that is commonly seen. As China implements the development-oriented poverty reduction strategy, it also strives to promote the reform and construction of its social security system, the achievements of which can be seen in the increase of government spending on social security, the constantly improved security systems for people’s well-being in ethnic minority areas such as social assistance, social insurance and social welfare and the increasingly highlighted role of the social security system in exerting anti-poverty effects, thus playing a positive role in guaranteeing the basic life level of residents of all ethnic groups and maintaining social stability and harmony.

282

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

1. The social security system has covered all ethnic minority areas, thus providing a guarantee for eradicating the subsistence concerns of the poor China’s social security system has accelerated its pace in recent years and has seen gradual and sound development, which provides a basic guarantee for urban–rural residents to maintain their basic life and seek elderly care and medical care. In terms of the construction of the social security system in all provinces in China, both the central government and the State Council follow the idea of promoting unified development and giving priorities to some areas to advance the social security systems across the country. In this process, the government does not take the progressive form in system construction based on the economic development level; instead, some counties and cities in provinces in the western ethnic minority areas serve as the pilot regions of some specific social security programs. In 2012, the social security system covered all ethnic minority areas, which fundamentally eradicates the subsistence concerns of the poor. In ethnic minority areas, the poor’s basic right to subsistence is guaranteed by the rural subsistence allowance system and the urban subsistence allowance system, the residents’ right to health is guaranteed by the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, and the income of residents in old age is guaranteed by the rural social endowment insurance system and the urban social endowment insurance system. Since the funding source of the subsistence allowance system is the government’s fiscal allocation, residents below the line of subsistence allowances can apply for being covered by the system, which prevents the poor from being mired in subsistence peril. In the third quarter of 2015, the number of people covered by the urban subsistence allowance system reached 4.0713 million, and that covered by the rural subsistence allowance system reached 17.8953 million. In terms of medical insurance, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions mainly defuse the risks of falling into poverty because of illness of the poor by subsidizing people to be covered by the medical insurance and the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and providing direct medical assistance. Additionally, in this quarter, subsidized by the government, 2.8703 million people in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions were covered by the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, 13.1591 million were covered by the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, and 3.3078 million received medical assistance. In terms of old-age insurance, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions provide subsidies for residents covered by the rural social endowment insurance system but with different standards. Generally, the social security system has covered all ethnic minority areas, and every security system has basically covered all people in need of security, which fundamentally eradicates the subsistence concerns of the poor.

9.2 Construction of Social Security in Ethnic Minority …

283

2. Social security expenditures in ethnic minority areas constantly increase, and social security exerts more effects on anti-poverty endeavors, which reduces the poverty severity in the areas to a certain extent With the reform and improvement of the social security system in ethnic minority areas since the twenty-first century, the aggregate expenditures on social security have increased at a faster speed, and their proportion in the aggregate fiscal spending has risen. In terms of the eight ethnic provinces and regions, in 2003, the aggregate expenditures on social security reached RMB 15.072 billion, accounting for 5.90% of the fiscal spending of these areas; in 2012, the aggregate expenditures on social security and employment reached RMB 195.53 billion, achieving an increase of RMB 180.458 billion compared with 2003 and accounting for 10.63% of the fiscal spending of these areas, 4.7 percentage points higher than that in 2003. The spending on medical care and health in ethnic minority areas has seen a tangible increase, which plays an important role in improving healthcare security and medical services and alleviating the medical burdens of urban–rural residents in these areas. In the eight ethnic provinces and regions, the spending on medical care and health in 2003 was RMB 12.144 billion, which accounts for 4.76% of the fiscal spending of these areas, and the spending reached RMB 118.727 billion in 2012, an increase of RMB 106.583 billion compared with 2003 and accounting for 6.46% of the fiscal spending of these areas. Therefore, spending on social security, whether in a narrow sense27 or a broad sense,28 has seen a tangible increase. Regarding the special programs supported by social security expenditures, social assistance programs receive more expenditures than welfare programs, which is beneficial to highlighting the anti-poverty effects of social security. Social assistance expenditures in ethnic minority areas mainly go to subsistence allowances that account for approximately 80% of all expenditures, which plays a beneficial role in alleviating the poverty facing urban–rural residents in ethnic minority areas. The constant increase in social security expenditures in ethnic minority areas has alleviated poverty in these areas to some extent. Data from the Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China 2011 show that in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the poor population decreased from 31.44 million in 2000 to 10.34 million in 2012, which means that 21.10 million people have been lifted out of poverty in ten years; the poverty headcount ratio declined from 23.00% in 2000 to 7.00% in 2010. However, as the national poverty standard was lifted to RMB 2,300 in 2011, the poor population in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions increased from 10.34 million in 2010 to 39.17 million in 2011, after which the number has

27

The spending on social security in a narrow sense only refers to those on the social security programs concerning people’s subsistence including the spending on pensions and social welfare assistance, retirees of administrative entities and public institutions, social security subsidies or the spending on social security and employment. 28 In addition to the spending on social security in a narrow sense, the spending in a broad sense also includes development-oriented social security programs such as the spending on education, medical care and health and housing security.

284

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

seen a year-by-year decrease. In 2014, the number decreased to 22.05 million, and the poverty headcount ratio declined from 26.5% in 2011 to 14.7% in 2014. 3. Increasingly better social security benefits result in a faster pace to alleviate poverty in ethnic minority areas The increasingly better social security benefits have exerted a positive influence on reducing poverty in ethnic minority areas by boosting the income of urban and rural residents. Specifically, social insurance, social welfare and social assistance all play different roles. The social insurance system has built scientific and reasonable mechanisms for fund-raising and benefit compensation to promote mutual assistance and income distribution, representing a combination of rights and obligations. Social welfare and social assistance systems require no payment from individuals and depend entirely on government funding, which is more beneficial for low-income and poor people to enjoy social security and more favorable to the anti-poverty process. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the rural subsistence allowance standard in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions averaged RMB 85.27 per person per month, while the urban standard averaged RMB 220.99 per person per month. By the third quarter of 2015, the rural subsistence allowance standard had risen to RMB 180.39 per person per month on average, up 111.55% from the fourth quarter of 2010, and the urban standard to RMB 367.73 per person per month on average, up 66.40% from then. In terms of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, in 2010, the government subsidy for the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and basic medical insurance for nonworking urban residents was RMB 120 per person per year, which was raised to RMB 320 in 2014. The reimbursement rate for hospitalization expenses in 2010 was 70%, which was also increased to more than 75% in 2014. Regarding endowment insurance, both urban and rural residents have received increasingly better endowment insurance benefits. The income of urban and rural residents in all ethnic minority areas also increased significantly from 2003 to 2013. For example, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in ethnic minority areas rose by an average of RMB 14,910.1, and the per capita net income of rural residents rose by an average of RMB 4,997.7. With the continuous improvement of social security in ethnic minority areas, the impoverished masses in ethnic minority areas are getting rid of poverty at a faster pace. 4. The continuously rising special transfer income of urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas provides favorable conditions for poverty alleviation The central government has always attached importance to the perfection and development of the social security system in ethnic minority areas. In recent years, the central government has increased transfer payments to eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, which has significantly raised the transfer income of poor urban and rural residents in these areas. From 2003 to 2013, the per capita net income of urban and rural residents in all ethnic minority areas quadrupled, representing substantial growth. Particularly, rural residents in ethnic minority areas saw faster growth of income. In the past decade, urban residents in ethnic minority areas have witnessed an average increase of RMB 14,910.1 in the per capita disposable income,

9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security …

285

RMB 16,349.51 in the per capita gross income and RMB 3,453.8 in the per capita transfer income; the per capita net income of rural residents has increased by RMB 4,997.7 on average, and their transfer income has increased by RMB 738. Comparatively speaking, the income of rural residents in ethnic minority areas grows more rapidly, and in particular, the growth rate of the transfer income of rural residents in ethnic minority areas is obviously faster than that of urban residents. In 2003, transfer income accounted for a very small share of the per capita net income of rural residents in ethnic minority areas, but its share had considerably expanded by 2013. The proportion of transfer income in the per capita net income of rural residents in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions jumped from 3.4% in 2003 to 11.8% in 2013. The increasing transfer income of urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas makes it more conducive to poverty alleviation.

9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security on Poverty Reduction in Ethnic Minority Areas This part adopts the questionnaire data of the rural areas in the seven provinces and autonomous regions in western ethnic minority areas29 to empirically examine the effect of social security benefits on poverty reduction in rural areas. The sample data in this chapter come from the questionnaire surveys of urban and rural areas in 2014 and 2015 (referred to as the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas”) that are part of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” a special project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund of China and major special project of Innovation Program of the CASS. The survey samples are distributed in 24 counties and cities in the seven provinces and autonomous regions30 of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. Based on the needs of this chapter, 5,006 valid questionnaires in rural areas were selected, and the respondents came from 34 ethnic groups. In the income structure, the social security benefits per capita of rural households31 account for 4.1% of the total household money income per 29

Since 2013, the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS has carried out largescale field investigations and questionnaire surveys on the economic and social development of China’s ethnic minority areas. Due to the relatively low level of urbanization in the areas, the questionnaires are collected from concentrated places. This part selects the statistics relating to rural social security benefits as the major data for empirical examination. The author uses data of over 5,000 questionnaires from the door-to-door household surveys of urban and rural residents in 2014 and 2015. The samples come from the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the Western region, which can generally represent the overall situation of China’s western ethnic minority areas. 30 The proportions of samples from Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang are 11.7%, 13%, 11.4%, 23.8%, 10.5%, 12.2% and 17.4%, respectively. 31 The social security benefits in this chapter are made up of the income from rural subsistence allowances, the reimbursement amount under the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and income from the new rural pension insurance system.

286

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

capita (see Table 9.1). Social security benefits contribute more to the income of rural ethnic minority households than to that of Han households. The social security benefits per capita of rural ethnic minority households account for five percent, approximately 2.27 times those of Han households in the same region and notably higher than those of the surveyed rural Han households. In terms of regional differences, social security benefits constitute a relatively high proportion of rural household income in Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai and Ningxia. Looking from the composition of social security benefits, the reimbursement amount under the new rural cooperative medical insurance system has a generally higher proportion than those under the rural subsistence allowance system and the new rural endowment insurance system. The pensions delivered under the new rural endowment insurance system currently account for the lowest proportion of rural household income per capita. Empirical examination based on the decomposition of the FGT indexes shows that social security benefits have a positive impact on the poverty headcount ratio of rural respondents, reducing the ratio by 8.6% from 36.1 to 33% (see Table 9.2). Social security benefits play a more obvious role in reducing the poverty severity of the poor, lessening the poverty gap index (poverty severity) by 27.5%. The poverty headcount ratio of Han respondents is reduced slightly more by social security benefits compared with that of ethnic minority respondents. This is the same as the reduction in the poverty severity of poor Han and ethnic minority people. From the perspective of regional differences, social security benefits have a positive effect on reducing the poverty headcount ratio in the seven surveyed provinces and autonomous regions. Table 9.1 Composition of the social security benefits in the surveyed areas

Province

Ethnicity

Total

Household money income per capita (RMB)

Proportion of social security benefits per capita (%)

Proportion of rural subsistence allowances per capita (%)

Proportion of pensions per capita (%)

Proportion of reimbursement for medical expenses per capita (%)

Inner Mongolia

14,164

2.0

0.8

0.1

1.2

Guangxi

5805.7

5.8

1.6

0.5

3.7

Yunnan

5221.2

7.4

5.4

0.4

1.6

Tibet

6267.4

5.9

0.8

0.5

4.5

Qinghai

6181.7

4.5

1.0

0.8

2.7

Ningxia

6194.8

5.1

1.6

0.6

2.9

Xinjiang

9971.0

2.3

1.0

0.2

1.0

Han

12,914.8

2.2

0.6

0.2

1.4

Ethnic Minorities

6412.7

5.0

1.8

0.4

2.8

7638.4

4.1

1.4

0.4

2.4

0.532

0.405

0.480

0.325

0.271

Yunnan

Tibet

Qinghai

Ningxia

Xinjiang

Squared poverty gap FGT (2)

0.377

0.330

0.411

0.361

0.129

0.251

0.302

0.452

0.371

0.059 0.211 0.346 0.227 0.320 0.161 0.147 0.089 0.234 0.207

−18.1 −8.7 −10.7 −8.4 −5.8 −7.1 −7.4 −9.8 −8.3 −8.6 0.150

0.193

0.071

0.099

0.124

0.258

0.160

0.239

0.164

0.033

−27.5

−17.5

−20.2

−32.7

−23.0

−19.4

−29.5

−30.9

−22.3

−44.1

0.155

0.175

0.072

0.108

0.108

0.261

0.169

0.275

0.143

0.050

0.118

0.133

0.052

0.076

0.086

0.213

0.136

0.192

0.110

0.024

−23.9

−24

−27.8

−29.6

−20.4

−18.4

−19.5

−30.2

−23.1

−51.6

Notes (1) Variation = (value when counting in social security benefits − value when counting out social security benefits)/value when counting out social security benefits. (2) The new rural poverty line implemented in China in 2011 is the net income per capita of farmers, namely, RMB 2,300 (at 2010 constant prices), which can be converted into RMB 2,736 in 2013 and RMB 2,800 in 2014 according to price changes (see the website of the NEAC, http://www.seac. gov.cn/art/2014/4/21/art_3_203179. html for details). Since the survey data were collected in 2013 and 2014 (the surveys were conducted in 2014 and 2015) and based on information released on the website of the NEAC, the rural poverty lines refer to RMB 2,736 and RMB 2,800. For the convenience of calculation, this chapter sets the poverty line in the formula of the FGT indexes to RMB 2,800

Total

Ethnic minority

0.143

0.389

0.426

Guangxi

0.475

0.077

Inner 0.094 Mongolia

Ethnicity Han

Region

Poverty gap FGT (1)

Count out Count in Variation Count out Count in Variation Count out Count in Variation social security social security (%) social security social security (%) social security social security (%) benefits benefits benefits benefits benefits benefits

Poverty headcount ratio (FGT (0))

Table 9.2 Influence of income from social security benefits on poverty severity

9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security … 287

288

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

Specifically, social security benefits have lowered the poverty headcount ratio of rural respondents in Inner Mongolia and Yunnan by 18.1% and 10.7%, respectively. In addition, social security benefits play a great positive role in reducing the poverty depth in Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and Xinjiang, with the poverty gap index of the three provinces and autonomous regions decreasing by 44.1%, 30.9% and 32.7%, respectively. By using the above data, the author examines the effect of social security benefits on the income gap between respondents. The results show that social security benefits generally reduce the Gini coefficient of all rural respondents by 1.3% (see Table 9.3). From the perspective of ethnicity, social security benefits have a stronger effect on narrowing the income gap between rural ethnic minority respondents, which can reduce the Gini coefficient by 1.7%. Social security benefits slightly widen the income gap between rural Han respondents as the Gini coefficient of Han respondents is increased by 0.2%. In terms of regional differences, the effect of social security benefits on narrowing the income gap between rural respondents in Yunnan, Guangxi and Tibet is more obvious, reducing their Gini coefficients by 4.2%, 2.8% and 2.6%, respectively. Specifically, social security benefits lessen the Gini coefficient of rural ethnic minority respondents in Yunnan by 4.8%. However, the income gap between rural Han respondents witnesses no influence. Social security benefits also have a positive effect on narrowing the income gap between rural Han and ethnic minority respondents but have a greater effect on the latter. The impacts of social security benefits on the income gap between Han and ethnic minority respondents in Tibet are different, and rural Han respondents have a more positive impact on narrowing their income gap; however, social security benefits can also reduce the Gini coefficient of rural ethnic minority respondents in Tibet by 2.6%. It is worth noting that social security benefits do not reduce the Gini coefficients of rural respondents in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xinjiang but produce an adverse effect to a certain extent. Specifically, social security benefits have increased the Gini coefficients of rural respondents in the three provinces and autonomous regions by 0.2%, 0.5% and 1.2%, respectively. In addition, although the social security benefits for rural respondents in Inner Mongolia have a positive effect on ethnic minority respondents, as shown by the reduction of 0.9% in the Gini coefficient, the benefits also widen the income gap between rural Han residents and increase the Gini coefficient of this group by 1.0%. The social security benefits in Qinghai and Xinjiang raise the Gini coefficients of Han and ethnic minority respondents as well, but in comparison, social security benefits have a smaller effect on the income gap between rural ethnic minority respondents than between rural Han respondents. Therefore, social security benefits on the whole play a positive role in the income gap between rural respondents in Western ethnic minority areas, but their effect on adjusting the income gap is relatively limited. Specifically, social security benefits play a greater role in regulating the income gap between ethnic minorities; the positive effect of social security benefits on adjusting the income gap between rural respondents in southwestern ethnic minority areas is greater than in northwestern ethnic minority areas.

9.3 Analysis of the Effect of Rural Social Security …

289

Table 9.3 Effect of Social Security Benefits on the Gini Coefficients of Respondents Count out social security benefits

Count in social security benefits

Variation (%) −1.3

Total

0.526

0.519

Inner Mongolia

0.428

0.429

0.2

Guangxi

0.497

0.483

−2.8

Yunnan

0.567

0.543

−4.2

Tibet

0.495

0.482

−2.6

Qinghai

0.583

0.586

0.5

Ningxia

0.439

0.433

−1.4

Xinjiang

0.504

0.510

1.2

Ethnic minorities

0.516

0.507

−1.7

Han Inner Mongolia

0.463

0.464

0.2

Ethnic minorities

0.464

0.460

−0.9

Han

0.401

0.405

1.0

Ethnic minorities

0.491

0.475

−3.3

Han

0.522

0.518

−0.8

Yunnan

Ethnic minorities

0.563

0.536

−4.8

Han

0.537

0.537

0.0

Tibet

Ethnic minorities

0.494

0.481

−2.6

Han

0.381

0.365

−4.2

Guangxi

Qinghai Ningxia Xinjiang

Ethnic minorities

0.586

0.589

0.5

Han

0.452

0.478

5.8

Ethnic minorities

0.46

0.453

−1.5

Han

0.371

0.366

−1.3

Ethnic minorities

0.461

0.466

1.1

Han

0.469

0.475

1.3

Note Variation = (value when counting in social security benefits − value when counting out social security benefits)/value when counting out social security benefits

In addition, through the decomposition of the Theil index, this chapter also examines the actual effect of rural social security benefits on regulating income distribution. The research shows that social security benefits reduce the income gap within the seven surveyed western ethnic provinces and autonomous regions by 1.9% and the income gap between these provinces and autonomous regions by 10.5% (see Table 9.4). This means that social security benefits work better in narrowing the income gap between the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions than in bridging the gap within them. In terms of ethnicities, the income gaps within the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in the whole surveyed area are decreased by 2.7% and 7.0%, respectively, further supporting the view that social security benefits play a greater role in narrowing the income gap between ethnic minorities.

290

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

Table 9.4 Effect of social security benefits on the income gaps within and between areas and ethnicities (based on the Theil index) Count out social Count in social Variation (%) security benefits security benefits Total by province or autonomous region

Total by Han and ethnic minority

Regions by ethnicity and ethnic minority

Inner Mongolia

Guangxi

Yunnan

Tibet

Qinghai

Ningxia

Xinjiang

Within group

0.4316

0.4234

−1.9

Between group

0.0675

0.0604

−10.5

Within group

0.4474

0.4355

−2.7

Between group

0.0517

0.0481

−7.0

Within group

0.3130

0.3145

0.5

Between group

0.0028

0.0026

−7.1

Within group

0.4234

0.3980

−6.0

Between group

0.0044

0.0040

−9.1

Within group

0.5946

0.5443

−8.5

Between group

0.0100

0.0077

−23.0

Within group

0.4183

0.3951

−5.5

Between group

0.0029

0.0026

−10.3

Within group

0.6549

0.6615

1.0

Between group

0.0003

0.0002

−33.3

Within group

0.3254

0.3142

−3.4

Between group

0.0065

0.0076

16.9

Within group

0.3741

0.3825

2.2

Between group

0.0789

0.0799

1.3

Note Variation = (value when counting in social security benefits − value when counting out social security benefits)/value when counting out social security benefits

9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect …

291

By looking specifically at the variations in the income gaps within and between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities in each province and autonomous region, it can be found that social security benefits significantly narrow the income gaps between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities and within the rural Han respondents and rural ethnic minority respondents in Guangxi, Yunnan and Tibet. Moreover, social security benefits close the income gaps between rural Han and ethnic minority respondents in Inner Mongolia and Qinghai but slightly widen the income gaps within rural Han respondents and rural ethnic minority respondents, with the Theil index varying by 0.5% and 1.0%, respectively. The income gap between rural respondents of Han and ethnic minorities grows due to social security benefits, but the income gaps within Han and ethnic minorities are narrowed. Different from other provinces, Xinjiang sees no smaller but a slightly larger income gap between Han and ethnic minorities or within each ethnic group. However, the income gap between rural Han and rural ethnic minority respondents has experienced smaller variations. Generally, social security benefits still constitute a low proportion of the household income per capita of Western ethnic minority areas, but they play a positive role in reducing the poverty headcount ratio and the poverty depth of the poor. The decomposition of the FGT indexes reveals that the effect of social security benefits on poverty alleviation is mainly manifested in reducing the poverty depth of the poor. The role of social security benefits in regulating income distribution demonstrates that they have a stronger effect on narrowing the income gap within rural respondents of ethnic minorities and within rural respondents in the southwestern region. The research based on the Theil index indicates that social security benefits play a better role in narrowing the income gap between the seven ethnic provinces and autonomous regions than in closing the gap within these areas.

9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas According to the questionnaire survey data of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas,”32 the author sets up three indicators, namely, the coverage, the guaranteed level and the management level of the social security system, to investigate the respondents’ subjective evaluation of the anti-poverty effect of the social security system. To analyze the differences between the evaluation of the anti-poverty effect of the respondents in different regions and in urban and rural areas, the author uses the method of assigning scores to the evaluated programs and then calculating the total scores of satisfaction evaluation.

32

The data of this part are from the questionnaires from the door-to-door household surveys of urban and rural residents in 2013. The surveys covered 16 counties and cities in six provinces and autonomous regions including Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Gansu and Qinghai, and collected 6,536 individual samples from urban and rural respondents.

292

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

The social security programs to be evaluated include the new rural endowment insurance system, the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, the rural subsistence allowance system, the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, the social endowment insurance system for nonworking urban residents, and the urban subsistence allowance system. 1. Evaluation of rural residents’ satisfaction with the anti-poverty effect of the rural social security system in ethnic minority areas As seen from Table 9.5, the degrees of satisfaction of rural residents in China’s ethnic minority areas with the rural social endowment insurance system, the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and the rural subsistence allowance system all reach more than 91.90%, and the satisfaction evaluation scores of the three systems are also above 3.32 points, fully illustrating the important role of the rural social security system in China’s anti-poverty campaign. Looking from rural social endowment insurance, 96.6% of the rural respondents expressed satisfaction with the coverage of the new rural social endowment insurance system. Of the rural respondents, 48.5% feel “very satisfied” and only 0.6% feel “very dissatisfied.” These figures show that work related to the coverage rate of the new rural social endowment insurance system has been generally recognized by rural residents in the surveyed ethnic minority areas. Regarding the evaluation of the guaranteed level of the new rural social endowment insurance system, on the whole, 95.5% of the rural respondents expressed “very satisfied” or “satisfied” attitudes. However, compared with the evaluation of the coverage of the rural social endowment insurance system, the respondents’ evaluation of the guaranteed level is relatively negative. On the one hand, this may be related to the idea of “emphasizing coverage and neglecting benefits” in the establishment of China’s social insurance system. On the other hand, it may have something to do with the fact that the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region, with their weak financial capacity, are more inclined to choose the strategy of “giving priority to extend the coverage and then gradually improving the originally low level of benefits.” However, it is worth noting that even with such a low level of benefits, the overall satisfaction evaluation score is still high. One possible reason for this is that the new rural social endowment insurance system was established totally from scratch, which improves the satisfaction of rural residents with the anti-poverty effect of the social security system. From the perspective of the management level of the rural social endowment insurance system, 94.4% of the rural respondents express “very satisfied” or “relatively satisfied” attitudes, while only 0.9% of the respondents feel “very dissatisfied.” The management level of the rural endowment insurance system scores 3.3818 points. On the whole, the respondents are relatively satisfied with the rural endowment insurance system, with the coverage of the rural endowment insurance system as the most satisfying indicator, followed by the guaranteed level and then the management level. The new rural cooperative medical insurance system adopts the mutual assistance strategy to disperse the risks brought by the diseases facing the insured households to reduce the medical expenses of patients’ households and lighten the burden on their households in this respect. In terms of the coverage of the new rural cooperative

9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect …

293

Table 9.5 Evaluation of rural residents’ satisfaction with the anti-poverty effects of the rural social security system in ethnic minority areas Program

Indicator

Rural social endowment insurance system

Coverage

48.5

48.1

2.8

0.6

2678 3.4462

Guaranteed level

44.6

50.9

3.8

0.7

2660 3.3944

Management 44.8 level

49.6

4.8

0.9

2603 3.3818

New rural cooperative medical insurance system

Very Satisfied Dissatisfied Very Total Satisfaction satisfied (%) dissatisfied evaluation (%) score (%) (%) (point)

Coverage

50.3

47.1

2.0

0.5

3395 3.4725

Guaranteed level

46.7

49.5

3.0

0.9

3393 3.4203

Management 46.4 level

49.2

3.4

1.0

3321 3.4092

Coverage 45.7 Rural subsistence Guaranteed 43.4 allowances level system Management 43.3 level

49.1

3.4

1.7

989 3.3883

49.2

5.5

1.9

984 3.3404

48.6

5.8

2.4

966 3.3271

Note The satisfaction evaluation score is calculated by assigning values to four choices; that is, “very satisfied” is assigned four points, “satisfied” three points, “dissatisfied” two points and “very dissatisfied” one point

medical insurance system, 97.4% of the rural respondents feel “very satisfied” or “satisfied;” of all the rural respondents, over 50% are “very satisfied.” With regard to the evaluation of the guaranteed level of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, 96.2% of the rural respondents express satisfaction with the guaranteed level; of all the rural respondents, 46.7% feel “very satisfied” and only 0.9% are “very dissatisfied;” the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the guaranteed level is 3.4203 points, lower than that of the coverage by all the respondents. Concerning the evaluation of the management level of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, 95.6% of the respondents are “very satisfied” and “satisfied,” and the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the management level is 3.4092 points, lower than the scores of the coverage and the guaranteed level by all the respondents. On the whole, the respondents show their relatively high satisfaction degree with the new rural cooperative medical insurance system. As a major part of the social security policy system in ethnic minority areas, the rural subsistence allowance system aims to ensure the basic subsistence needs of poor people. In rural ethnic minority areas in the western region focusing on agriculture, it plays a main role in alleviating poverty at the basic subsistence level and makes irreplaceable contributions. Rural subsistence allowances are the most important source of government assistance for poor rural people and households in China.

294

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

Concerning the coverage of the rural subsistence allowance system, 92.8% of the respondents feel “very satisfied” and “satisfied”, and 45.7% of them are “very satisfied”; the evaluation of the respondents’ satisfaction with the coverage scores 3.3883 points. In terms of the guaranteed level of the rural subsistence allowance system, 92.6% of the respondents are “very satisfied” and “satisfied”, and 43.4% of them feel “very satisfied.” The overall satisfaction evaluation score of the guaranteed level is 3.3404 points, slightly lower than that of the coverage by all the respondents. From the perspective of the management level of the rural subsistence allowance system, 91.9% of the respondents felt “very satisfied” and “satisfied”, and the satisfaction evaluation score was 3.3271 points. In comparison, the satisfaction evaluation score of the management level is lower than the scores of both the coverage and the guaranteed level of the system. In the survey, it can be found that rural ethnic minority areas obviously have more difficulty managing and operating the rural subsistence allowance system than other areas due to inconvenient transportation, few administrative personnel and other factors. The areas are weak in the management of the rural subsistence allowance system, including the household income and expenditure survey, the determination and dynamic management of the residents eligible for subsistence allowances, the role of supervision in ensuring their benefits, and the distribution of their benefits through social security channels. Consequently, the management of the system in the areas is more likely to encounter such problems as the targeting error in determining the residents on subsistence allowances, the weak equity in ensuring their benefits, and the high cost in their obtaining the benefits, which indirectly influences the anti-poverty effects of rural subsistence allowance benefits on the residents and their households living on subsistence allowances. 2. Evaluation of urban residents’ satisfaction with the anti-poverty effects of the urban social security system in ethnic minority areas Table 9.6 demonstrates the evaluation of urban residents’ satisfaction with the antipoverty effects of the urban social security system in ethnic minority areas. It can be seen from Table 9.6 that more than 91.03% of the urban residents in ethnic minority areas express their satisfaction with the urban social endowment insurance system, the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents and the urban subsistence allowance system, and the satisfaction evaluation scores of the three systems all exceed 3.24 points, which shows that China’s urban residents are relatively satisfied with the anti-poverty effects of the urban social security system. In terms of the coverage of the urban social endowment insurance system, 94.8% of the urban respondents express their satisfaction with the coverage; of all the urban respondents, 37.9% and 56.9% feel “very satisfied” and “satisfied”, respectively, and only 0.8% are “very dissatisfied.” The overall satisfaction evaluation score of the coverage is 3.3197 points. Concerning the evaluation of the management level of the urban social endowment insurance system, 92.5% of the respondents express their satisfaction with the management level, and 34.4% of them feel “very satisfied.” With regard to the evaluation of the guaranteed level of the urban social endowment insurance system, 91.9% of the urban respondents express satisfaction with the guaranteed level, but only slightly more than 1/3 (35.3%) of them feel “very satisfied,” which is

9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect …

295

Table 9.6 Evaluation of urban residents’ satisfaction with the anti-poverty effects of the urban social security system in ethnic minority areas Program

Indicator

Urban social endowment insurance system

Coverage

37.9

56.9

4.3

0.8

1073 3.3197

Guaranteed level

35.3

56.6

6.6

1.4

1058 3.2590

Management 34.4 level

58.1

5.8

1.6

1031 3.2532

Urban basic medical insurance system

Very Satisfied Dissatisfied Very Total Satisfaction satisfied (%) dissatisfied evaluation (%) score (%) (%) (point)

Coverage

38.8

55.1

4.5

1.5

1195 3.3130

Guaranteed level

36.3

55.5

6.3

2.0

1183 3.2595

Management 35.4 level

56.9

5.4

2.3

1158 3.2539

Coverage 47.3 Urban subsistence Guaranteed 39.3 allowances level system Management 37.8 level

46.2

5.6

0.9

338 3.3994

50.2

6.9

3.6

331 3.2508

52.3

6.2

3.7

325 3.2431

related to the strategy of “building up a basic safety net” adopted by the system in the initial stage of establishment. The low social endowment insurance benefits for urban residents are a common problem encountered by all ethnic minority areas. Concerning the evaluation of the coverage of the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, 93.9% of the urban respondents expressed their satisfaction with the coverage, and 38.8% of them were “very satisfied”; the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the coverage was 3.3130 points. In terms of the evaluation of the guaranteed level of the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, 91.8% of the urban respondents show their satisfaction with the guaranteed level, and only two percent of the respondents feel “very dissatisfied”; the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the guaranteed level reaches 3.2595 points. With regard to the evaluation of the management level of the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, 92.3% of the respondents expressed their satisfaction with the management level, and 35.4% of them were “very satisfied”; the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the management level was 3.2539 points. Overall, the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents in ethnic minority areas plays an important role in diffusing the risks brought by the diseases facing residents and sharing the burden of medical expenses on patients’ households, and most of the respondents are satisfied with the system. As a major social security program to ensure the basic subsistence needs of urban poor households, the urban subsistence allowance system plays a fundamental role in alleviating the poverty of urban poor people and households. On the whole, the

296

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

coverage of the urban subsistence allowance system enjoys a relatively high degree of satisfaction evaluation, with 93.5% of the respondents expressing their satisfaction, and nearly half (47.3%) of them feel “very satisfied.” Regarding the evaluation of the guaranteed level of the urban subsistence allowance system, 89.5% of the respondents show their satisfaction with the guaranteed level, and the proportion of the respondents who are “very satisfied” with the guaranteed level is obviously lower than that of the respondents who are “very satisfied” with the coverage; the overall satisfaction evaluation score of the guaranteed level is 3.2508 points, which is also lower than that of the coverage (3.3994 points). In terms of the evaluation of the management level of the urban subsistence allowance system, 90.1% of the respondents show their satisfaction with the management level, and 37.8% of them are “very satisfied.” In conclusion, the implementation of the social security system has been recognized by urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas, and both urban and rural residents surveyed have given relatively high evaluation to the specific social security programs. First, in terms of the anti-poverty effects of the specific social security programs, the evaluation of urban and rural residents’ satisfaction with the coverage is generally higher than that with the guaranteed level, and the evaluation of their satisfaction with the management level ranks last among the three indicators. The main reasons are that the country has provided residents with financial support in implementing specific social security programs such as social endowment insurance, basic medical insurance and social assistance, thus making the construction of the social security system in western ethnic minority areas basically keep in step with that in other areas; the country also has given priority to realizing the full coverage of the social security system (for example, the subsistence allowances system ensures that “all residents entitled to cost of subsistence allowances receive them”), basically extending the coverage of the corresponding social security programs to all urban and rural residents. However, the operation of the social security system often requires the central and local governments to jointly undertake the financial supply. Ethnic minority areas constrained by weak local financial capacity generally adopt the strategy of “building up a basic safety net” on the benefits of all social security programs and take relatively conservative measures to advance the determination and promotion of the guaranteed level. In addition, Western ethnic minority areas, especially southwestern ethnic minority areas, are generally faced with problems such as inconvenient transportation and few professional administrative personnel, which make it more difficult for the social security system to operate effectively in these areas. Therefore, according to the subjective evaluation results of the residents benefiting from these policies, the coverage of the programs receives higher satisfaction evaluation, while the guaranteed level and the management level show the opposite situation. Second, the satisfaction evaluation of the anti-poverty effects of the social security system in the provinces and autonomous regions in northwestern ethnic minority areas is higher than that in southwestern ethnic minority areas on the whole. According to the above analysis, the proportions of urban and rural residents who express a “very satisfied” attitude toward the specific social security programs and

9.4 Satisfaction Evaluation of the Anti-poverty Effect …

297

the satisfaction evaluation scores of the programs in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are mostly higher than those in Yunnan and Guizhou. The reasons for this phenomenon may lie in two aspects: on the one hand, the urban–rural economic development of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia featuring animal husbandry is generally better than that of Yunnan and Guizhou and certainly also better than that of Qinghai and Gansu, which are also located in the northwestern region. Therefore, the governments of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia provide more funds for the social security system, increasing the anti-poverty effects and coverage of the system. On the other hand, according to the data of the poverty monitoring report of rural China, the rural poor population is increasingly concentrated in rural ethnic minority areas in the southwestern region. Compared with those in the northwestern region, rural ethnic minority areas in the southwestern region face more severe poverty and demand more antipoverty effects of the social security system, while the primary-level governments in the areas have less ability to fight against poverty through the social security system. Due to the gap between the demand for poverty alleviation and the ability to alleviate poverty, the evaluation of urban and rural residents’ satisfaction with the antipoverty effects of the social security system in the provinces and autonomous regions in southwestern ethnic minority areas is relatively lower than that in northwestern ethnic minority areas. Third, urban and rural residents express a relatively higher degree of satisfaction with the anti-poverty effects of the subsistence allowance system, and the evaluation of the medical insurance system is higher than that of the social endowment insurance system. Specifically, the evaluation results of rural respondents show that rural residents express a high degree of satisfaction with the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, which is significantly higher than that with the new rural social endowment insurance system. The reasons are as follows. On the one hand, this phenomenon has been closely linked with the country’s great efforts to give priority to promoting the new rural cooperative medical insurance system in recent years. Whether the enthusiasm of the insured individuals or the gradually increasing reimbursement rate of the insurance all reflects a high degree of recognition and satisfaction for the new rural cooperative medical insurance system by rural residents. On the other hand, this phenomenon is related to the antipoverty paths of the two different systems. The new rural cooperative medical insurance system reduces the burden of medical expenses on poor rural households by implementing “the reimbursement for medical expenses immediately in the year when they pay the insurance,” which represents the timeliness of poverty reduction effects. In contrast, the new rural social endowment insurance system provides economic security for rural residents in their future old-age life by “extending the retirement pension to them after they retire from work only if their total endowment insurance contributions reach the given amount,” which is hard to be fully recognized by ethnic minorities with weak insurance awareness. In addition, due to the extremely low basic old-age pensions under the new rural social endowment insurance system, the rural residents’ satisfaction evaluation of the system is not as high as that of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and is also lower than that of the rural subsistence allowance system. The main reason lies in the fact that the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC (MCA) requires all local

298

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

governments to implement the subsistence allowance system in which “the Chinese government has provided guarantees for all those who qualify for help.” Finally, urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas show a relatively high degree of overall satisfaction with the anti-poverty effects of the social security system, which is, to a certain extent, closely related to the sense of vertical equity brought by implementing the social security system from scratch and the enhanced sense of national identity. The social security system is the life guarantee provided by the country for citizens in accordance with the Constitution, which embodies the country’s respect for the social security right of each citizen. Western ethnic minority areas and ethnic minorities often face inequality and gaps in economic and social development. To narrow the inequality and gap and safeguard and guarantee the equality, unity and common progress of all ethnic groups, the country has adopted a series of ethnic policies and development-oriented poverty alleviation policies to support the economic and social development of ethnic minority areas and ethnic minorities. The social security system implemented by the country to fight against poverty in accordance with laws directly provides assistance and guarantees for poor households in ethnic minority areas through special transfer payments, which is more direct and obvious than the “trickle-down effect” made by economic development and has become a major part of the anti-poverty policy system in ethnic minority areas. Therefore, for urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas, a series of social security programs are built to ensure the current basic subsistence needs and deal with the risks to elderly care, medical care and other aspects, which has intensified the sense of vertical equity brought by implementing the system from scratch and further strengthened the Chinese national identity of all ethnic groups. This strong psychological perception enlarges residents’ satisfaction evaluation of the actual anti-poverty effects of the social security system. Therefore, when the anti-poverty effects of the social security system in ethnic minority areas receive a relatively higher degree of satisfaction evaluation, there is a need to correctly understand the generally higher evaluation and pay more attention to improving the guaranteed level and the management level of the system to enhance its actual anti-poverty effects.

9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas In the process of promoting the social security system, ethnic minority areas do not lag behind the Eastern and Central regions, and the counties in some ethnic minority areas are mostly the pilot regions where the country implements the specific social security programs. Although China has issued a series of ethnic policies, development-oriented poverty alleviation policies and other policies to improve the development capabilities of ethnic minority areas and the members of society in the areas, the country has not set up a unique system for ethnic minority areas in the construction of the social security system. Therefore, the social security system

9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects …

299

in the provinces and autonomous regions in ethnic minority areas often encounters the same problems as that in other areas when having anti-poverty effects. As the provinces and autonomous regions in ethnic minority areas, especially the countylevel governments at the primary level in the provinces and autonomous regions, are mostly under the constraints of weak financial capacity, remote geographical location and insufficient labor skills, the social security system in ethnic minority areas also faces some special problems when fighting against poverty. 1. Social security benefits are constrained by weak local financial capacity As the social security system is constrained by the extremely weak local financial capacity, the guaranteed level of the social security programs in most areas of the country has given way to the full coverage of the programs for a long period of time. In the provinces and autonomous regions in western ethnic minority areas, the local governments at the primary level face a more serious problem regarding insufficient financial capacity. For many county-level governments in western ethnic minority areas, their fiscal revenue is very limited and from a single source, and they do not have much ability to create their own fiscal revenue. Many impoverished counties often need to rely on the special transfer payments of the central government and provincial-level governments to ensure the normal functioning of government and face a serious imbalance of fiscal revenue structure, in which most is the “mouthfeeding budget—a large proportion of the budget has been earmarked for paying salaries of government functionaries” and the “finance that can only ensure normal operations.” There are few financial funds that can be used to support and implement the social security programs. In addition, the country has increased the repayment of debt owed by local governments, which will bring the local governments enormous fiscal pressure if the primary-level governments in western ethnic minority areas completely depend on the governments of this administrative level to implement the social security programs. According to the data of the China Statistical Yearbook 2014, the proportions of the local public fiscal revenue in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the western region to the national average are generally low, and the proportion in Inner Mongolia is the highest but only reaches 77.3%; the proportions are 72.4% in Yunnan, 59.2% in Guangxi, 54.2% and 50.7% in Guizhou and Xinjiang, respectively, and only 13.9%, 10.1% and 4.3% in Ningxia, Qinghai and Tibet, respectively. However, the proportion of local public fiscal expenditures on social security and employment in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is far higher than that in other areas of the country. As local governments can only generate limited revenue by themselves, the local governments in ethnic minority areas lack a motivation to formulate the benefit standards of the rural subsistence allowance system, the households enjoying Five Guarantees (on food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses), the rural basic social endowment insurance system and the medical assistance caps. In addition, the dynamic adjustment of these benefit standards lags behind. Generally, for the governments in ethnic minority areas, their lack of public fiscal revenue directly restricts the amount of financial funds on social security programs. Social security benefits account for a small proportion of the income of poor households in ethnic

300

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

minority areas, which makes it difficult to exert anti-poverty effects by regulating income distribution. 2. Weak implementation and management ability of rural social security programs restricts the anti-poverty ability In ethnic minority areas, the weak implementation and management ability of the social security system mainly occurs in the ongoing process of implementing the social assistance system in rural areas and is mirrored by insufficient responsible management staff and their weak management ability. The shortage of responsible management staff results from two aspects. First, job vacancies in the primary-level governments of ethnic minority areas are not enough to meet local needs, which is prominent in counties with a larger population or with a higher degree of poverty. Second, low salaries and benefits make it harder for governments to recruit and maintain professional management staff. In addition, as ethnic minority areas are faced with terrible traffic conditions, the management staff working in the subsistence allowance system for both rural residents and residents and the new social endowment insurance system for rural residents thus encounter more working costs that the staff themselves need to bear, resulting in insufficient enthusiasm for work. To improve the implementation and management ability of social security programs, the county-level governments of ethnic minority areas allow township (town) and village officials to hold two or more posts concurrently. In fact, assistants in township and town civil affairs administrations are responsible for the application of joining in the subsistence allowances system, household income and expenditure survey, and dynamic management of people living on the subsistence allowances, and they also need to survey the income and expenditure of the households that fail in the examination of subsistence allowances. Therefore, there exists a huge gap between the workload and the actual ability of the government staff in the townships and towns of ethnic minority areas. Some county-level governments of ethnic minority areas are recruiting staff to address the problem of staff shortages through purchasing services, but this endeavor has yet to produce results because of low salaries and benefits. The weak implementation and management ability of rural social security programs may lead to the following problems. First, since township and town officials who have their own jobs but hold implementation and management posts concurrently are not professional enough, they may not follow standards in the process of conducting household surveys, examinations and approvals in their social assistance work. Second, it is difficult to supervise the implementation of the social assistance system in rural areas, which causes the inequity of social security benefits. Taking the social assistance system as an example, county-level civil affair administrations can only conduct a limited random inspection of the recipients of subsistence allowances in towns and townships on the implementation of the system because of staff shortages. As a result, the dynamic management toward the targets of the system cannot proceed, the system cannot aim at targets in need accurately, and the equity of social security benefits and effects of anti-poverty may be reduced. In the rural areas of ethnic minority areas, because of the lack of supervision of the implementation of the subsistence allowance system, the phenomena featuring all households in a

9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects …

301

village receiving allowances in turn and allowances shared by all households in a village equally still exist. These phenomena mean that the operation of the subsistence allowance system is twisted and the effects of anti-poverty are greatly reduced. Moreover, in rural areas with ethnic minorities as main residents, due to the differences in language, cultural background and traditional customs, more detailed work relating to policy explanations and communication with local residents needs to be done. In other words, staff shortages exert a direct influence on the work related to social assistance. 3. Insufficient medical resources restrict the anti-poverty effects of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system As the state increases the level of subsidies in medical payments and the reimbursement rate of hospitals at all levels year by year, the situation that rural residents fear receiving medical advice and treatment is basically eradicated. Unlike the subsistence allowance system and the new social endowment insurance system for rural residents, the new rural cooperative medical insurance system is indispensable for improving the quality and quantity of medical services to achieve anti-poverty effects. In rural areas, insufficient medical resources are an important factor that restricts the antipoverty effects of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system. The shortage of medical resources is mainly presented by the shortage of high-quality health care technicians at the primary level. From the number of health care technicians per 1,000 people in rural areas, it can be noticed that the proportions of health care technicians, practicing physicians and registered nurses in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions of the Western region are almost all lower than the national average level and the level of the Eastern region. Specifically, the numbers of practicing physicians per 1,000 people in Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Tibet of the southwestern region are all below one, and the numbers of registered nurses per 1,000 people in Qinghai and Ningxia of the northwestern region and Tibet and Guizhou are all below one, lagging far behind the national average level and the level of the eastern region. From the operation of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, although under the system the reimbursement rate exceeds 80% for rural residents to receive medical advice and treatment in village clinics and township and town medical institutions, the rural residents in ethnic minority areas cannot enjoy the highquality medical advice and treatment and medical services because of the shortage of medical resources at the primary level. Consequently, two situations may occur. First, rural residents in ethnic minority areas, even those with a high reimbursement rate, cannot be cured or even need to go through multiple medical treatments. Second, rural residents are inclined to seek medical help in higher-level hospitals (such as countylevel and provincial hospitals), which makes those residents shoulder high medical expenses with a lower reimbursement rate. Therefore, the equalization construction of basic public and medical care services should be strengthened to improve the service of township and town medical institutions and the quality of the medical advice and treatment received by the residents in the remote rural areas of ethnic

302

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

minority areas and allow the new rural cooperative medical insurance system to play a role in reducing household medical expenses. 4. The outflow of the labor force pinches the social insurance payment of outflow regions That the outflow of the labor force pinches the social insurance payment of outflow regions indicates that the management of social insurance programs needs to be upgraded to adapt to labor mobility in the progress of achieving urbanization. The counties and cities in ethnic minority areas are pillared by agriculture or animal husbandry, and their industry structure is characterized by the dominant role of primary industry. Hence, many surplus laborers in rural areas need to find jobs outside their hometown. The new social endowment insurance for rural residents and the insurance for urban residents are planned by county-level administrations, which also hold and manage the capital brought by the two insurances, so the endowment insurance payment of young and middle-aged migrant laborers while they are away is hard to be transferred into and followed in other administrative regions; in addition, both rural and urban migrant laborers do not live in the outflow regions for a long time, so they lack the enthusiasm to pay the endowment insurance. Consequently, the endowment insurance in the counties and cities of ethnic minority areas enjoy a low level of overall planning capital, which is not enough for diversifying risks, and the function of the endowment insurance for income distribution is thus weakened. In terms of medical insurance, the mobility of laborers exerts larger influences on the payment of the insurance of outflow regions. The medical insurance fund is balanced annually, and the raised fund is redistributed between the young and the elderly and between the healthy and the unhealthy. However, as a large number of young and middle-aged migrant laborers quit their payment of the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, the overall fund of outflow regions comes from the left-behind seniors and children who are faced with high risks of catching diseases. The payment suspension of medical insurance brought by the outflow of laborers weakens the function of mutual assistance of the medical insurance system of outflow regions. Against the background of the low level of the management of social insurance programs, the payment suspension caused by the outflow of labor from ethnic minority areas, rural areas in particular, can directly influence the fund raising of medical and endowment insurance and hinder the sustainable operation of insurance funds. That the functions of mutual assistance and diversifying risks of social insurance programs are weakened restricts the improvement of the endowment and medical security for the left-behind seniors. 5. There are huge gaps in social security benefits among regions and between urban and rural areas The huge gaps in social security benefits among regions and between urban and rural areas are mainly mirrored by the social assistance system. The huge gaps in social security benefits among regions are shown in the huge gaps in the benefits of a social assistance program among provinces and among cities and counties of a province and

9.5 Problems of the Anti-poverty Effects …

303

in the gap in the benefits of social assistance in the same region. The huge gaps in the benefits of social security among regions and between urban and rural areas damage the equity of the benefits of social assistance. Ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas display more desire for the sense of horizontal equity of the social assistance system. Therefore, with the overall high satisfaction degree with the social security system, how to narrow the gap in the benefits of social security between rural and urban areas and improve equity stand out in the progress of achieving urbanization. 6. The participants of the anti-poverty process in ethnic minority areas are from a single group, and the systems cannot aim at targets in need accurately The social security capital, as well as the poverty alleviation capital of ethnic minority areas, mainly comes from the fiscal allocation of governments at all levels. The policies concerning social security and anti-poverty overemphasize the leading role of governments, resulting in the low participation of social organizations, enterprises, individuals and poor residents. For example, the new rural cooperative medical insurance is a type of social insurance and should insist the balance between insured individuals’ rights and obligations on the basis of actuarial insurance. However, as rural residents in ethnic minority areas have relatively low income, governments allocate many subsidies, and in 2015, governments at all levels elevated the subsidy standard toward the residents of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions to RMB 380, which means that rural residents only need to pay RMB 120 for insurance, and government subsidies account for 76% of the payment of new rural cooperative medical insurance. Hence, from the perspective of capital sources, the new rural cooperative medical insurance is more similar to social welfare. The subsistence allowances of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are all from government allocation, and most of the social welfare funds aimed at special groups are from governments at all levels, resulting in the low participation of social organizations, enterprises, and individuals in the social security of the provinces and regions. Whether the systems aimed at poor counties in the past or aim at a whole village at present to push forward their implementation, they in essence aim at a whole region rather than at individuals or rural residents. The targeting mechanism under which counties and villages are targets easily has targeting errors, which means that they may aim at the wealthy rather than the poor, and this will exert a direct influence on the anti-poverty effects. Since some social organizations, enterprises, and individuals are more professional and efficient in addressing the problems concerning poverty, governments can hand out part of poverty alleviation capital to them as investment to improve the effects of poverty alleviation. Governments can also introduce enterprises to recruit and train those in poverty by reducing taxes and other ways to create a win–win situation for governments, enterprises and the poor. In addition, governments should encourage and lead social organizations, enterprises and individuals to pay close attention to the anti-poverty progress in ethnic minority areas to eliminate poverty as soon as possible. Apart from encountering the problems mentioned above, the social security system is faced with challenges from other aspects in its efforts to eliminate poverty. For example, the management of the social security system is not standard enough,

304

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

the distribution of benefits to insured individuals through social security channels is difficult, targets are faced with high costs to receive social security benefits, social security benefits lack scientific and dynamic adjustment mechanisms, the connection between the social security system and the policies concerning poverty alleviation and development shows difficulties, the elderly, people with disabilities, women and children are faced with hardships to receive social welfare services and so on. All of these problems and challenges, from the internal and external aspects of the system, produce negative effects on the role of the social security system in the anti-poverty process in the whole anti-poverty policy system.

9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving the Anti-poverty Effects of the Social Security System in Ethnic Minority Areas The social security system in ethnic minority areas is improved continuously, and the social assistance system provides destitute groups with necessary help to guarantee their rights to subsistence and health. Social insurance helps to prevent and reduce the risks of people becoming trapped in poverty through mutual assistance. Social welfare strives to achieve anti-poverty effects by improving life quality and enhancing development ability. In recent years, under the correct guidance of President Xi with his thought of “targeted poverty alleviation and elimination,” the number of the poor population has decreased, the poverty density has weakened, the work relating to targeted poverty alleviation and elimination has yielded remarkable results in ethnic minority areas, both rural and urban residents generally hold a high evaluation toward social security programs, and the sense of vertical equity brought by implementing the programs from scratch is powerful. Meanwhile, we should note that the social security toward anti-poverty in ethnic minority areas possesses some problems, including the low level of benefits, relatively single source of capital, inaccurate targeting mechanism, weak development ability of poor population and high rate of population sinking back to poverty. Therefore, during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the following aspects should be given priority to perfect the social security system, accelerating poverty alleviation and elimination and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. 1. Sorting out the duty of governments in the anti-poverty process and establishing and strengthening the anti-poverty mechanism of social security Undoubtedly, the governments of all countries play an important role in achieving poverty elimination. However, governments should ascertain their duty in the antipoverty process based on factors such as their political systems, political principles, economic development, population structure and traditional culture. Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy has boomed. However, as China is now at the primary stage of socialism with plenty of poor population, deeper poverty and a

9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving …

305

wider range of poverty-stricken areas, China still have a long way to go to eliminate poverty, and the government should not take charge of everything but pay attention to following aspects. First, the government is responsible for providing basic subsistence. Whenever residents are mired into extreme poverty for any reason, the government should promptly guarantee their rights to subsistence and health through subsistence allowances and necessary social assistance. The funds of allowances and social assistance should be financed by local governments. Second, as the government serves as the main participant to provide public service, it should offer equal public service, especially equal education, to both poor and nonpoor residents. Third, as a management agency, the government should be responsible for the formulation of policies relating to social security and income distribution and create favorable policies to some extent for poor residents to lift them out of poverty as soon as possible. The government should play a leading role in the formulation of the social security system, but diverse securities have different influences on poverty elimination. For example, subsistence allowances offer direct allowances to poor individuals to relieve poverty, and the government takes full responsibility for allowances; endowment insurance, unemployment insurance, maternity insurance and others play an indirect role by dispersing risks of labor, and the government only shoulders the responsibility of management in those social insurances. 2. Accelerating the construction of service-oriented governments of poverty-stricken areas and actively undertaking industrial transfer from developed areas China witnesses a huge gap between its agricultural and industrial production efficiency and witnesses an imbalanced industry layout, resulting in the extreme poverty of some regions. In general, the tiered industry layout in the Eastern, Central and Western regions means that the service industry and the middle and high-end manufacturing industry, the middle and low-end manufacturing industry, and the scattered low-end manufacturing industry and traditional agriculture are dominant in the three regions. With economic development, the income and consumption levels of the laborers in the eastern region increase. Consequently, the middle-end industry there cannot match the local economy, and industrial transfer follows. The povertystricken areas with cheap labor should seize the opportunity for industrial transfer, accelerate the construction of service-oriented governments, and actively undertake industrial transfer from developed areas to achieve fast economic development. That poverty-stricken areas actively undertake industrial transfer is conducive to governments, enterprises and residents. Specifically, governments can obtain more fiscal revenues, enterprises achieve another development with cheap labor and residents get rid of poverty and become wealthy with employment opportunities. Therefore, poverty-stricken areas actively undertaking industrial transfer can create a win–win situation.

306

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

3. Boosting the education quality in poverty-stricken areas to amplify the selfdevelopment ability of the poor Karl Gunnar Myrdal pointed out that social and economic inequality is a major reason for poverty in a country.33 With education inequality being mainly responsible for economic and social inequality, education is the basis for regional rapid development, and education equity is a powerful guarantee for social equity. In the past, due to the severe lack of educational resources, which are mainly concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, people in most ethnic minority areas, especially poverty-stricken areas, had fewer educational opportunities. However, with economic development, China implemented nine years of compulsory education in 2006, which greatly improved the education level for children in poverty-stricken areas. In recent years, as China has invested more in education, teaching facilities and the number of teachers have been strongly increased. However, the quality of education in these areas lags far behind that in the developed areas. As education is a public service provided by the government, it should be ensured that the same high-quality education resources are enjoyed by both the poor and the nonpoor. Fine education can guarantee certain advantages for the poor in future competition, thus achieving the goal of fundamentally eradicating poverty. For adults living in poverty, vocational skills training should be provided free of charge to enhance their labor productivity to help them ultimately eliminate poverty through employment. In other words, only by improving the education level, cultural competence, self-development ability and production efficiency of the poor can they truly shake off poverty and realize common prosperity. 4. Raising the accuracy of poverty alleviation and encouraging all parties in society to participate in the anti-poverty process Whether the systems aimed at poor counties in the past or aim at a whole village at present to push forward their implementation, they in essence aim at a whole region rather than at individuals or rural residents. The targeting mechanism under which counties and villages are targets easily has targeting errors, which means that they may aim at the wealthy rather than the poor, and this will exert a direct influence on anti-poverty effects. To deal with the poverty problem, Xi Jinping proposed that the “Six Elements of Targeted Poverty Alleviation”34 should be put in place. For different groups in poverty, proper poverty alleviation methods should be adopted accordingly. For those able to work, free skill training can be provided to improve their vocational and entrepreneurial skills to help them finally get rid of poverty through employment or entrepreneurship. For those unable to work, the government can guarantee their basic living standards by implementing subsistence allowance policies. As some 33

Karl Gunnar Myrdal (Sweden), The Challenge of World Poverty: A World Anti-Poverty Program in Outline, Capital University of Economics and Business Press, 1991. 34 The Six Elements of Targeted Poverty Alleviation include that the recipients are those in need, the projects are adapted to the eligible recipients, the funds are effectively used, appropriate measures are taken for individual households, capable workers are dispatched to individual villages, and the results of poverty alleviation reach expectations.

9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving …

307

social organizations, enterprises and individuals are more professional and efficient in solving poverty problems, the government can directly offer part of the funds of poverty alleviation to them as investment to improve the effect of poverty alleviation. By tax reduction and other methods, the government can also guide enterprises to recruit and train groups in poverty in a bid to create a win–win situation for the government, enterprises and the poor. Moreover, the government should encourage and guide social organizations, enterprises and individuals to pay attention to and participate in anti-poverty efforts in ethnic minority areas to help poverty-stricken areas eliminate poverty as soon as possible. 5. Improving the sharing mechanism of financial responsibilities by multilevel governments to build up the financial support of the social security system The insufficient finance of local governments is one of the main reasons for the poor anti-poverty effects of social security in ethnic minority areas. Based on the current reality of ethnic minority areas, the operation of the social security system still relies on special transfer payments and financial subsidies from the central government. This is especially reflected in the operation of the social assistance system, for which the central government should appropriately increase its share of financial responsibilities and optimize the structure of financial subsidies. The rural subsistence allowance system and the medical assistance system mainly offer basic and supportive help for people in poverty-stricken counties and rural areas in ethnic minority areas to fight against poverty. In many border counties and poverty-stricken counties of ethnic minority areas, local governments even find it extremely difficult to maintain their own operations. In the operation of social assistance and social insurance programs aimed at improving people’s livelihood in these areas, the central government should take a higher share of financial responsibility. In terms of the social insurance system, the basic old-age pensions of the new social endowment insurance for rural residents need to be further improved, which also requires raising the central government’s subsidy standard and proportion toward western ethnic minority areas. Furthermore, with regard to the structure of financial subsidies, the central government should consider allocating funds to the responsible management staff of the primary-level civil affairs administrations and the social security programs as wage subsidies to mobilize the enthusiasm of those staff in remote ethnic minority areas. In addition, improving local governments’ ability to increase their revenues by perfecting the reform of the taxation system is the fundamental measure to enhance the financial support of the social security system. Strengthening the ability to maintain and increase the fund value of social security programs, particularly that of the social insurance system, is also an important measure to enhance the endogenous financial support of the social security system. 6. Strengthening the publicity of social security policies to help ethnic minorities develop and enhance modern social insurance concepts As the current publicity of the specific policies of the social security system in ethnic minority areas is still insufficient, assistants of the primary-level civil affairs administrations, township and town officials, instructors of new rural construction

308

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

and other workers should take the main responsibility to publicize and explain the specific policies of the social security system. In terms of publicity, publicity content should be compiled and printed in bilingual format, and government workers at all levels who are familiar with the languages of ethnic minorities should be selected to take charge of publicity. Furthermore, it is possible to make full use of communication channels such as speakers installed on rural electric line poles and various media platforms, including smartphone applications and TV, to publicize social security policies. With respect to publicity content, the policy content of endowment insurance should be the focus to help ethnic minorities gradually recognize and accept modern social insurance concepts and understand the content of the new social endowment insurance for rural residents. By doing so, rural ethnic minorities can also increase their awareness of diffusing risks and ultimately be able to better adapt to the market economy and modernization process. 7. Promoting the optimization and integration of the social security system to build a multilevel social security system Since the beginning of the twenty-first century and with its fast development after its establishment, China’s social security system has become complete. With the advancement of urbanization, the acceleration of labor mobility, and the progression of the equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas, the fragmented pattern of rural residents, urban residents and urban employees participating in different endowment insurance and medical insurance systems in China needs to be quickly broken down. Through the optimization and integration of specific systems, urban and rural residents can participate in a fairer and more sustainable social security system. Speeding up the optimization and integration of the social security system is particularly important for ethnic minority areas. On the one hand, due to the increasingly frequent urban–rural and cross-provincial mobility of labor in ethnic minority areas, the problem of repeated participation in social security schemes is serious. In addition, as urban and rural residents are covered by different social security systems, urban and rural laborers are prevented from enjoying fair social security benefits when moving to other places for employment. On the other hand, given the serious shortage of responsible staff who can participate in and competently manage social security programs in ethnic minority areas, the level of implementing these programs and the supervisory power are relatively low. Promoting the optimization and integration of urban and rural social endowment insurance and social medical insurance is one of the significant measures to deal with insufficient implementation capacity. Specifically, it means integrating the basic social endowment insurance system and its implementation methods and institutions for urban and rural residents and integrating medical insurance policies and their implementation and management for urban and rural residents. Furthermore, expenses for hospitalization and medicines in other provinces away from retirees’ hometown should be directly settled, the social assistance system coordinated, the cohesion of policies

9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving …

309

strengthened, and the integration of systems promoted.35 At present, urban and rural residents in China have basically participated in the social endowment and medical insurance systems sponsored by the government, but the sponsor of the security system is from a single group. Relying only on the government to finance social endowment insurance and medical insurance still makes it difficult to completely resolve the care and medical expenses for the elderly in urban and rural areas. Establishing a multilevel social security system by fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of the government, market, society and individuals is an important future direction for improving the current anti-poverty effects of social security in ethnic minority areas and the quality of life of urban and rural residents. Specifically, concerning pension security, a multilevel endowment insurance system should be actively developed. With respect to medical insurance, a serious disease insurance system for urban and rural residents should be fully implemented, and the development of supplementary medical insurance and commercial health insurance encouraged. 8. Increasing special skill training to improve the professional abilities of the management staff responsible for social security programs Another main reason that restricts the anti-poverty effects of social security in ethnic minority areas is the weak professional abilities of the management staff responsible for running the system. Consequently, it is necessary to provide regular special professional skill training for the assistants of the primary-level civil affairs administrations and the management staff responsible for social insurance programs. For example, civil affairs administration workers need to be provided with professional training in the household income and expenditure survey, dynamic management of people living on subsistence allowances, and supervision of the operation of the assistance benefits and subsistence allowances to improve the targeting rate of the social assistance system. At the same time, bilingual training is necessary for these responsible management staff, which helps them become more proficient in the languages of ethnic minorities and improves the effectiveness of their implementation and management work. Regarding the problem of insufficient responsible management staff, the government should increase job vacancies in the government in the field of people’s livelihood on the one hand and improve the salary and benefits of primarylevel government workers in ethnic minority areas on the other hand to ensure that the work of implementing and managing social security programs can “retain” and “attract” professional management talent. 9. Upgrading the management of social insurance to higher-level authorities to meet the needs of labor mobility in ethnic minority areas As the outflow of the labor force for employment has become an important way for urbanization development in ethnic minority areas and the income growth of rural households, social insurance programs should be actively adjusted based on 35

For details, please refer to the content of “establishing a fairer and more sustainable social security system” on “the CPC Central Committee Recommendations for the 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development”.

310

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

the free mobility of labor in ethnic minority areas. The management of endowment insurance and medical insurance should be upgraded to higher-level authorities, and the implementation methods for transferring social security accounts should be optimized. In this way, the enthusiasm of migrants to pay social insurance can be enhanced, stable expectations of the endowment and medical care for crossregional migrants secured, and the income distribution effect of the social insurance funds boosted, which can give better play to the anti-poverty role of social insurance through mutual assistance and risk diversification. Moreover, the step of placing the basic old-age pensions of workers in ethnic minority areas under unified national management should be accelerated and an appropriate adjustment mechanism for basic pensions established. Upgrading the management of social insurance to higherlevel authorities is conducive to narrowing the gap in the guaranteed level of social insurance among regions and between urban and rural areas and has a positive impact on narrowing the income gap between urban and rural households. 10. Reinforcing the standardization of the management and operation of social security programs to improve the equity of the anti-poverty effects of social security Due to the weak ability of the responsible management team at the primary level, the operation of the social security system in ethnic minority areas lacks standardization, which is manifested in a certain degree of deviation in the implementation of and insufficient supervision of specific social security programs. As a result, the equity and sustainability of specific social security programs are partly impaired. To enhance the standardization of the management and operation of social security programs, it is important to start from the internal and external aspects of the social security system. In terms of the internal aspects of the system, the following two measures should be adopted. First, the implementation and management methods and procedures of various social security programs should be improved to enhance the standardization of management and operation. Second, the scientific management and operation of the system should be put in place. For example, a scientific and reasonable adjustment mechanism for social security benefits can be formulated to adapt to changes in the economic and social development in various ethnic minority areas. In relation to the external aspects of the system, the supervisory responsibility and capability of the competent department of social security should be strengthened, the job vacancies in the government should be increased, and the supervision of social security programs should be enhanced. 11. Strengthening the rural social security system to amplify the overall poverty alleviation effect of the transfer income from the social security programs In ethnic minority areas whose economy is dominated by the primary industry, the social assistance system, as the most important anti-poverty policy in the entire rural social security system, is mainly constituted by the rural subsistence allowance system. However, the rural subsistence allowances of poor households account for a relatively low proportion of the transfer income from social security programs and play a limited role in narrowing the income gap between poor and nonpoor households. At present, owing to the increasing risk of falling into poverty caused

9.6 Thoughts and Suggestions for Improving …

311

by huge expenditures on critical illness, schooling and emergencies in poor rural households in ethnic minority areas and the high proportion of the population sinking back to poverty, it is more necessary to improve the rural social assistance system, especially the rural medical, education and housing assistance and other special assistance systems, in a bid to resolve the poverty risk of rural poor households in ethnic minority areas. 12. Speeding up the construction of social welfare services to improve the accessibility of welfare services for the elderly, the disabled, women and children Although many ethnic minority households in ethnic minority areas have many children, the concept of family care for the elderly is prevalent. Due to ethnic culture and customs, the social atmosphere for children to care for the elderly at home is strong. However, as young laborers go to other cities for employment, participate in the modernization process and the market economy and are involved in the new employment ways and lifestyles, their desire to go out to work to improve their lives has become stronger. This phenomenon has shocked the traditional concept of family care for the elderly in ethnic minority areas, and consequently, the supply of elderly care services in the urban and rural areas of ethnic minority areas encounters problems and is increasingly insufficient. In addition, restricted by the overall development stage and concept of the social security system, social welfare programs generally have a low development level. Especially due to the low level of social welfare services, the elderly, the disabled, left-behind children and women in ethnic minority areas find it extremely difficult to obtain access to social welfare services. The nursing services, disability rehabilitation, daily care of children and other services are mostly unavailable on the one hand, and professional institutions and personnel providing such services are inadequate on the other hand. The lack of social welfare services directly hinders the improvement of life quality and poverty alleviation for the abovementioned groups. To solve this problem, China should actively respond to population aging, build a multilevel elderly care service system under which elderly individuals are provided with home care, cared for by the community and supported by social services, provide integrated elderly care and medical services, and establish a long-term care insurance scheme. The government should actively develop social programs by purchasing social services to increase the supply of social welfare services for the abovementioned groups in ethnic minority areas. 13. Perfecting supporting reforms for the operation of social security programs to optimize the external institutional environment for the social security system to exert anti-poverty effects The anti-poverty effects of the social security system require the coordination of other economic and social policies to form an integrated anti-poverty policy system. Specifically, the current social security system in ethnic minority areas needs to strengthen its integration with rural poverty alleviation and development policies. Under the idea of targeted poverty alleviation, it is especially essential to strengthen the connection between the social assistance system and rural poverty alleviation and

312

9 Analysis of Anti-poverty Through Social Security …

development policies to improve the anti-poverty effects. Furthermore, it is necessary to boost the fundamental anti-poverty effects of population policies and break the vicious circle of passing on poverty to the next generation in rural households of ethnic minority areas to decrease the poverty headcount ratio among poor households and to reduce the pressure on the anti-poverty effects of the social security system. In addition, it is vital to boost the self-development capabilities of farmers by intensifying the construction of rural social programs. For example, the development of social programs in ethnic minority areas should be included in the government’s performance evaluation indicators, and governments at all levels should transform their administrative concepts based on the real needs of social members. The government should strengthen the allocation of basic public service resources in border ethnic minority areas, rural areas and other underdeveloped areas, narrow the gap in social programs among ethnic groups in the same area, improve the quality and skills of government staff at the grassroots level, teachers, doctors and other public service providers, and make various support policies and transmission mechanisms and paths of social welfare services available.

Chapter 10

Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological Civilization Construction in China’s Ethnic Minority Areas

Since ecological civilization construction was first put forward in the report to the 17th CPC National Congress in 2007 and defined as a new demand for the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, it has been popularized and developed across China. Ethnic minority areas that possess various and sufficient ecological resources but relatively fragile environment1 s have their own characteristics. This chapter starts with the problems concerning the ecological environment in ethnic minority areas to study the current situation of ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas, displays the achievements and progress brought by the construction, points out the difficulties and problems that emerged during the construction process and proposes suggestions and countermeasures.

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Ecological environment in ethnic minority areas From the perspective of location, most ethnic minority areas in China lie in or near border areas. The northwestern region where Ningxia, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are located, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau where Qinghai and Tibet lie, and the southwestern region where Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi are situated are all important natural ecological areas of China, and they are rich in forest resources and freshwater resources, thus playing a vital role in the security of the ecosystem nationwide. The ecosystem is unique and fragile, which means that once ethnic minority areas suffer

1

Ethnic minority areas in this chapter refer to the five autonomous regions—Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the three provinces mainly inhabited by ethnic minorities—Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai.

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_10

313

314

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

ecological destruction, it takes a long time for them to recover, so ecological protection is onerous; however, at the same time, it is more urgent for those areas to upgrade the economy and improve people’s livelihood. In 2012, the degree to which the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and upgrading the economy had been achieved reached 66.17% in ethnic minority areas, which indicates that ethnic minority areas are three years behind the national average level, six years behind the Eastern region, two years behind the Central region and one year behind the Western region. At present, the GDP of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is equal to that of Guangdong Province, the per capita GDP accounts for 78% of the national average level, and the urbanization rate of these provinces and autonomous regions lags far behind the national average level. Ethnic minority areas have a wider range of areas in poverty, 50.2% of rural poor residents of the national total, and a large number of residents work and live in poor production and living conditions. Moreover, among the 14 contiguous impoverished regions in China, 11 are in ethnic minority areas, and 351 of the 680 counties in the 14 contiguous impoverished regions are located in ethnic minority areas. Among the 351 counties, 155 are restricted or prohibited from being developed due to functional zoning.2 If the trend that the gap in economic development within ethnic minority areas is enlarging cannot be reversed, the psychological imbalance, even the imbalance of ethnic relations and that of regional relations, will emerge.3 Therefore, apart from nationwide difficulties, ecological civilization construction in China’s ethnic minority areas has its own problems and characteristics. Specifically, it is closely connected with economic growth, poverty elimination and prosperity achievement, urbanization, ethnic relations, national ecological security, border and national security and other matters. First, in general, the reserve of resources in ethnic minority areas accounts for an important proportion of the national total. The reserves of the three main energy resources—petroleum, natural gas and coal—in 2013 were 754.7936 million tons, 1891.112 billion cubic meters and 81.304 billion tons, respectively, which accounted for 22.42, 40.73 and 34.41% of the national total. In 2014, the reserves of the three main energy resources reached 770.8190 million tons, 1958.347 billion cubic meters and 85.373 billion tons, respectively, which accounted for 22.45, 39.60 and 35.57% of the national total. From the perspective of the basic reserve of ferrous metal ores, in 2013, the reserves of manganese ore and chromite ore in ethnic minority areas were 148.9901 million tons and 2.7320 million tons, respectively, which accounted for 69.14 and 68.04% of the national total; in 2014, the reserves reached 151.8369 million tons and 2.7387 million tons, which accounted for 70.90 and 65.24% of the national total. From the perspective of nonferrous metal ores, in 2013, the reserves of copper ore metals, lead ore metals, zinc ore metals and bauxite ore in ethnic minority areas were 11.6897, 9.3427, 23.4242 and 613.2197 million tons, respectively, which accounted for 42.48, 59.21, 62.20 and 62.37% of the national total; in 2014, the 2 Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference edited by the NEAC and published by the Ethnic Publishing House in 2015, p. 137. 3 Ibid., p. 139.

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas

315

reserves reached 12.2522, 10.8416, 26.4800 and 614.4388 million tons, respectively, which accounted for 43.20, 63.00, 65.64 and 62.49% of the national total. In terms of the basic reserve of nonmetal ores, in 2013, the reserves of phosphate ore and kaolin ore in ethnic minority areas were 1.317 billion tons and 288.4856 million tons, respectively, which accounted for 43.61 and 58.10% of the national total; in 2014, the reserves reached 1.384 billion tons and 370.5377 million tons, respectively, which accounted for 45.08 and 64.42% of the national total. With regard to water resources, in 2013, the total amount of water resources in ethnic minority areas was 1151.201 billion cubic meters, which accounted for 41.18% of the national total; in 2014, the amount reached 1141.56 billion cubic meters, which accounted for 41.87% of the national total. With regard to forest resources, the numbers of forest resources in ethnic minority areas as well as the numbers at the national level remained the same in 2013 and 2014. Specifically, the forest area in ethnic minority areas was 90.3614 million hectares, which accounted for 43.51% of the national total; the stock volume of forest in ethnic minority areas was 6.497 billion cubic meters, which accounted for 42.92% of the national total. In terms of grassland resources, in 2013, the area of grassland in ethnic minority areas was 285.79307 million hectares, which accounted for 72.75% of the national total; the area of available grassland was 238.78658 million hectares, which accounted for 72.14% of the national total. In view of land resources, in 2013, the area of cultivated land in ethnic minority areas was 31.85760 million hectares, which accounted for 23.57% of the national total; the area of land for agricultural use was 338.1350 million hectares, which accounted for 52.33% of the national total; and the area of land for construction was 6.6600 million hectares, which accounted for 17.78% of the national total. Second, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions have advantages and disadvantages in resources. In view of the reserves of petroleum and natural gas, the northern provinces and autonomous regions—Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Ningxia—display obvious advantages, especially Xinjiang, which far exceeds others in petroleum reserves. With regard to the reserve of coal, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guizhou and Yunnan, Inner Mongolia in particular, show obvious advantages. From the perspective of ferrous metal ores, the reserve of iron ore in Inner Mongolia and the reserve of chromite ore in Tibet are much greater than those in other provinces and autonomous regions; at the same time, the reserves of manganese ore in the three southwestern provinces—Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan, the reserve of vanadium ore in Guangxi and the reserve of primary ilmenite ore in Xinjing—exake an overwhelming advantage. From the perspective of nonferrous metal ores, Inner Mongolia enjoys the most reserves of copper ore metals, lead ore metals and zinc ore metals, followed by Yunnan and Xinjiang; the three southwestern provinces— Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan—possess all bauxite ores of China. In regard to nonmetal ores, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou and Yunnan have advantages in the reserve of pyrite ore, Yunnan and Guizhou possess much more reserves of phosphate ore, and the reserve of kaolin ore in Guangxi takes an overwhelming advantage. With respect to water resources, Tibet stands at a dominant position in the total amount of water resources and per capita water resources, and the per capita water resources in those provinces and autonomous regions except for Ningxia are higher than the national

316

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

average level. In terms of forest coverage rate, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou enjoy a higher rate, while Xinjiang has the lowest rate, followed by Qinghai. From the perspective of grassland resources, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Qinghai all top the list in the areas of grassland and available grassland. With regard to land resources, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and Xinjiang are in the first three places in the area of cultivated land, while Qinghai and Tibet, which have fewer areas of cultivated land, enjoy relative advantages in the total area of land for agricultural use (see Tables 10.1 and 10.2). Finally, the variations in different indicators in 2013 differ from those in 2014. Except for the reserves of chromite ore and magnesite ore remaining the same, the total identified reserves of other resources, including energy, ferrous metal ores, nonferrous metal ores and nonmetal ores, in 2013 all exceeded their amounts in 2014. For the water resources, the total reserves of water resources and the surface water and groundwater resources all decreased in 2014. Specifically, the three indicators saw a noticeable drop in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Guangxi, a slight drop in Ningxia, an obvious rise in Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai, and no large variation in Tibet. The indicators related to forest resources have the same figures in 2013 and 2014. 2. Main pollutant emissions in ethnic minority areas First, this part compares the overall pollutant emissions of ethnic minority areas and the national average. As the authorities have not yet released any statistics concerning changes in the land quality of each province, this chapter only presents data on pollutant emissions in wastewater, waste gas and urban solid wastes (see Tables 10.3 and 10.4). With all conditions and capacities being exactly the same, the proportion of the pollutant emissions of an area in the national total should be approximately equal to the proportion of the area’s GDP in the national GDP. If the former proportion is lower than the latter, the area produces relatively fewer pollutants. In contrast, if the former is higher, relatively more pollutants are generated in the area. In 2013 and 2014, the GDP of ethnic minority areas accounted for 11.10 and 11.13%, respectively, of the national GDP, and wastewater discharged in the areas made up 10.76 and 10.73%, respectively, of the national total. Both proportions are close, and the latter proportions are even lower. However, a closer look at the pollutant emissions in wastewater shows clear facts that except for the two indicators of total chromium and hexavalent chromium, all the other pollutants, especially the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen, which are currently the most typical water pollutants in China, have a higher proportion than that of the areas’ GDP in the national GDP. As for the main pollutants in waste gas, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and smoke and dust accounted for 23.78, 20.04 and 23.21% each in 2013 and 23.96, 19.92 and 19.97% each in 2014, respectively, all far higher than the proportions of the GDP of ethnic minority areas in the national GDP in the two years. The municipal solid wastes collected and transported in 2013 and 2014 in ethnic minority areas made up 10.33 and 10.49%, respectively, close to the proportions of the areas’ GDP in the national GDP. The above figures reveal that, compared with other areas, ethnic minority areas produce more water and gas pollutants under the same product value,

2313. 96

294. 40

38. 47

8339. 35

8042. 54

460. 10

20. 99

567. 74

56. 29

Reserve of petroleum (10,000 tons)

Reserve of natural gas (100 million cu.m)

Reserve of coal (100 million tons)

Reserve of iron ore (100 million tons)

Reserve of manganese ore (10,000 tons)

Reserve of chromite ore (10,000 tons)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

3. 68

0. 03

12. 17

1511. 79

6284. 94

Qinghai

169. 22

0. 17

0. 12

Tibet

44. 01

567. 17

4. 56

156. 53

9053. 88

58,393. 63

Xinjiang

Table 10.1 Resource and environment conditions in ethnic minority areas 2013

8441. 54

0. 30

2. 26

1. 32

135. 27

Guangxi

1074. 79

4. 13

60. 10

0. 80

12. 21

Yunnan

30. 31

813. 04

18,911. 12

75,479. 36

Total of ethnic minority areas

273. 20

4247. 77 14,899. 01

0. 13

83. 29

6. 39

Guizhou

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

401. 50

21,547. 70

199. 20

2362. 90

46,428. 80

(continued)

68. 04

69. 14

15. 22

34. 41

40. 73

336,732. 80 22. 42

National total

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 317

0. 77

Reserve of vanadium ore (10,000 tons)

508. 02

962. 32

Reserve of lead ore metals (10,000 tons)

Reserve of zinc ore metals (10,000 tons)

Reserve of bauxite ore (10,000 tons)

400. 27

Reserve of copper ore metals (10,000 tons)

Reserve of primary ilmenite ore (10,000 tons)

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.1 (continued)

Ningxia

115. 51

55. 96

25. 63

Qinghai

13. 99

46. 91

274. 36

Tibet

167. 98

81. 01

168. 20

45. 73

0. 16

Xinjiang

46,631. 76

106. 13

25. 98

3. 33

171. 49

Guangxi

1485. 24

905. 28

210. 66

296. 90

0. 07

Yunnan

13,204. 97

71. 21

5. 73

0. 28

Guizhou

61,321. 97

2342. 42

934. 27

1168. 97

45. 73

172. 49

Total of ethnic minority areas

98,323. 50

3766. 20

1577. 90

2751. 50

21,957. 00

909. 90

National total

(continued)

62. 37

62. 20

59. 21

42. 48

0. 21

18. 96

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

318 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

0.02

4814.68

Reserve of phosphate ore (100 million tons)

Reserve of kaolin ore (10,000 tons)

Total amount 959.81 of water resources (100 million cu.m)

16,039.32

Inner Mongolia

Reserve of pyrite ore (10,000 tons)

Reserve of magnesite ore (10,000 tons)

Indicator

Table 10.1 (continued)

11.40

0.01

Ningxia

645.61

0.60

50.08

49.90

Qinghai

4415.74

Tibet

955.99

9.93

59.36

Xinjiang

2057.33

23,605.60

837.06

Guangxi

1706.69

402.30

6.49

4878.86

Yunnan

759.44

16.05

6.05

5594.47

Guizhou

11,512.01

28,848.56

13.17

27,459.15

49.90

Total of ethnic minority areas

27,957.86

49,649.70

30.20

130,194.10

120,747.50

National total

(continued)

41.18

58.10

43.61

21.09

0.04

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 319

20.19

103.04

3848.60

Duplicated measurement between surface water and groundwater (100 million cu.m)

Per capita water resources (cu.m/person)

175.25

22.13

Amount of 249.33 groundwater resources (100 million cu.m)

Ningxia

9.47

Inner Mongolia

Amount of 813.52 surface water resources (100 million cu.m)

Indicator

Table 10.1 (continued)

11,216.59

274.72

290.77

629.54

Qinghai

142,530.58

991.73

991.73

4415.74

Tibet

4251.88

509.79

560.15

905.63

Xinjiang

4376.83

477.05

478.12

2056.26

Guangxi

3652.24

573.29

573.29

1706.69

Yunnan

2174.15

235.63

235.63

759.44

Guizhou

3185.44

3401.15

11,296.29

Total of ethnic minority areas

2059.69

6962.75

8081.11

26,839.47

National total

(continued)

45.75

42.09

42.09

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

320 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

11.90

0.09

0.07

21.00

Total standing 14.84 forest stock (100 million cu.m)

Stock volume of forest (100 million cu.m)

13.45

14.43

Area of 331.65 man-made forest (10,000 ha)

Forest coverage rate (%)

61.80

2487.90

Forest area (10,000 ha)

180.10

4398.89

Area of afforested land (10,000 ha)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.1 (continued)

0.43

0.49

5.60

7.44

406.39

808.04

Qinghai

22.62

22.88

12.00

4.88

1471.56

1783.64

Tibet

3.37

3.87

4.20

94.00

698.25

1099.71

Xinjiang

5.09

5.58

56.50

634.52

1342.70

1527.17

Guangxi

16.93

18.75

50.00

414.11

1914.19

2501.04

Yunnan

3.01

3.44

37.10

237.30

653.35

861.22

Guizhou

64.97

69.94

1738.33

9036.14

13,159.81

Total of ethnic minority areas

151.37

164.33

21.60

6933.38

20,769.00

31,259.00

National total

(continued)

42.92

42.56

25.07

43.51

42.10

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 321

381.10

30.00

Land for 8291.10 agriculture use (1,000 ha)

157.60

33.70

4510.80

588.20

31,530.67

36,369.75

Qinghai

13.80

8724.50

441.80

70,846.78

82,051.94

Tibet

150.10

5168.70

5160.20

48,006.80

57,258.80

Xinjiang

118.10

1959.00

4419.40

6500.35

8698.34

Guangxi

99.40

3299.50

6219.80

11,925.59

15,308.43

Yunnan

63.30

1478.80

4548.10

3759.74

4287.26

Guizhou

666.00

33,813.50

31,857.60

238,786.58

285,793.07

Total of ethnic minority areas

3745.60

64,616.80

135,163.40

330,995.42

392,832.67

National total

17.78

52.33

23.57

72.14

72.75

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Notes (1) The data relating to petroleum and natural gas all refer to remaining technically recoverable reserves (2) The population size used in the calculation of “per capita water resources” is the sum of urban permanent and temporary residents, which shall be subject to the household registration and temporary population statistics of the public security departments Source The data of “area of cultivated land”, “land for agriculture use” and “land for construction” are calculated in accordance with the “8–23 Area of Cultivated Land at Year-end by Region” and “8–24 Land Use by Region” in China Statistical Yearbook 2015 (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2015/indexch.htm), and other data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats. gov.cn/index.htm)

Land for construction (1,000 ha)

1281.10

2625.56

63,591.09

Area of available grassland (1,000 ha)

9199.00 Area of cultivated land (1,000 ha)

3014.07

78,804.48

Area of grassland (1,000 ha)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.1 (continued)

322 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

56.29

3.68

0.03

169.22

0.17

0.12

5.21

158.01

44.68

25.32

Reserve of iron ore (100 million tons)

11.82

9746.20

58,878.60

Xinjiang

Reserve of chromite ore (10,000 tons)

38.04

490.02

Reserve of coal (100 million tons)

1457.94

Tibet

560.17

272.76

8098.14

Reserve of natural gas (100 million cu.m)

7524.50

Qinghai

567.55 Reserve of manganese ore (10,000 tons)

2180.60

8354.40

Reserve of petroleum (10,000 tons)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.2 Resource and environment conditions in ethnic minority areas 2014

8486.60

0.29

2.27

1.32

131.60

Guangxi

1152.27

4.18

59.47

0.80

12.20

Yunnan

4417.10

0.13

93.98

6.31

Guizhou

273.87

15,183.69

35.33

853.73

19,583.47

77,081.90

Total of ethnic minority areas

419.80

21,415.40

206.60

2399.90

49,451.80

343,335.00

National total

(continued)

65.24

70.90

17.10

35.57

39.60

22.45

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 323

Reserve of magnesite ore (10,000 tons)

Reserve of bauxite ore (10,000 tons)

49. 90

109. 74

1178. 88 Reserve of zinc ore metals (10,000 tons)

43. 34

177. 88

87. 37

51. 58

Reserve of 584. 78 lead ore metals (10,000 tons) 92. 93

210.87

0.16

Xinjiang

25.08

274.40

Tibet

415.67 Reserve of copper ore metals (10,000 tons)

Qinghai

45.73

0.77

Reserve of vanadium ore (10,000 tons)

Ningxia

Reserve of primary ilimite ore (10,000 tons)

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.2 (continued)

46,644. 67

147. 08

44. 54

3.33

171.49

Guangxi

1476. 94

905. 84

213. 43

295.59

3.12

0.07

Yunnan

13,322. 27

85. 24

9. 53

0.28

Guizhou

4034. 10

1720. 80

2836.40

21,611.20

900.20

National total

49. 90

62. 49

65. 64

63. 00

43.20

0.23

19.16

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

(continued)

108,367. 00 0. 05

61,443. 88 98,321. 90

2648. 00

1084. 16

1225.22

48.85

172.49

Total of ethnic minority areas

324 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

4813. 18

Reserve of kaolin ore (10,000 tons)

10. 07

8. 16

21. 32

Total amount 537. 79 of water resources (100 million cu.m)

Amount of 397. 61 surface water resources (100 million cu.m)

Amount of 236. 26 groundwater resources (100 million cu.m)

349. 39

775. 97

793. 86

0. 60

0. 11

Reserve of phosphate ore (100 million tons)

0. 01

50. 08

14,865. 81

Qinghai

Reserve of pyrite ore (10,000 tons)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.2 (continued)

985. 11

4416. 30

4416. 30

Tibet

443. 93

686. 55

726. 93

7. 84

59. 36

Xinjiang

402. 97

1989. 65

1990. 90

31,906. 65

6141. 93

Guangxi

558. 44

1726. 63

1726. 63

311. 10

6. 48

4878. 86

Yunnan

294. 43

1213. 12

1213. 12

15. 00

6. 64

5721. 90

Guizhou

National total

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

30. 70

3291. 85

7745. 03

11,213. 99 26,263. 91

11,415. 60 27,266. 90

37,053. 77 57,521. 20

13. 84

(continued)

42. 50

42. 70

41. 87

64. 42

45. 08

31,717. 94 133,859. 90 23. 69

Total of ethnic minority areas

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 325

152.98

180.10

61.80

2149.89

Area of 4398.89 afforested land (10,000 ha)

2487.90

331.65

Per capita water resources (cu.m/person)

Forest area (10,000 ha)

Area of man-made forest (10,000 ha)

14.43

19.41

96.08

Duplicated measurement between surface water and groundwater (100 million cu.m)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.2 (continued)

7.44

406.39

808.04

13,675.45

331.50

Qinghai

4.88

1471.56

1783.64

140,200.00

985.11

Tibet

94.00

698.25

1099.71

3186.91

403.55

Xinjiang

634.52

1342.70

1527.17

4203.31

401.72

Guangxi

414.11

1914.19

2501.04

3673.28

558.44

Yunnan

237.30

653.35

861.22

3461.12

294.43

Guizhou

1738.33

9036.14

13,159.81

3090.24

Total of ethnic minority areas

6933.38

20,768.73

31,259.00

1998.64

6742.04

National total

(continued)

25.07

43.51

42.10

45.84

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

326 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

0.09

0.07

14.84

13.45

Total standing forest stock (100 million cu.m)

Stock volume of forest (100 million cu.m)

0.43

0.49

5.60

Qinghai

22.62

22.88

12.00

Tibet

3.37

3.87

4.20

Xinjiang

5.09

5.58

56.50

Guangxi

16.93

18.75

50.00

Yunnan

3.01

3.44

37.10

Guizhou

64.97

69.94

Total of ethnic minority areas

151.37

164.33

21.60

National total

42.92

42.56

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Notes (1) The data relating to petroleum and natural gas all refer to remaining technically recoverable reserves (2) The population size used in the calculation of per capita water resources is the sum of urban permanent and temporary residents, which shall be subject to the household registration and temporary population statistics of the public security departments (3) As of the time when this chapter was written, the data on indicators such as “area of grassland,” “area of available grassland,” “area of cultivated land,” “area of land for agriculture use,” and “area of land for industrial use” have not been released, thereby not being used in this table Source This table is compiled, and its data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm)

11.90

21.00

Forest coverage rate (%)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.2 (continued)

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 327

328

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

further illustrating that ethnic minority areas still have an extensive production mode and lag relatively behind in reducing and optimizing pollutant emissions. Second, the level of pollutant emissions of the provinces and autonomous regions in ethnic minority areas is analyzed and compared in the following section. For comparisons in a more direct way, the volume pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP (see Tables 10.5 and 10.6) are calculated based on Tables 10.3 and 10.4. In this chapter, COD and ammonia nitrogen, two of the four mandatory indexes under key control during the 12th Five-Year Plan period of China, are chosen as the representations of water pollutants, and sulfur dioxide and oxynitride, another two indexes, represent air pollutants. In terms of the COD emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, the volumes of all provinces and autonomous regions were higher than the national average except for the volume of Tibet in 2013 and the volumes of Tibet and Guizhou in 2014, among which Ningxia, followed by Xinjiang, topped the list with a volume over two times as high as the national average for two years. In terms of the ammonia nitrogen emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, except that the volumes of Inner Mongolia and Tibet were lower than the national average, the volumes of other provinces and autonomous regions were higher than the national average, among which Ningxia topped the list followed by Guangxi. In terms of the sulfur dioxide emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, Ningxia topped the list with a volume more than two times as high as the average number of ethnic minority areas and approximately five times as high as the national average; the volumes of Guizhou, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai were five times higher than the national average; following Guangxi, Tibet occupied the bottom place, and the volumes of both of them were lower than the national average. In terms of the oxynitride emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, the volume of Ningxia was the highest followed by Xinjiang, and the volume of Guangxi was the lowest and the only one lower than the national average, and the second lowest was that of Yunnan. In terms of the municipal solid wastes collected and transported, the volume of Xinjiang was the highest in 2013 and that of Ningxia in 2014; the volumes of Inner Mongolia were the lowest in both 2013 and 2014, those of Guangxi were the second lowest, and those of Yunnan were also lower than the national average. Generally, the optimization of the pollutant emissions in ethnic minority areas is far from optimistic, as the emission volumes of most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are higher than the national average, among which the volumes of Ningxia are the highest, followed by Xinjiang, and Tibet fares relatively well. Third, the differences in pollutant emissions between 2014 and 2013 in ethnic minority areas and the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are analyzed comprehensively in the following section. In terms of the total emission volume of pollutants, the total emission volume of wastewater in ethnic minority areas in 2014 increased compared with that in 2013, but the emission volumes of the main water pollutants COD and ammonia nitrogen decreased; the emission volumes of the main waste gas pollutants sulfur dioxide and oxynitride decreased, and the emission volume of smoke and dust increased; and the volume of the municipal solid wastes collected and transported increased. Then, the total emission volume of specific ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is analyzed in the following section. In

2.74

15.5

Total volume of nitrogen (10,000 tons)

0.72

0.97

0.58

0.32

16.21

4.65

11.69

8.1

1.71

67.24

5.12

2.58

Volume of ammonia nitrogen (10,000 tons)

10.34

14,449.9

75.94

22.19

8443.84

86.32

815.67

Volume of COD (10,000 tons)

2122.06

Guangxi

225,302.67

2577.57

Xinjiang

16,916.5

Tibet

106,920.47 38,528.43 21,953.03 5004.68 100,720.29

Qinghai

GDP

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Total volume of wastewater discharged (10,000 tons)

Indicator

Table 10.3 Main pollutant emissions in ethnic minority areas 2013

7.66

5.8

54.72

156,583.28

11,832.31

Yunnan

National total

65,244.71 588,018.8

Total of ethnic minority areas

11.10

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

4.38

3.83

32.82

59.48

30.5

352.15

448.1

245.66

2352.7

(continued)

13.27

12.42

14.97

93,084.53 748,097.4 6,954,432.7 10.76

8086.86

Guizhou

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 329

5. 23

94. 22

536. 9

Volume of mercury (kg)

Volume of cadmium (kg)

2. 41

19.09

3746.86

153.44

Volume of plumbum (kg)

947.77

Volume of petroleum (ton)

0.21

6.92

1.25

Total volume of phosphorus (10,000 tons)

Ningxia

Volume of 241.5 volatile phenol (ton)

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.3 (continued)

299. 55

8. 71

631.29

1.28

342.37

0.06

Qinghai

0. 51

0. 06

2.57

0.55

0.04

Tibet

59. 58

21. 82

135.03

15.99

1571.87

1.2

Xinjiang

1075. 89

108. 13

6301.88

12.93

265.17

1.36

Guangxi

1210. 08

10. 57

6248.39

2.73

373.62

0.74

Yunnan

26. 85

20. 28

265.71

0.27

437.39

0.44

Guizhou

1277.33

18,385.35

48.73

National total

3211. 77

269. 02

18,435. 72

916. 52

17,350.82 76,111.97

281.62

4092.18

5.3

Total of ethnic minority areas

(continued)

17. 42

29. 35

22.80

22.05

22.26

10.88

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

330 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

437,439. 67

230,619. 65

37. 27

1,358,691. 7

Volume of hexavalent chromium (kg)

Volume of sulfur dioxide (ton)

1,377,573. Volume of nitrogen 1 oxides (ton)

Volume of smoke and dust (ton)

822,126. 73

389,712. 3

6071. 59

Volume of arsenic (kg)

125. 92

52. 79

241. 59

152. 53

Total volume of chromium (kg)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.3 (continued)

173,762. 04

132,256. 1

156,694

6. 76

1480. 14

13. 2

Qinghai

6750. 75

44,327. 6

4191. 66

8943. 04

1. 03

Tibet

154. 58

8290. 96

1780. 4

Guangxi

30. 56

486. 85

63. 92

Guizhou

663,091. 24 986,423. 12

19. 33

8161. 5

117. 58

Yunnan

755,909. 37 289,473. 82 386,895. 16 301,301. 56

886,926. 57 504,306. 91 523,672. 47 557,292. 49

829,431. 08 471,986. 8

1638. 99

885. 43

2067. 09

Xinjiang

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

58,291. 45

2,966,839 12,781,411

4,463,795 22,273,587

(continued)

23. 21

20. 04

23. 78

3. 45

112,230. 03 30. 63

163,117. 68 2. 72

National total

4,860,222 20,439,000

2013. 41

34,372. 3

4437. 34

Total of ethnic minority areas

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 331

Inner Mongolia

106

Ningxia

74. 1

Qinghai

24. 1

Tibet

352. 3

Xinjiang

302. 3

Guangxi

324. 1

Yunnan

248. 4

Guizhou

1781. 4

Total of ethnic minority areas

17,238. 6

National total

10. 33

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Notes (1) The data relating to petroleum and natural gas all refer to remaining technically recoverable reserves (2) The population size used in the calculation of per capita water resources is the sum of urban permanent and temporary residents, which shall be subject to the household registration and temporary population statistics of the public security departments Source This table is compiled, and its data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm)

Volume of 350. 1 municipal solid wastes collected and transported (10,000 tons)

Indicator

Table 10.3 (continued)

332 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

17,770.19

GDP

2752.1

Ningxia

2303.32

Qinghai

920.83

Tibet

9273.46

Xinjiang

1.66

3.08

4.93

18.88

Volume of ammonia nitrogen (10,000 tons)

Total volume of nitrogen (10,000 tons)

21.98

84.77

Volume of COD (10,000 tons)

0.79

0.98

10.5

0.62

0.34

2.79

17.27

4.59

67.02

Total 111,916.93 37,277.25 23,001.19 5449.68 102,748.31 volume of wastewater discharged (10,000 tons)

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.4 Main pollutant emissions in ethnic minority areas 2014

12,814.59

11.43

7.93

74.4

7.67

5.65

53.38

157,544.15

15,672.89 219,304.06

Yunnan

Guangxi

4.7

3.8

32.67

110,912.12

9266.39

Guizhou

635,910

National total

11.13

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

64.44

29.88

347.51

456.14

238.53

2294.59

(continued)

14.13

12.53

15.14

768,153.69 7,161,750.53 10.73

70,773.77

Total of ethnic minority areas

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 333

30.52

1. 77

183.52

7057.93

44. 02

760. 5

Volume of volatile phenol (ton)

Volume of plumbum (kg)

Volume of mercury (kg)

Volume of cadmium (kg)

2. 49

156.88

165.5

1226.51

Volume of Petroleum (ton)

Ningxia

0.33

Inner Mongolia

Total 2.15 volume of phosphorus (10,000 tons)

Indicator

Table 10.4 (continued)

244. 1

8. 26

692.69

0.97

339.34

0.08

Qinghai

0. 97

0. 13

5.03

5.41

0.83

0.05

Tibet

56. 89

21. 6

125.08

26.76

847.91

1.44

Xinjiang

953. 76

90. 55

5009.33

9.97

269.87

1.41

Guangxi

845. 7

16. 37

4846.39

2.12

319.34

0.77

Yunnan

197. 37

9. 91

396.62

0.57

330.79

0.49

Guizhou

3061. 78

192. 61

18,163.59

386.2

3500.09

6.72

Total of ethnic minority areas

17,251. 1

745. 91

73,184.74

1378.43

16,203.64

53.45

National total

(continued)

17. 75

25. 82

24.82

28.02

21.6

12.57

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

334 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

69. 97

20. 09

15,637. 91

37. 13

1,312,436. 37

1,258,281. 03

1,021,510. 38

Volume of arsenic (kg)

Volume of hexavalent chromium (kg)

Volume of sulfur dioxide (ton)

Volume of nitrogen oxides (ton)

Volume of smoke and dust (ton)

239,170. 83

404,032. 35

377,055. 54

105. 28

88. 67

Total volume of chromium (kg)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.4 (continued)

239,866. 81

134,518. 07

154,276

5. 54

1478. 97

12. 62

Qinghai

13,889. 88

48,343. 52

4249. 87

0. 62

5203. 48

2. 05

Tibet

132. 2

5012. 22

1353. 37

Guangxi

105. 52

7354. 07

189. 67

Yunnan

70. 32

276. 3

9351. 45

Guizhou

4,140,316. 64

4,730,058. 18

1380. 68

35,880. 03

12,388. 29

Total of ethnic minority areas

813,915. 92 402,934. 62 366,818. 71 377,856. 14 3,475,963. 29

862,792. 27 442,398. 76 498,879. 94 491,070. 7

852,981. 33 466,588. 74 636,683. 23 925,787. 1

1009. 26

847. 11

1285. 18

Xinjiang

17,407,507. 58

20,780,015. 34

19,744,159. 85

34,925. 33

109,729. 85

132,797. 43

National total

(continued)

19. 97

19. 92

23. 96

3. 95

32. 70

9. 33

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 335

Inner Mongolia

118. 4

Ningxia

77. 6

Qinghai

30. 8

Tibet

360. 6

Xinjiang

338. 9

Guangxi

349. 5

Yunnan

273. 8

Guizhou

1874. 2

Total of ethnic minority areas

17,860. 2

National total

10. 49

Proportion of ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Notes (1) The data relating to petroleum and natural gas all refer to remaining technically recoverable reserves (2) The population size used in the calculation of per capita water resources is the sum of urban permanent and temporary residents, which shall be subject to the household registration and temporary population statistics of the public security departments (3) As of the time when this chapter was written, the data on indicators such as “area of grassland,” “area of available grassland,” “area of cultivated land,” “area of land for agriculture use,” and “area of land for industrial use” have not been released, thereby not being used in this table Source This table is compiled, and its data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm)

Volume of 324. 6 municipal solid wastes collected and transported (10,000 tons)

Indicator

Table 10.4 (continued)

336 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

62.32 295.46

54.35

5.14

3.92

31.63

Tibet

417.23

105.04

98.23

5.51

79.63

Xinjiang

209.21

34.90

32.66

5.61

52.55

Guangxi

273.91

44.26

56.04

4.90

46.25

Yunnan

307.16

68.91

121.98

4.74

40.58

Guizhou

273.03

68.42

74.49

4.67

53.97

Ethnic minority areas

293.16

37.88

34.76

4.18

40.01

National average

Source The table is calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm) of the NBS of the PRC

349.19

169.71

411.24

81.43

Volume of oxynitride

4.57

48.73

Volume of municipal 206.96 solid wastes collected and transported

80.32

Volume of sulfur dioxide

6.63

86.09

Qinghai

73.84

3.03

Ningxia

151.19

51.03

Volume of COD

Inner Mongolia

Volume of ammonia nitrogen

Indicator

Table 10.5 Volume of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP in ethnic minority areas 2013 Unit: ton

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas 337

58.40 334.48

52.50

4.62

3.69

30.30

Tibet

388.85

93.04

91.98

4.95

72.27

Xinjiang

216.23

28.23

29.77

5.06

47.47

Guangxi

272.74

38.93

49.68

4.41

41.66

Yunnan

295.48

52.99

99.91

4.10

35.26

Guizhou

264.82

58.50

66.83

4.22

49.10

Ethnic minority areas

280.86

32.68

31.05

3.75

36.08

National average

Source The table is calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm) of the NBS of the PRC

336.90

146.81

430.22

70.81

Volume of oxynitride

4.25

45.59

Volume of municipal 182.67 solid wastes collected and transported

73.86

Volume of sulfur dioxide

6.03

79.87

Qinghai

66.98

2.77

Ningxia

137.01

47.70

Volume of COD

Inner Mongolia

Volume of ammonia nitrogen

Indicator

Table 10.6 Volume of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP in ethnic minority areas 2014 Unit: ton

338 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

10.1 Ecological Environment and Pollution in Ethnic Minority Areas

339

terms of the emissions of the main water pollutants COD and ammonia nitrogen, the volumes of Qinghai and Tibet increased, and those of the other six provinces and autonomous regions decreased. In terms of the emissions of sulfur dioxide, the volumes of Tibet and Xinjiang increased, and those of other provinces and autonomous regions decreased. In terms of the emissions of oxynitride, the volumes of Qinghai and Tibet increased, while those of other provinces and autonomous regions decreased. In terms of the volume of the municipal solid wastes collected and transported, the volumes of all provinces and autonomous regions increased, except for the volume of Inner Mongolia. In terms of the pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, the volumes of the COD, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and oxynitride of ethnic minority areas as a whole and all ethnic provinces and autonomous regions all saw a decrease in 2014; in terms of the volume of the municipal solid wastes collected and transported, the volumes of all ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the ethnic minority areas as a whole decreased except for Ningxia, Tibet and Guangxi, whose volumes increased. In summary, the ethnic minority areas as a whole lag behind the national average in the optimization of pollutant emissions, and the volumes of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP of most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are higher than the national average, among which Ningxia and Xinjiang seized the most attention. Optimizing the industrial structure and the energy consumption structure, reducing pollutant emissions and improving the optimization of pollutant emissions are common problems facing ethnic minority areas. Meanwhile, the total emission volume of the main water and air pollutants and the volume of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP in ethnic minority areas in 2014 decreased compared with those in 2013. Although the total emission volume of specific pollutants of specific provinces and autonomous regions increased, the volume of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP of ethnic minority areas as a whole decreased, and the optimization of the pollutant emissions in the areas showed an upward trend. Although Tibet was blessed with a better ecological basis and saw a downward trend in the pollutant emissions of COD, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and oxynitride per RMB 100 million of GDP, the trend there was different from the decreasing trend of the total pollutant emissions of other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. The total emission volumes of COD, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and oxynitride and the volume of municipal solid wastes collected and transported in Tibet in 2014 showed an upward trend, which calls for vigilance. 3. Environmental emergencies and natural disasters in ethnic minority areas In addition to daily pollutant emissions, environmental emergencies and natural disasters can also cause sudden damage to the ecological environment. In 2013, the ethnic minority areas went through 46 environmental emergencies, accounting for 6.46% of the national total. Among them, Guangxi went through 16, the highest number; Xinjiang came second with a number of ten; and Tibet ranked bottom with a number of zero (see Table 10.7). In 2014, the ethnic minority areas went through 34 environmental emergencies, accounting for 7.22% of the national total. Among them, Guangxi went through eight, still the highest number; Ningxia came

340

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

second with a number of seven; and Tibet ranked bottom with a number of zero (see Table 10.8). According to the degree of severity, environmental emergencies can be classified into five categories: extraordinarily serious environmental emergencies, serious environmental emergencies, comparatively serious environmental emergencies, ordinary environmental emergencies and environmental emergencies to be rated. All the abovementioned emergencies were rated as ordinary environmental emergencies except for one comparatively serious environmental emergency in Ningxia, one comparatively serious environmental emergency and one serious environmental emergency in Guangxi in 2013, and one comparatively serious environmental emergency in Ningxia in 2014. In terms of natural disasters, the population of ethnic minority areas affected reached 62.975 million person-times in 2013, accounting for 16.22% of the national total, and the direct economic loss was RMB 62.66 billion, accounting for 10.79% of the national total. In 2014, the disasteraffected population in ethnic minority areas dropped to 55.352 million person-times that accounted for 22.73% of the national total, a percentage slightly higher than that of the previous year. The direct economic loss of the areas in this year was RMB 114.49 billion, a number over two times as high as that in 2013 and whose proportion in the national total increased to 33.94%. From the perspective of the data of all provinces and autonomous regions in ethnic minority areas, the provinces and autonomous regions with the largest disaster-affected population (person-times) in 2013 and 2014 were the three southwestern provinces, namely, Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi. The three provinces and autonomous regions with the highest direct economic losses in 2013 were Yunnan, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia, and those in 2014 were Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi. Although natural disasters are the acts of God, human factors also play a role in inducing them, especially debris flows, landslides and other disasters in the southwestern region. Ecological environmental destruction can aggravate soil erosion, thus inducing natural disasters, and natural disasters can accelerate environmental destruction to a certain extent, thus giving rise to a vicious cycle of disasters and destruction.

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction in Ethnic Minority Areas 1. Ecological governance and protection in ethnic minority areas The major ways of ecological governance and protection are to curb pollution and reduce emissions, plant trees, and establish nature reserves. In terms of the harmless disposal of MSW, data from Tibet are lacking. In 2013, Guangxi had the highest rate of harmless disposal of municipal solid waste at 96.4%, followed by Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Guizhou. The rates of these four provinces and autonomous regions were all higher than the national average, while the rates of Yunnan, Qinghai and Xinjiang were lower than the national average. In 2014, the other six ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the whole country all had increasing rates of harmless

188.7

15.4

565.6

Direct economic 128.9 loss caused by natural disasters (RMB 100 million)

42

80.4

151.5 197.1

10

63.1

764.8

16

154.2

1984.2

2

129

2278.1

9

626.6

6297.5

46

5808.4

38,818.70

712

10.79

16.22

6.46

Xinjiang Guangxi Yunnan Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Source The “National Total Number of Environmental Emergencies” in the Table takes the China Statistical Yearbook on Environment 2013 (http://zls.mep. gov.cn/hjtj/qghjtjgb/201503/t20150316_297266.htm) as its reference, and other data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm) of the NBS of the PRC

13.6

167.5

0

Population affected by natural disasters (10,000 person-times)

2

4

Number of environmental emergencies (time)

3

Inner Mongolia Ningxia Qinghai Tibet

Indicator

Table 10.7 Environmental emergencies and natural disasters in ethnic minority areas 2013

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction … 341

1.9

170.1

191.7

1100.5

444.2

1414.8

198

1493.8

1144.9

5535.2

34

3373.8

24,353.7

471

33.94

22.73

7.22

Source The “National Total Number of Environmental Emergencies” in the Table takes the China Statistical Yearbook on Environment 2013 (http://zls.mep. gov.cn/hjtj/qghjtjgb/201503/t20150316_297266.htm) as its reference, and other data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm) of the NBS of the PRC

9.3

513.6

3

16.6

17.6

3

Direct economic 113.1 loss caused by natural disasters (100 million yuan)

129.8

8

220.6

5

644.5

0

Population affected by natural disasters (10,000 person-times)

6

2

Number of environmental emergencies (Time)

7

Inner Mongolia Ningxia Ningxia Tibet Xinjiang Guangxi Yunnan Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total (%)

Indicator

Table 10.8 Environmental emergencies and natural disasters in ethnic minority areas 2014

342 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction …

343

disposal of municipal solid waste, except that the rate of Guangxi decreased. The rate of Inner Mongolia ranked first (96.1%), followed by Guangxi, Ningxia, Guizhou and Yunnan, the rates of which were all higher than the national average, while those of Qinghai and Xinjiang were still lower than the national average. Regarding the treatment of industrial pollution, ethnic minority areas as a whole completed an investment of RMB 16.70341 billion in 2013, making up 19.66% of the national total investment; in 2014, the investment of ethnic minority areas as a whole rose to RMB 20.57416 billion, accounting for 20.62% of the national total. Among the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2014, the investments of Guangxi and Guizhou declined, while those of other areas all increased. From the perspective of the proportions of investments in specific projects on the treatment of industrial pollution, Tibet was quite different from other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and the whole country, where the investments in the treatment of waste gas made up the highest proportions of the total investments in the treatment of industrial pollution. However, Tibet invested most in the treatment of wastewater, accounting for 85.45% of the total investment in 2013 and 70.24% in 2014. In terms of forestry investment, ethnic minority areas as a whole invested RMB 123.47077 billion in 2013, accounting for 32.64% of the national total, of which the investment in ecological construction and protection reached RMB 40.29716 billion, making up 21.54% of the national total; in 2014, the forestry investment rose to RMB 150.46424 billion, accounting for 34.79% of the national total, of which the investment in ecological construction and protection increased to RMB 41.96869 billion, reaching 21.54%. From the perspective of the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the investments of the six provinces and autonomous regions in both forestry and ecological construction and protection, namely, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, were higher in 2014 than in 2013; the forestry investment of Ningxia decreased in 2014 compared with 2013, while the investment in ecological construction and protection increased; the investments of Tibet in forestry and ecological construction and protection showed an opposite situation compared with those of Ningxia. In the comprehensive analysis of the investments in the treatment of industrial pollution and forestry, as shown in Tables 10.3 and 10.4 above, the GDP of ethnic minority areas accounted for 11.13% of the national total in 2013 and 11.10% in 2014; from Tables 10.9 and 10.10, it can be seen that regarding the investments of ethnic minority areas in the treatment of industrial pollution and forestry, the proportions of both the total investments and the investments in specific projects in the national total exceeded those of GDP in the national total, which means that the economic investments of ethnic minority areas in the governance and protection of ecology and environment were relatively higher than those of other areas. In terms of the total area of afforestation, 2.30736 million hectares were planted with trees in ethnic minority areas in 2013, accounting for 37.83% of the national total. In 2014, the area of afforestation of ethnic minority areas as a whole reached 1.8735 million hectares, making up 33.76% of the national total; among the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the area of afforestation of Tibet increased, while that of other areas declined. With regard to the nature reserves, there were 642 nature reserves in ethnic minority areas in 2013 with a total area of 102.033 million hectares,

18,947

138,889 27,174

Investment 53,677 completed in the treatment of wastewater (RMB 10,000)

Investment 477,779 completed in the treatment of waste gas (RMB 10,000)

2985

165,486 30,456

77.8

Qinghai

Investment 626,746 completed in the treatment of industrial pollution (RMB 10,000)

Ningxia

92.5

Inner Mongolia

Rate of 93.6 harmless disposal of municipal solid waste (%)

Indicator

466

8450

9889

Tibet

165,143

37,086

220,054

78.1

110,217

66,235

183,218

96.4

Xinjiang Guangxi

Table 10.9 Environmental governance and protection in ethnic minority areas 2013

92.2

22,867

163,633 170,472

35,224

1,253,773

245,471

1,670,341

6,409,109

1,248,822

8,496,647

89.3

(continued)

19.56

19.66

19.66

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

238,930 195,562

87.6

Yunnan

344 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

297

Qinghai

113

15

845

Tibet

9600

38

8187

28,190

3115

8768

Yunnan

1483

543

198

12,347,077

115,808

4094

51,198

37,822,700

680,608

17,628

140,480

(continued)

32.64

17.02

23.22

36.45

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

8,283,917 854,863 390,000

5950

276

540

Xinjiang Guangxi

1,500,005 186,810 268,967 166,755 695,760

2469

Investment 67,706 completed in the treatment of other pollution (RMB 10,000)

Forestry investment (RMB 10,000)

6

Investment 101 completed in the treatment of noise pollution (RMB 10,000)

Ningxia

5176

Inner Mongolia

Investment 27,484 completed in the treatment of solid waste (RMB 10,000)

Indicator

Table 10.9 (continued)

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction … 345

53.3

43.9

1368.9

Area of nature reserves (10,000 ha)

Area of 416.7 National nature reserves (10,000 ha)

2073.4

2176.5

7

3715.3

4136.9

9

1193.1

1948.3

10

37.4

145.6

21

78

8

31

150.3

285.7

20

154

24.4

88.1

8

123

340

27

47

524.33

Number of national nature reserves (unit)

11

164.45

14

69.63

184

152.76

7654.5

10,203.3

110

642

2307.36

4,029,716

9403.93

14,631

407

2697

6100.06

18,705,800

(continued)

81.40

69.74

27.03

23.80

37.83

21.54

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

Number of nature reserves (unit)

Yunnan

149.88

Xinjiang Guangxi

101.15

Tibet

805.16

Qinghai

Total area of afforestation (1,000 ha)

Ningxia

1,250,515 493,739 345,969

Inner Mongolia

Investment 1,046,212 118,161 201,321 149,535 424,264 completed in ecological construction and protection during the year (RMB 10,000)

Indicator

Table 10.9 (continued)

346 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

Inner Mongolia

10.3

Ningxia

30.1

Qinghai

33.9

Tibet

11.7

6

Xinjiang Guangxi

7.5

Yunnan

5

14.8

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

Sources The data of the two indicators in the table, namely, the “forestry investment” and the “investment completed in ecological construction and protection during the year,” refer to the “Analysis Report of the Nationwide Forestry Statistics Annual Report in 2013” published by the National Forestry Administration (NFA) (http://www.forestry.gov.cn/main/225/content-677457.html), and other data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm)

Area of nature 11.6 reserves as percentage of area of jurisdiction (%)

Indicator

Table 10.9 (continued)

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction … 347

30,829

219,777 48,768

Investment 20,939 completed in the treatment of wastewater (RMB 10,000)

Investment 708,403 completed in the treatment of waste gas (RMB 10,000)

11,752

272,967 74,508

86.3

Qinghai

Investment 775,439 completed in the treatment of industrial pollution (RMB 10,000)

Ningxia

93.3

Inner Mongolia

96.1 Rate of harmless disposal of municipal solid waste (%)

Indicator

1453

7723

10,283

Tibet

278,911

37,007

316,542

81.9

106,049

32,927

178,909

95.4

Xinjiang Guangxi

Table 10.10 Environmental governance and protection in ethnic minority areas 2014

93.3

13,117

134,079 169,146

31,218

1,666,586

185,512

2,057,416

7,893,935

1,152,473

9,976,511

91.8

(continued)

21.11

16.10

20.62

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

244,003 184,765

92.5

Yunnan

348 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

Inner Mongolia

Forestry investment (RMB 10,000)

847

1,513,615 164,160 281,662 188,309 730,509

10,659

42

44,971

215

33,521

Yunnan

1837

665

15,046,424

116,435

1295

87,588

43,255,100

768,649

10,950

150,504

(continued)

34.79

15.15

11.83

58.20

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

10,861,358 904,811 402,000

22,731

17,201

Xinjiang Guangxi

543

7522

260

Tibet

Investment 27,325 completed in the treatment of other pollution (RMB 10,000)

3328

Qinghai

38

14,840

Ningxia

Investment 1042 completed in the treatment of noise pollution (RMB 10,000)

17,731 Investment completed in the treatment of solid waste (RMB 10,000)

Indicator

Table 10.10 (continued)

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction … 349

53.3

1264.3

Area of nature reserves (10,000 ha)

2166.5

7

4136.9

9

1971.2

11

31

142.1

22

77

9

47

151.34

29

11

82.67

Number of national nature reserves (unit)

14

132.04

182

84.19

Number of nature reserves (unit)

Xinjiang Guangxi

143.65

Tibet

559.25

Qinghai

Total area of afforestation (1,000 ha)

Ningxia

1,298,740

Inner Mongolia

1,082,552 132,263 203,853 128,958 453,909 Investment completed in ecological construction and protection during the year (RMB 10,000)

Indicator

Table 10.10 (continued)

283.2

20

157

400.36

89

8

124

320

10,106.5

115

643

1873.5

4,196,869

14,699.15

428

2729

5549.61

19,479,700

(continued)

68.76

26.87

23.56

33.76

21.54

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

544,312 352,282

Yunnan

350 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

46

428.4

Area of national nature reserves (10,000 ha)

2073.4

Qinghai

3715.3

Tibet

1218.9

38.9

Xinjiang Guangxi

150.3

Yunnan

24.4

7695.6

9651.63

79.73

Guizhou Total of ethnic National total Proportion of minority areas ethnic minority areas in the national total

Sources The data of the two indicators in the table, namely, the “forestry investment” and the “investment completed in ecological construction and protection during the year,” refer to the “Analysis Report of the Nationwide Forestry Statistics Annual Report in 2014” published by the NFA (http://www.forestry.gov. cn/main/304/content-769221.html), and other data are calculated in accordance with the “Annual Data” and “Regional Data” on the website of National Data of the NBS of the PRC (http://data.stats.gov.cn/index.htm)

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

Indicator

Table 10.10 (continued)

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction … 351

352

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

including 110 national nature reserves with a total area of 76.545 million hectares; in 2014, there were 643 nature reserves in ethnic minority areas with a total area of 101.065 million hectares, of which 115 were national nature reserves covering a total area of 76.956 million hectares. Although in 2013 and 2014 the number of nature reserves and national nature reserves of ethnic minority areas accounted for approximately 23% and 27% of the national total, respectively, the area of nature reserves and national nature reserves accounted for approximately 69% and 80%, respectively, which played a vital role in nature protection throughout the country. In terms of the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, in 2014, the area of nature reserves of Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Guangxi and Yunnan all decreased, while that of Xinjiang and Guizhou expanded and that of Ningxia and Tibet remained unchanged. In addition, the area of nature reserves of Tibet and Qinghai as percentages of area of jurisdictions reached the highest, 33.9% and 30.1%, respectively, in 2013; that is, nearly 1/3 of the area of the two provinces and autonomous regions was nature reserves, which once again highlights the ecological security status of the QinghaiTibet Plateau. 2. Ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas As a comprehensive, systematic and integrated program, ecological civilization construction also includes many projects in addition to pollution control and emission reduction, tree planting and the establishment of nature reserves mentioned above. Since 2010, the Research Center of Ecological Civilization of Beijing Forestry University (BFU) has constructed the evaluation indicator system of the Ecological Civilization Progress Index (ECPI) for China’s provinces and autonomous regions and put forward the ECPI to evaluate the dynamic progress of ecological civilization and the Green Ecological Civilization Index (GECI) to represent the static level of ecological civilization. Between the two indexes, the former indicates the relative speed of ecological civilization progress in the provinces and autonomous regions, and when combined with the latter, it can more comprehensively reflect the current situation of ecological civilization construction in the areas. According to the latest data released by the Research Center of Ecological Civilization of BFU, in terms of the overall construction level, only Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang had lower levels than the national average in 2014, while the construction levels of the other six provinces and autonomous regions were all higher than the national average. From the perspective of the overall speed of progress, the speeds of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Guangxi and Guizhou were all above the national average, while those of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet and Yunnan were lower than the national average. In particular, the overall speeds of the progress of Tibet and Yunnan were also lower than their own speeds last year (see Table 10.11). From the four indicators, namely, ecological protection, environmental improvement, resource conservation and optimization of emissions, it can be found that the progress of ecological civilization in each province and autonomous region has its own characteristics with different advantages and disadvantages. Each province and autonomous region should find the path of ecological civilization construction according to its own situations and local conditions.

10.2 Ecological Protection and Ecological Civilization Construction …

353

Table 10.11 Basic information about ecological civilization progress in ethnic minority areas 2014 Region

Ecological Environmental Resource Optimization Overall Construction protection improvement conservation of emission speed of level progress

National average

5.01

1.74

5.03

5.84

4.40

69.09

Inner Mongolia

3.07

−5.46

69.76

23.74

22.78

69.50

Ningxia

6.80

14.70

2.62

28.23

13.08

56.65

Qinghai

1.52

1.20

1.02

5.82

2.39

68.37

−12.47

0.21

5.10

4.88

−0.57

77.00

Xinjiang

0.10

−1.05

−1.40

18.23

3.97

66.02

Guangxi

2.09

4.86

5.00

12.97

6.23

75.70

Yunnan

0.99

0.54

−14.34

−2.16

−3.74

73.39

Guizhou

4.48

6.05

−3.33

13.00

5.05

70.26

Tibet

Note The ecological protection, environmental improvement, resource conservation, optimization of emissions and overall speed of progress are all represented by the progress rate (%) from 2013 to 2014 and the construction level by the GECI 2014 Source This table is based on the tables on pages 39, 43, 46 and 52 of the China Ecological Civilization Construction Progress Report 2014 (Peking University Press, 2015) by Yan Geng et al.

Ecological civilization construction is closely bound up with the overall level of social and economic development, especially with sustainable development. The sustainable development strategy study group of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) has started to release the China Sustainable Development Report since 1999 and has continued to focus on ecological civilization construction in the past three years. This report establishes an assessment indicator system for China’s sustainable development from five aspects, namely, the subsistence support system, development support system, environment support system, society support system and intelligence support system. According to the newest statistics released in 2015,4 the comprehensive assessment and ranking for sustainable development in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2013 are shown in Table 10.12. For overall scores, Inner Mongolia has the highest and Tibet the lowest. However, the sustainable development level of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions is lower than the national average, which is not a positive situation. From the ranking of China’s 31 provinces and regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), the overall ranking of ethnic minority areas is relatively backward, with seven of the bottom ten provinces and regions being ethnic minority areas. In terms of system indicators, the lowest scores of all the ethnic provinces and autonomous regions (with the exception of Tibet) and the national average all appear 4

China Sustainable Development Report 2015—Reshaping the Governance for Sustainable Development edited by the CAS sustainable development strategy study group, Science Press, 2015.

108.5

109.1

112.3

105.8

96.6

103.8

26

25

22

29

31

30

27

103.0

103.4

103.7

99.2

103.0

102.8

98.7

17

14

12

30

16

19

31

109.6

109.0

109.3

111.4

106.8

111.0

111.1

28

30

29

18

31

20

19

108.1

108.0

107.8

106.9

98.0

106.9

108.8

25

27

28

30

31

29

22

106.6

107.1

108.0

105.9

102.5

105.9

105.6

108.2

26

24

22

28

31

29

30

20

Note The national total in 1995 equals 100.0 Source This table is based on the table on page 212 of the China Sustainable Development Report 2015—Reshaping the Governance for Sustainable Development (Science Press, 2015)

24

103.8

Guizhou

11

13

106.8

106.0

12

Guangxi

106.2

Xinjiang

20

3

Yunnan

104.9

107.9

Qinghai

Tibet

108.1

108.4

24

30

112.1

11

101.4

101.9

25

Ningxia

23

111.4

109.2

7

111.9

Inner 107.2 Mongolia

111.6

115.0

105.5

National total

102.2

Subsistence Ranking Development Ranking Environment Ranking Society Ranking Intelligence Ranking Sustainable Ranking support support support support support development system system system system system

Region

Table 10.12 Comprehensive assessment and ranking of sustainable development in ethnic minority areas

354 10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological …

355

in the environment support systems. The development of environmental systems has become the most important constraint on the overall sustainable development of most ethnic minority areas and the country. Especially in Ningxia and Xinjiang, the score of the environment support system is not only lower than the national average in 2013 but also lower than the national average in 1995. In addition, various ethnic provinces and autonomous regions have different constraints on their sustainable development. For instance, Tibet’s scores of its subsistence support system and environment support system are higher than the national average, but the scores of its development support system and intelligence support system obviously reveal their weakness in development. Therefore, in the future, ethnic minority areas should coordinate various systems with targeted approaches to comprehensively improve their sustainable development. The ECPI indicator mentioned above is a comparison of the relative speed of ecological civilization progress. The Research Center of Ecological Civilization of BFU further explores ecological civilization progress by calculating its progress rate, and the relevant statistics of minority provinces and autonomous regions can be seen in Table 10.13. From 2012 to 2014, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia had the fastest progress rates in the speed of ecological civilization, 41.70% and 22.87%, respectively, ranking in the top two in the country. Ningxia mainly relied on the progress rate of optimization of emission and environmental improvement indicators, and Inner Mongolia relied on the progress rate of resource conservation and optimization of emission indicators. The progress rate of Xinjiang’s ecological civilization progress reached 1.51, and the main driving factor was the optimization of emissions. The development of ecological civilization in Guizhou, Guangxi, Tibet, Qinghai, and Yunnan slowed, and the progress rate showed a negative growth trend. During this period, the national ecological civilization level continued to rise year after year, but the progress rate showed a downward trend. This situation shows precisely that the task of controlling pollution and improving the ecological environment cannot be accomplished in one day, and instead, it requires long-term unremitting persistence and hard work.

10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological Civilization in Ethnic Minority Areas Ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas has its own characteristics. Most of the ethnic minority areas are located in the Central and Western regions of China, which are geographically remote and have poor natural resources. After the central ethnic work conference in 2005, China continuously increased its support for ethnic minority areas in all aspects, further implemented the strategy for large-scale development of western China, and made remarkable achievements in the economic and social development of ethnic minority areas; however, from a national perspective, the overall backward development in ethnic minority areas has

356

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

Table 10.13 Progress trend of ecological civilization in ethnic minority areas Region

ECPI progress rate

Progress rate of ecological conservation

Progress rate of environmental improvement

Progress rate of resource conservation

Progress rate of optimization of emission

Ranking

Ningxia

41.70

−6.93

21.90

−2.61

154.45

1

Inner Mongolia

22.87

0.37

−10.68

86.77

15.01

2

Xinjiang

1.51

−2.58

−2.64

−6.73

17.98

11

Guizhou

−2.42

−3.36

5.98

−19.58

7.26

17

Guangxi

−2.51

−4.08

1.52

−5.72

−1.75

18

Tibet

−4.05

−22.27

−3.67

7.76

1.97

23

Qinghai

−4.89

−1.69

1.33

0.79

−20.00

26

Yunnan

−10.23

−0.79

−3.53

−21.36

−15.23

30

Source This table is based on the table on page 20 of the China Ecological Civilization Construction and Development Report 2014 (Peking University Press, 2015) by Yan Geng et al.

not changed. At the same time, ethnic minority areas are mostly located at the source and upstream of major rivers and are important national ecological security barriers. In recent years, with the launching of major ecological projects, such as protecting the natural forest, protecting the Sanjiangyuan (Three-River-Source) area, returning reclaimed farmland into forests, returning grazing land into grasslands, sand prevention and fixation, and ecological migration, which focus on the restoration of ecological functions, progress has been made in the construction of ecological civilization in ethnic minority areas, but the overall quality of the ecosystem is still low.5 Therefore, compared with the Eastern region, the pressures of both developing the social economy and protecting the ecological environment faced by the ethnic minority areas are even greater. With rich resources, ethnic minority areas witness their resource reserves accounting for a large proportion of the country’s total. However, some of those resources, especially water resources, declined in 2014 compared to 2013. Although the emission reduction and pollution optimization in ethnic minority areas were improved in 2014, they still lagged behind the national average. In most ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the emissions of wastewater and waste gas per unit of RMB 100 million total output value are higher than the national average. Ethnic minority areas are obviously affected by natural disasters, especially in the three ethnic provinces and autonomous regions of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi. Natural disasters and environmental degradation present a vicious circle of mutual inducements.

5

Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference, edited by the NEAC and published by the Ethnic Publishing House, annual edition, pp. 133–138, 216–219.

10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological …

357

The investment in pollution control and environmental protection in ethnic minority areas is large. In both industrial pollution treatment and forestry protection, such as ecological construction and protection, the proportion of the investment in ethnic minority areas in the country’s investment significantly exceeds the proportion of their total output value in the country’s GDP. They undertake more than 1/3 of the country’s afforestation tasks and own nearly 80% of the country’s national nature reserves, acting as an important ecological security barrier. In 2014, except for Ningxia and Xinjiang in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the level of ecological civilization construction, namely, the green ecological civilization index GECI, was higher than the national average, but the speed of progress slowed down. The ecologically fragile environment and weak sustainable development influence each other and become the two most difficult problems of future development in ethnic minority areas. In short, the advantages and disadvantages of ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas coexist. To build an ecological civilization and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, combined with relevant investigations, countermeasures and suggestions are put forward as follows. 1. Implementing various national policies and regulations and establishing and improving the ecological civilization system in ethnic minority areas The construction of an ecological civilization is a systematic project that needs to be integrated into all aspects and the whole process of economic development, political development, cultural development, and social development. Its implementation cannot be separated from policy support and institutional guarantees from the central and local governments. In recent years, China has successively issued a series of policies and regulations related to ecological civilization construction. Among them, the “Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress” issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in 2015 clearly pointed out the eight systems that constitute the system of ecological civilization, including “a system of property rights for natural resource assets, a system for the development and protection of territorial space, a spatial planning system, a system for regulating total consumption and comprehensive conservation of resources, a system for paymentbased resource consumption and compensating conservation and protection efforts, the environmental governance system, the market system for environmental governance and ecological preservation, and the system for evaluating officials’ ecological conservation performance and for holding those responsible for ecological damage to account.”6 Therefore, the top-level design of the central-level ecological civilization construction has been initially completed, and the implementation by local governments is the key point. Ethnic minority areas must strictly follow the requirements of the central government, adjust and improve relevant local plans, policies and regulations, establish and improve the ecological civilization system, and ensure the construction of local ecological civilization.

6

“Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress”, the website of Xinhuanet (http:// news.xinhuanet.com/2015-09/21/c_1116632159.htm).

358

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

2. Launching ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas in a targeted manner and based on local conditions In ethnic minority areas, which have a vast area, the construction of ecological civilization faces some common problems, but the situation in each area varies greatly. For example, in terms of the pollutant emissions, although Tibet, with a better ecological environment, has seen a downward trend in the emission volume of COD, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and oxynitride per RMB 100 million of GDP, the trend of the total pollutant emission volume is different from the downward trend in other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. In 2014, the total emission volume of COD, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and oxynitride and the volume of municipal solid wastes collected and transported were all on the rise, which should be considered. According to the evaluation indicator system of the ECPI for China’s provinces and autonomous regions by the Research Center of Ecological Civilization of BFU, in 2014, Guangxi, with a higher level of ecological civilization and a faster speed of progress, was a leading province among other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions; Ningxia, with a lower level of ecological civilization and a faster speed of progress, was a province catching up with other ethnic provinces and autonomous regions; Tibet and Yunnan, with a higher level of ecological civilization and a slower speed of progress, were provinces stagnant in the progress; Inner Mongolia, Guizhou and Xinjiang, with the ecological civilization level or the speed of progress close to the average, were intermediate provinces.7 Therefore, based on the different problems encountered by various areas, the focus of ecological civilization construction should be differentiated. 3. Adjusting and optimizing the industrial structure of ethnic minority areas by virtue of their own advantages to develop a characteristic economy The smooth development of ecological civilization construction should be based on the well-rounded development of the social economy, and the optimization of the industrial structure is founded on that of the economic structure. Due to history and reality, ethnic minority areas have a weak industrial foundation, prominent unreasonable industrial structure, low industrial development level, faint correlation between industries, poor effect of facilitating the development of surrounding areas, imbalance in the proportion of light and heavy industries, low overall efficiency of the industrial economy, and obvious imbalance between the industrial distribution structure and growth momentum structure.8 With a vast area, ethnic minority areas boast rich resources, beautiful scenery, diverse ethnic culture and unique advantages in agriculture and animal husbandry, minerals, energy, culture and tourism. In recent years, under the “green, ecological, healthy and environmentally friendly” consumer trend, the development of green and organic agriculture and animal husbandry and ecological recreational sightseeing agriculture in ethnic minority areas has broad 7 Yan Geng et al., China Ecological Civilization Construction and Development Report 2014, Peking University Press, 2015, p. 17. 8 Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference edited by the NEAC and published by the Ethnic Publishing House, p. 223.

10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological …

359

market prospects. Despite possessing a certain history of development, the tourism industry in ethnic minority areas has a relatively low-end development mode, limited economic benefits and greater damage to the environment. In the future, the tourism mode should develop toward the medium–high end and in a green, environmentally friendly and high-quality manner. At the same time, the industry should drive the growth of the tourism service industry, the processing industry of products with ethnic characteristics, the ethnic culture industry and other distinctive and advantageous industries, providing local ethnic minorities with more employment opportunities and expanding their income sources to the greatest extent. 4. Strengthening energy conservation and emission reduction in ethnic minority areas by vigorously developing and utilizing clean energy As the extensive modes of resource development and production in ethnic minority areas are not completely changed at present, the pollutant emission standards and the total emission control quota should be strictly implemented to greatly reduce pollutant emissions in the future. Ethnic minority areas are both important storage areas for minerals and energy and the location of many restricted and prohibited development zones in China. The “Notice of the State Council on Issuing the National Major Functional Zoning Plan” clearly stated that the construction of energy bases and mineral resource bases in key ecologically functional zones that are restricted from development must undergo an ecological environment impact assessment to minimize the occupation of ecological space and to restore the ecological environment simultaneously. On the premise of not damaging the ecological function, industries related to developing and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on local conditions in specific areas with stronger environmental and resource capacity in key ecologically functional zones should be supported. For mining areas with weak environmental and resource capacity, mineral resources should be processed and utilized outside the areas. Moreover, in areas suitable for developing minerals, protective development should be put in place, which needs to speed up technological research, improve the comprehensive utilization level of resources and build a circular economy industrial chain.9 Furthermore, the natural advantages of ethnic minority areas should be brought into play to vigorously develop clean energy such as wind energy, solar energy, biogas and geothermal energy, thus solving the energy needs of people in mountainous, plateau and grassland areas. 5. Continuing to increase the central government’s support to ethnic minority areas and practically implementing the system of paid use for natural resources and the ecological compensation system Although the development of ethnic minority areas depends fundamentally on their own efforts, narrowing the gap between these areas and developed regions as soon as possible and achieving leapfrog development are still inseparable from central 9 “ Notice

of the State Council on Issuing the National Major Functional Zoning Plan”, the official website of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China (http://www.gov.cn/ zwgk/2011-06/08/content_1879180.htm).

360

10 Current Situation and Suggestions on Ecological …

support.10 In addition, for many years, ethnic minority areas have played the role of resource exports and have served as ecological security barriers, but their contributions have not been reasonably reflected and compensated. From the above analysis, it can be seen that compared with the GDP, the investment in pollution control and environmental protection in ethnic minority areas is higher than the national average, which undoubtedly makes the financial burden of ethnic minority areas with backward socioeconomic levels heavier. Furthermore, according to the national plan for developing functional zones, a wide range of ethnic minority areas, playing an important role in ecological protection, are restricted and prohibited from development. In this context, the central government can only enhance rather than weaken its support for ethnic minority areas. Fiscal transfer payments to ethnic minority areas should be further improved, the socioeconomic development of ethnic minority areas should be comprehensively promoted, and the overall level of science, education, culture, health and environmental protection should be boosted through a series of infrastructure construction projects, public service projects, major ecological protection projects and preferential policies in ethnic minority areas. The principle of paying for the use of resources should be followed. Those who pollute the environment or destroy the ecology should pay for the loss, and those who benefit from resources should compensate the environment. In this way, the contribution of ethnic minority areas to the ecological environment can be reasonably compensated. 6. Intensifying the publicity and education of ecological civilization to involve all people in ecological civilization construction Ecological civilization construction, as a long-term project, should benefit and engage all people in the country. However, as people just seek faster economic growth for a long time, especially those in ethnic minority areas who have more urgent desires to develop the economy and improve their living standards, examples of seeking economic growth at the expense of the ecological environment are abundant. In fact, traditional national culture has many ecological protection concepts, including moderate development and harmonious coexistence between man and nature. Therefore, on the basis of rediscovering the traditional concept of environmental protection in ethnic minority areas, the publicity and education of ecological civilization should be comprehensively strengthened, the concept of ecological civilization should be integrated into all aspects of production and people’s lives, and the masses’ environmental and legal awareness should be improved to finally form a good atmosphere where all people pay attention to, support, participate in, supervise and share ecological civilization construction. 7. Prioritizing ecological protection in the economic development of ecologically vulnerable areas and special ethnic minority areas with a strong religious atmosphere

10

Guide Book on Central Ethnic Work Conference edited by the NEAC and published by the Ethnic Publishing House in 2015, p. 148.

10.3 Suggestions on Promoting the Construction of Ecological …

361

Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attaches great importance to ecological civilization construction, emphasizing that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. Only by protecting the environment can a solid foundation for the improvement of people’s lives and the survival and development of the offspring be laid. With China’s economy transitioning from the current high-speed growth stage to a period of new normal, it is especially not practicable to blindly pursue temporary economic growth at the cost of the ecological environment. Especially in special areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the people’s traditional concept of protecting the environment is deeply rooted, which means that such areas cannot be forcibly developed for the sake of some immediate economic interests regardless of the opinions of local residents. Striking a balance between economic growth and environmental protection is in line with the realities of ethnic minority areas and the strategic thinking pursuing the long-term interests of the Chinese nation, and such development must be adopted and fully implemented.

Chapter 11

Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

The increasingly widening income gap has become a basic feature in China since the reform in 1978.1 The expanding income gap has aroused widespread concern among academics, international organizations, government agencies, the media and the public.2 It is widely known that with a tremendous difference in the economic and geographical environment, China has seen a significant gap in the economic and social development between the Western region, especially areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, and the inland or the southeast coastal areas. Western ethnic minority areas have concentrated people living in poverty and a high poverty headcount ratio, which is a long-standing situation and has become the focus and difficulty of China’s poverty reduction and development. With respect to the income distribution, the present income gap among different ethnic groups in China has become a basic reality from which social frictions and conflicts have resulted occasionally.3 Compared with the income gap among different regions, the gap among ethnic groups in the same region may have a more significant impact on local social and economic development and ethnic relations. Under the prediction that the income gap may remain high in the future4 and to speed up the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas, it is practically significant and academically valuable to analyze and study the influencing factors of the income gap and the gap among different ethnic groups in these areas, especially rural areas concentrated with ethnic minorities.

1

Song Xiaowu, Wang Tianfu, Li Shi and Wang Feng, China Faces Inequality—Studies in Income Distribution, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2013, p. 35. 2 Li Shi, Hiroshi Sato and Terry Sicular, Changes in China’s Income Disparity: The Distribution of Household Income in China IV, People’s Publishing House, 2013, p. 1. 3 Ding Sai, “Ethnic Differences and Changes in the Income Distribution in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 3, 2013. 4 Song Xiaowu, Wang Tianfu, Li Shi and Wang Feng, China Faces Inequality—Studies in Income Distribution, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2013, p. 74. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_11

363

364

11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

11.1 Literature Review At present, as an important component of economic inequality, the income gap among different groups divided by gender, ethnicity and region is an unavoidable fact and problem for any country in the world. In 2007, the average net worth of white Americans was 15 times that of blacks.5 Due to the labor market segmentation resulting from the poor education and weak language ability of ethnic minorities in the United States, the income gap between ethnic minorities and whites has been expanding in recent years.6 The research report of the World Bank also shows that Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela in Latin America all have varying levels of income gap among ethnic groups, and the impact degree of the gap among ethnic groups within one of the abovementioned countries on the total income gap in the country is approximately 10%.7 Singapore’s Gini coefficient in 1980 reached 0.44. Afterwards, the implementation of an education system accessible to all national citizens and a public housing program greatly narrowed the income gap among different ethnic groups from 1980 to 1990 and slightly reduced the overall Gini coefficient.8 However, as Singapore’s Gini coefficient increased significantly after 1998 and reached 0.48 in 2007, the income gap among different ethnic groups also widened and negatively impacted social stability.9 Income distribution has long been a focus of discussion in China’s academia. The income gap between urban and rural residents has always remained large as the division of urban and rural areas is an important characteristic of the dual economic structure in China and the hukou system acts as an “invisible wall” causing employment segmentation.10 The scholars have continued to make progress in the research on the income gap between and within urban and rural areas and between industries or genders in China. Studies on the income gap among regions and ethnicities show that from 1988 to 1995, the gap in the per capita income widened between the Han nationality and ethnic minority groups in the whole country, but in the same period, the gap in the per capita income between the Eastern and Western regions increased. The income disparity 5

“17 Facts About Income Inequality in America”, December 1st, 2011, the website of Sina Finance (http://www.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c.20,111,201/000210911475.shtml). 6 Judith K. Hellerstin and David Neumark, “Workplace Segregation in the United States: Race, Ethnicity and Skill”, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 90, No. 3, Aug., 2008, pp. 459– 477. 7 David de Ferranti, Guilermo E. Perry, Francisco H. G. Ferrira and Michale Walton, “Inequality in Latin America—Breaking with History?” World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2004, p. 104. 8 R. Quinn Moore, Ann Arbor, “Multiracialism and Eritocracy: Singapore’s Approach to Race and Inequality”, Review of Social Economy, Vol. LVIII, No. 3, September 2000. 9 “Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore: The Big Income Gap Between Two Generations Caused by the Difference in Educational Levels”, August 24, 2013, the website of Xinhuanet (http://finance. qq.com/a/20130824/004469.html). 10 Wu Xiaogang and Zhang Zhuoni, “Household Registration, Occupational Segregation and Income Inequality in Urban China”, Social Sciences in China, Issue 6, 2014.

11.1 Literature Review

365

between the Han and ethnic minorities is mainly caused by geographical differences and historical reasons.11 Based on the statistics from the CHIP in 2002, an analysis of the data of 756 Han and 151 ethnic minority administrative villages concludes that the per capita annual net income of ethnic minority administrative villages is 37 percentage points lower than that of Han villages and 31 percentage points below the national average. The gap in the per capita annual net income between the Han and ethnic minority administrative villages is smallest in the northeastern region, followed by the northwestern region, and largest in the southwestern region.12 Based on the social and economic survey in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS in 2016, a study on the employment income of both Han and Hui workers in the urban labor market in Ningxia indicates that the income gap between the two groups is extremely narrow, which means that within the same region, the labor market segmentation caused by ethnicity has not brought about obvious disparities in the income of workers from different ethnic groups. Studies have proven that if a noticeable gap exists in the income of different ethnic groups in a larger region, especially if the income of Han workers is higher than that of ethnic minorities, the disparity is chiefly caused by the divergences in the population distribution of different ethnic groups in different regions. Moreover, various preferential policies for ethnic minorities long implemented by the government not only make the Hui ethnic group free from discrimination that can affect their income but also help them obtain a higher pay.13 Through the research on employment income in the urban labor force market from the two viewpoints of ethnicity and gender based on the data of the CHIP in 1995, 2002 and 2007, it is found that the income ratio of urban ethnic minority workers to urban Han workers was 91.3% in 1995, increasing to 98.1% in 2002 and then dropping to 87.4% in 2007. The main reason for these variations is the fluctuations in the employment income of female ethnic minorities.14 The statistics of the social and economic surveys in Ningxia in 2006 and 2011 suggest that the income gaps between the Han nationality and the Hui ethnic group in rural areas, urban areas and between rural and urban areas all noticeably widened from 2006 to 2011. Studies have also proven that the income gap between the Han and Hui in rural and urban areas in Ningxia actually contributes little to the overall gap. In fact, what causes the income gap between urban and rural residents in Ningxia are the gaps between the Han and Hui residents. Additionally, the property income and the net income from household business operations of rural Han and Hui residents amplify the income gap, while wage income and transfer 11

Bjorn Gus tafsson and Li Shi, “The Ethnic Minority-majority Income Gap in Rural China during Transition”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 51, No. 4, July 2003. 12 Ding Sai, “Empirical Analysis of the Income Gap Between Rural Han and Ethnic Minority Residents”, China Labor Economics, Vol. 3, Issue 4, 2006. 13 Ding Sai, Research on the Transfer of the Rural Ethnic Minority Labor Force in the West—Based on the Microdata of Rural Ethnic Minority Areas, China Social Sciences Press, 2012, p. 133. 14 Ding Sai, Li Shi and Samuel Myers, “Intertemporal Changes in Ethnic Urban Earnings Disparities in China”, in Li Shi, Hiroshi Sato and Terry Sicular eds. Rising Inequality in China: Challenge to Harmonious Society, forthcoming Cambridge University Press, pp. 653–696.

366

11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

income narrow the gap. The wage income of urban Han and Hui residents in Ningxia can also widen the gap in the per capita disposable income of households.15 This chapter analyzes the changes in the income distribution and poverty of rural households in Xinjiang from 2002 to 2011 on the basis of the data of the CHIP 2002 and the CHES 2011 in Xinjiang. The CHES 2011 was jointly carried out by the School of Economics of MUC and the Department of Ethno-Economic Research of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the CASS in 2012.

11.2 Analysis of Research Data The research data of this chapter are based on the data of the (rural) Xinjiang household survey in the CHIP 2002 and the CHES 2011, which have been open to the public at home and abroad. The samples of Xinjiang in CHIP 2002 and CHES 2011 include the data of administrative villages, rural households and rural individuals in northern and southern Xinjiang. The details are shown in Tables 11.1, 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4. The survey data in 2002 covered Qitai County and Huocheng County in northern Xinjiang, Hami city in eastern Xinjiang, and Aksu city, Shaya County, Wushi County, Makit County and Maralbexi County in southern Xinjiang, involving 80 administrative villages, 400 rural households and 2,001 rural individuals. The proportion of ethnic minorities in the total individuals was 83.04%, and the Uygur accounted for 76.78% of the total individuals. The data in 2011 covered six of 17 administrative divisions in Xinjiang. The coverage of the survey data in 2011 included Turpan City, Manas County, Qitai County, Emin County and Fuhai County in northern Xinjiang and Kuqa County, Shufu County and Hotan City in southern Xinjiang. There were 100 administrative villages, 1,000 rural households and 4,093 rural individuals participating in the survey. The proportion of ethnic minorities in the total individuals was 71.17%, and the proportion of the Uygur ethnic group reached 55.31% (see Tables 11.3 and 11.4). As in the two surveys, the samples of individuals from ethnic minorities, especially from the Uygur ethnic group, account for the highest proportions of the total individuals. The analysis of this chapter takes these samples as the main objects of comparison.

15

Ding Sai, “Ethnic Differences and Changes in the Income Distribution in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region”, Ethno-National Studies, Issue 3, 2013.

11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty …

367

Table 11.1 Data distribution of the CHIP 2002 in rural Xinjiang Region

County

Number of administrative villages as samples (unit)

Hami prefecture

Hami city

10

50

243

76.13

Changji Hui autonomous prefecture

Qitai county

10

50

216

20.83

Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture

Huocheng county

10

50

230

52.17

Aksu prefecture

Kashgar prefecture

Total

Number of rural households as samples (unit)

Number of rural individuals as samples (unit)

Proportion of ethnic minorities in the total individuals (%)

Aksu city

10

50

255

100

Shaya county

10

50

230

100

Wushi county

10

50

299

100

Makit county

10

50

265

100

Maralbexi county

10

50

261

100

80

400

1999

83.04

11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty Among Different Ethnic Groups of Different Regions in Xinjiang The analysis of household income in this chapter follows the uniform definition by the research group; that is, income includes wage income, income from household business operations, property income, transfer income, estimated rental value of owned housing and miscellaneous income.16 The results concluded from the statistical description of the survey data of Xinjiang in 2002 and 2011 are shown in Table 11.5. 1. The income gap within the whole Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is significantly widening. From 2002 to 2011, the per capita net income of rural households in Xinjiang increased rapidly, among which the per capita net income of rural Han households increased from RMB 3,957.92 to RMB 15,803.52, registering an average growth 16

Edited by Li Keqiang, Long Yuanwei and Liu Xiaomin, Chinese Household Ethnic Survey 2013, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2014, p. 16.

368

11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

Table 11.2 Data distribution of the social and economic surveys by ethnicity in Xinjiang in 2002 Han Sample size

Uygur Proportion (%)

58

17.11

Qitai county

171

50.44

Huocheng county

110

32.45

Hami city

Sample size 177

Other ethnic minorities Proportion (%) 11.54

Sample size

Proportion (%)

Total sample size

8

6.4

243

45

36

216

67

53.6

230

53

3.46

Aksu city

255

16.62

255

Shaya county

230

14.99

230

Wushi county

296

19.30

3

2.4

299

Makit county

262

17.08

2

1.6

264

Maralbexi county

261

17.01

Total

339

100

1534

100

261 125

100

1998

Table 11.3 Data distribution of the social and economic surveys in Xinjiang in 2011 Region

County

Turpan prefecture

Turpan city

Changji Hui autonomous prefecture

Number of administrative villages as samples (unit) 15

Number of rural households as samples (unit) 150

Number of rural individuals as samples (unit) 631

Proportion of ethnic minorities in the total individuals (%) 72.90

Manas county

15

150

535

2.62

Qitai county

10

100

366

31.69

Aksu prefecture

Kuqa county

15

150

657

99.09

Kashgar prefecture

Shufu county

15

150

683

100

Hotan prefecture

Hotan city

10

100

486

98.97

Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture Total

Emin county

10

100

362

73.76

Fuhai county in Altay prefecture

10

100

373

64.61

100

1000

4093

71.17

95

132

1180

Emin county

Fuhai county in Altay prefecture

Total

–

–

5

Shufu county

Hotan city

0.51

6

Kuqa county

44.15

100

11.19

8.05

0.42

21.19

521

250

Manas county

14.49

Qitai county

171

Turpan city

2264

5

–

480

683

649

–

–

447

Uygur Sample size

Proportion (%)

Han

Sample size

100

0.22

–

21.20

30.17

28.67

–

–

19.74

Proportion (%)

486

129

239

–

–

–

115

3

–

Sample size

Kazak

100

26.54

49.18

–

–

–

23.66

0.62

–

Proportion (%)

Table 11.4 Data distribution of the social and economic surveys by ethnicity in Xinjiang in 2011

163

107

28

1

–

2

1

11

13

100

65.64

17.18

0.61

–

1.23

0.61

6.75

7.98

Proportion (%)

Other ethnic minorities Sample size

4093

373

362

486

683

657

366

535

631

Total sample size

11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty … 369

2203.27

3275.14

1:0.56

Uygur

Other ethnic minorities

Ratio of Han to Uygur

8955.33

15,803.52

4883.13

10,916.02

1:0.31

Total

Han

Uygur

Other ethnic minorities

Ratio of Han to Uygur

2011

2566.188

3957.92

Total

Han

2002

Whole autonomous region

649

2264

1180

4093

125

1534

339

1999

Sample size

1:0.44

10,943.74

7008.74

15,923.91

12,727.25

1:0.47

3130.40

1941.21

4121.86

3613.744

Northern Xinjiang

646

452

1169

2267

112

53

281

446

Sample size

1:1.45

4945.88

4352.90

3009.21

4335.70

740.16

2152.34

2145.09

Southern Xinjiang

Table 11.5 Per capita net income of rural households in Xinjiang in 2002 and 2011

3

1812

11

1851

5

1304

1312

Sample size

1:0.84

6885.88

2656.94

3163.66

2917.11

Eastern Xinjiang

8

177

58

243

Sample size

1:0.43

12,519.18

7019.26

16,234.89

13,199.17

1:0.63

3380.76

2492.01

3957.92

3368.05

Economic belt along the northern slopes

143

447

942

1532

120

230

339

689

Sample size

370 11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

11.3 Comparison of Rural Household Income and Poverty …

371

of 1.7 times in real terms; the per capita net income of rural Uygur households rose from RMB 2,203.27 to RMB 4,883.13, registering an average increase of 0.5 times in real terms; the per capita net income of other rural ethnic minority households increased from RMB 3,275.14 to RMB 10,916.02, registering an average growth of 1.3 times in real terms. The ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households to that of other rural ethnic minority households decreased from 1:0.83 in 2002 to 1:0.69, and the ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households to that of rural Uygur households declined from 1:0.56 in 2002 to 1:0.31. 2. The income gap between the Han nationality and the ethnic minorities in northern Xinjiang is slightly widening Compared with the whole autonomous region and the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains, the income gap between the Han nationality and the ethnic minorities in northern Xinjiang underwent the smallest changes in the decade. The per capita net income of rural Han households increased from RMB 4,121.86 to RMB 15,923.91, registering an average growth of 1.6 times in real terms; the per capita net income of rural Uygur households rose from RMB 1,941.21 to RMB 7,008.74, registering an average increase of 1.5 times in real terms; the per capita net income of other rural ethnic minority households increased from RMB 3,130.40 to RMB 10,943.74, registering an average growth of 1.4 times in real terms. The ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households to that of other rural ethnic minority households decreased from 1:0.76 in 2002 to 1:0.69, and the ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households to that of rural Uygur households declined from 1:0.47 in 2002 to 1:0.44. 3. The income gap between the Han nationality and the ethnic minorities in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains is constantly widening The rural Han households in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains enjoyed the highest per capita net income in both 2002 and 2011, which increased from RMB 3,957.92 in 2002 to RMB 16,234.89 in 2011, registering an average increase of 1.8 times in real terms; the per capita net income of rural Uygur households rose from RMB 2,492.01 to RMB 7,019.26, registering an average growth of 0.9 times in real terms; the per capita net income of other rural ethnic minority households increased from RMB 3,380.76 to RMB 12,519.18, registering an average growth of 1.5 times in real terms. The ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households to that of other rural ethnic minority households decreased from 1:0.85 in 2002 to 1:0.77 in 2011 and that of rural Uygur households declined from 1:0.63 in 2002 to 1:0.43 in 2011. 4. The income of southern Xinjiang increases significantly, and the per capita net incomes of both rural Uygur households and other rural ethnic minority households surpass the income of rural Han households The per capita net income of rural households in southern Xinjiang was lower than that in northern Xinjiang and in the economic belt along the northern slopes

372

11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

of the Tianshan Mountains in 2002 and 2011, which coincides with the fact that southern Xinjiang was confronted with harsh production and living conditions and the wide range of areas in poverty. In this decade, the per capita net income of rural Uygur households in southern Xinjiang rose from RMB 2,152.34 to RMB 4,352.9, registering an average growth of 0.4 times in real terms; the per capita net income of other rural ethnic minority households increased from the lowest number of RMB 740.16 in 2002 to RMB 4,945.88 in 2011, a number slightly higher than that of Uygur households in the same year, registering an average growth of 3.6 times in real terms. Although the comparisons between the different years of 2002 and 2011 cannot be made due to the absence of the Han household samples in 2002, the data of 2011 showed that the ratio of the per capita net income of rural Han households in southern Xinjiang to that of rural Uygur households was 1:1.45 and to that of other rural ethnic minority households was 1:1.64.

11.4 Causes and Analysis of the Widening Income Gap in the Rural Areas of Xinjiang According to the analysis of the research data in 2002 and 2011, the main causes of the widening income gap between the rural Han nationality and Uyghur in Xinjiang are shown as follows. (1) Different levels of economic development of different regions in Xinjiang Since the implementation of the strategy for large-scale development of western China, especially after the Central Symposium on Xinjiang Work, China has paid more attention to and increased the financial input for Xinjiang and supported the developed eastern areas to provide more paring assistance. However, affected by policies, human resources, the natural environment, differences in industrial structure, market development, infrastructure construction and many other factors, the economic development of southern and northern Xinjiang has shown a trend of “high in the north and low in the south, strong in the north and weak in the south”, which is distinctly shown in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains. According to the statistics, in 2002, among the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains, the total population accounted for 8.6% of Xinjiang’s total, and the ethnic minorities accounted for 64.9%. GDP accounted for 47.5% of Xinjiang’s total, and local fiscal revenue accounted for 42.5%.17 Ten years later, in 2011, the total population of this area accounted for 38.8% of Xinjiang’s total, and the ethnic minorities accounted for 22.8%. GDP accounted for 68.2% of Xinjiang’s total, and the general budget revenue of local finance accounted for

17

Xinjiang Statistics Yearbook 2003, edited by the Statistics Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 2003.

11.4 Causes and Analysis of the Widening Income Gap in the Rural …

373

56.3%.18 According to the survey data of the research team, the growth rate of the per capita net income of rural households in northern Xinjiang, especially in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains, continued to increase and surpass that in southern Xinjiang from 2002 to 2011, which makes the total income gap in the region continue to show an expanding trend between northern and southern Xinjiang. The ratio of the per capita net income of rural households in northern Xinjiang and southern Xinjiang decreased from 1:0.59 in 2002 to 1:0.34 in 2011; the ratio of the per capita net income of rural households on the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and southern Xinjiang decreased from 1:0.64 in 2002 to 1:0.33 in 2011. From the perspective of ethnicity, since most of the Han people who migrated to Xinjiang are concentrated in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and northern Xinjiang, samples of the Han nationality from the 2002 and 2011 survey data are also mainly selected from these areas, and the per capita net income of the rural Han households calculated by the research team must be the highest in Xinjiang. There are 21 poverty-stricken counties designated by the central government in southern Xinjiang, accounting for 70% of Xinjiang’s total. The poor population in Kashgar Prefecture, Hotan Prefecture and Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture accounted for 85.15% of the poor population in the entire autonomous region. According to the 2011 survey data, in Shufu County, a poverty-stricken county designated by the central government, in the Kashgar prefecture of southern Xinjiang, the average per capita net income of Uyghur rural households was only RMB 1,645.61, which was far lower than the 2011 national poverty standard of RMB 2,300. Due to the small population and the high mobility of the Han people in southern Xinjiang, the proportion of the Han people in southern Xinjiang in the survey data is low. However, the existing survey data show that in 2011, the per capita net income of rural Han households in southern Xinjiang was lower than that of Uyghur and other ethnic minorities. This indicates that with lagging economic development, a low level of urbanization, and a high incidence of poverty, the low income of rural residents in southern Xinjiang is a common phenomenon that has no direct relationship with their ethnicities. This also confirms once again that the original cause of the widening income gap in Xinjiang lies in the imbalance of regional economic development instead of ethnic discrimination. 2. From the perspective of the composition of income, the gap in the per capita household income from agricultural operations between the Han and Uygur households in the rural areas of Xinjiang exerts a direct influence on the widening income gap. From 2002 to 2011, although the per capita household income from nonagricultural operations of rural households in Xinjiang increased significantly and the proportion of the per capita household income from agricultural operations in household income decreased, the per capita household income from agricultural operations was 18

Xinjiang Statistics Yearbook 2012, edited by the Statistics Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China Statistics Press, 2012.

374

11 Changes in the Income Distribution in Rural Xinjiang

still the main source of household income. In 2002, the per capita household income from agricultural operations of rural Han households in Xinjiang was RMB 3,053.97, which accounted for 77.16% of household income; in 2011, the number increased to RMB 10,447.71, registering an increase of 130% in real terms, and it accounted for 66.11% of household income. In 2002, the per capita household income from agricultural operations of the Uygur households was RMB 1,844.62, which accounted for 83.72% of household income; in 2011, the number reached RMB 2,180.5, registering a decrease of 19.15% in real terms, and it accounted for 44.65% of household income. Accordingly, the ratio in the per capita household income from agricultural operations between the Han and Uygur households decreased from 1:0.60 in 2002 to 1:0.21 in 2011. From 2002 to 2011, the per capita household income from agricultural operations of rural Han households in northern Xinjiang increased from RMB 3,088.09 to RMB 10,528.95, registering an increase of 130% in real terms, which is basically the same as the national level, and the proportion of per capita household income from agricultural operations in household income decreased from 74.92 to 66.12%. The per capita household income from agricultural operations of the Uygur households increased from RMB 1,282.34 to RMB 2,283.63, registering an increase of 21.81% in real terms, and its proportion in household income decreased from 66.06% in 2002 to 32.58 in 2011. During the same period, the per capita household income from agricultural operations of the Han households in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains increased from RMB 3,053.97 to RMB 10,969.11, registering an increase of 146% in real terms, and its proportion in household income decreased from 77.16 to 67.57%. The per capita household income from agricultural operations of the Uygur households increased from RMB 1,698.42 to RMB 2,281.21, registering a decrease of 8% in real terms, and its proportion in household income decreased from 68.16 to 20.80%. The samples of the Han households in southern Xinjiang in 2002 were missed, so the comparison could not proceed. The per capita household income from agricultural operations of the Uygur households in southern Xinjiang increased from RMB 1,870.40 in 2002 to RMB 2,154.79 in 2011, registering a decrease of 21.20% in real terms, and its proportion in household income decreased from 86.90 to 49.50%. The per capita household income from nonagricultural operation of the Uygur households in Xinjiang, northern Xinjiang and the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains in 2002 was only approximately 50–60% of the Han Households there. However, in 2011, the per capita household income from nonagricultural operation of the Uygur households in Xinjiang was RMB 454.29, 28.22% higher than that of the Han households; the number of the households in northern Xinjiang reached RMB 1,406.09, 3.95 times that of the Han households; the per capita household income from nonagricultural operation of the Uygur households in the economic belt along the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains was RMB 1,421.81, 4.82 times that of the Han households. Thus, it can be concluded that although the ten-year-long development brought rapid growth to the per capita household income from nonagricultural operations of

11.4 Causes and Analysis of the Widening Income Gap in the Rural …

375

rural Uygur households, the income gap between rural Han and Uygur households was widening due to the higher growth rate of the per capita household income from agricultural operations of rural Han households. This means that the rural Han households in Xinjiang received more per capita household income from agricultural operations, and thus, their income gap with rural Uygur households was widening. This also indicates that the rural Uygur households were restricted from achieving a higher growth rate of the per capita household income from agricultural operations due to their relatively poor production conditions for agriculture. From the perspective of income distribution, it is true that there are income gaps among rural ethnic groups. In Xinjiang, the gaps in income distribution between the Han nationality and the ethnic minority groups, between the Han nationality and the Uygur ethnic group and within ethnic minority groups brought by factors such as the distribution of areas, economic conditions, natural environment and the degree of urbanization are significant, which is particularly prominent in southern Xinjiang. In fact, the gaps, together with the trend of their widening, are generally the source of social instability and conflicts. Therefore, in the progress of advancing the leapfrog economic and social development and stability of Xinjiang, especially in the construction of the Kashgar Special Economic Zone, the well-being of the people from all ethnic groups in southern Xinjiang should be given top priority, which serves as the most important and urgent task for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in Xinjiang.

Chapter 12

Poverty Status and Development Dilemma in Tibetan Ethnic Areas in the Border Areas Among Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet

Poverty is one of the major problems facing the economic and social development of some Tibetan ethnic areas. As special contiguous poor areas, the Tibetan ethnic areas in the border areas among Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet have attracted great attention from the central government due to the wide range of areas in poverty, high severity of poverty and high proportion of the population returning to poverty. Relevant departments are studying and formulating policies to intensify targeted poverty alleviation. In fact, the poverty and development problems in different Tibetan ethnic areas have their own characteristics because of the natural environment, population, culture, industrial structure, economic foundation and other factors. Banma County in Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, is included in the Sanjiangyuan Area and is located in the border area of Qinghai and Sichuan. The poverty headcount ratio there is one of the highest among the Tibetan ethnic areas across the country. In addition, Banma County is an area where various social contradictions and conflicts occur frequently1 and is considered a “collapse zone” in the development of Tibetan ethnic areas. Daka Township, one of the poorest townships in Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, is an alpine pastoral township where the Tibetan ethnic group lives in concentrated communities. Located in the most western areas of Banma County, the township is connected with Dazhang Township in Sertar County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Therefore, the in-depth analyses and research of the poverty problems in Daka Township, Banma county, are of great significance for exploring the theory and practice of targeted poverty alleviation in the Tibetan ethnic areas.

1

Edited by the United Front Work Department of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee, Theory and Practice of Establishing the Advanced Area of Ethnic Unity and Progress in Qinghai Province, People’s Publishing House, 2014, p. 339.

© China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_12

377

378

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

12.1 Literature Review For a long time in academia, most of the studies on poverty in Tibetan ethnic areas have adopted field investigations and qualitative analyses and have mainly explored practical problems and difficulties in infrastructure, public services, ecology, education and other aspects. Jing Fang pointed out that the main reason for poverty in the Tibetan ethnic areas in Qinghai lies in insufficient investment in human capital.2 Liao Guirong put forward that as the high expectations of education set by poor herdsmen in Tibetan ethnic areas fail to be realized in real life, they choose to give up long-term investment in children’s education, resulting in an artificial “poverty trap” caused by inadequate education.3 Some scholars summarized the dilemma of economic development in the Tibetan ethnic areas as follows: the gap between urban and rural areas remains large, and the people living in poverty are in large numbers; the infrastructure is in shortage, and the development of social welfare programs is backward; the ecological environment is deteriorating day by day; the funds provided by the government are insufficient; the transfer of surplus labor force is difficult in agricultural and pastoral areas, and the quality of farmers and herdsmen is generally low.4 Qin Zhimin and Lu Hanwen chose Cuoma Village in the Tibetan ethnic areas in Sichuan as a research case and found that the sources of livelihood of the herdsmen in the village are changing toward two directions of raising animals in a nomadic style and collecting Chinese herbal medicines, while the extensive growth mode of grassland animal husbandry has caused a vicious circle of overgrazing and grassland degradation in the Tibetan ethnic areas.5 Li Jigang and Lei Hongzhen proposed that the defects of the property rights system of grasslands in the pastoral areas of Tibet are more likely to lead to poverty. Some herdsmen may fall into long-term poverty due to the encroachment by herdsman households with large-scale animal husbandry businesses on the property rights of those with small grasslands, the conflict between the goals of the government and society, the imbalance between increasing household 2

Jing Fang, “Research on the Anti-poverty Strategy in the Tibetan Ethnic Areas in Qinghai Based on the View of Human Capital”, Journal of Qinghai Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), Issue 2, Vol. 34, 2012. 3 Liao Guirong, “Educational Expectation and Poverty Trap: An Explanation for the Persistent Poverty of Herdsmen in the Tibetan Ethnic Areas”, Journal of Southwest Minzu University (Humanities and Social Science), Issue 6, 2014. 4 Chen Wei and Ma Zhanbiao, “Research on the Model and Countermeasures of Building a New Socialist Countryside and Pastoral Area in the Tibetan Ethnic Areas in Qinghai”, China Tibetology, Issue 3 (83 issues in total), 2008; Chen Xiyong, “Analysis of Economic and Social Development in the Tibetan Ethnic Areas in Sichuan—An Empirical Analysis Based on Ten Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures”, Guizhou Ethnic Studies, Issue 6 (Vol. 29, 130 issues in total), 2009; Shen Maoying, “Study on the Environmental Hurdles and Development Ways of Ecologically Vulnerable Ethnic Minority Areas in Southwest China: Taking the Tibetan Ethnic Areas in Sichuan as An Example”, Tibet Studies, Issue 4, 2012. 5 Qin Zhimin and Lu Hanwen, “Livelihood Differentiation to the Tibetan Herdsmen and Capability Poverty Governance: A Case Study to Cuoma Village in West Sichuan”, Northwest Population Journal, Issue 6, 2012.

12.2 Survey Data and Statistical Description

379

population and limited grasslands available to be inherited, and the high cost of maintaining grassland property rights.6 Some studies have shown that poverty alleviation work in Tibetan ethnic areas lacks measures targeting individuals, the government fails to give full play to social security, and social efforts to reduce poverty have yet to be strengthened.7 As a result of the scattered distribution of households in alpine pastoral areas and the high cost of a survey, high-quality survey data for the large sample of Tibetan households in alpine pastoral areas have long been insufficient. Based on micro survey data for a large sample of households in Daka Township, Banma County, Qinghai Province, this chapter seeks to illustrate in detail the poverty status and development dilemma, thus providing a reference for poverty alleviation and economic and social development in the Tibetan ethnic areas in the border areas of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Tibet.

12.2 Survey Data and Statistical Description From the household questionnaire survey conducted by the government in Daka township in 2014, this chapter selects valid questionnaires of 781 households, which account for 96.36% of the 819 total households in the township. The questionnaire contains 49 questions covering household population, social security, education level, household assets, production status, and the situation about whether the households have received various subsidies offered by the country. The data in Table 12.1 show that the surveyed samples include 95.36% of all the households in Daka Township and cover 95.53% of all local individuals. The survey coverage rates of households and individuals in the four pastoral villages under the jurisdiction of Daka Township are basically above 90%, with the overall rate in Duoniang Village being the highest. Compared with the sample survey, the full sample survey can more comprehensively and truly reflect the reality and has more convincing analysis and research results based on the survey data. The average age of the 2,676 surveyed samples in Daka Township is 29.87, with that in Duoniang Village being only 28.58, which is the lowest in the four villages. In addition, the average ages in Dongzhong Village, Lanqing Village and Zuonuo Village are approximately 30. The average age of males in the township is 30.72, which is approximately one year higher than that of females. The average age gap between males and females remains at three years in Lanqing village and one year in Duoniang and Zuonuo villages. In addition, the average ages of males and females 6

Li Jigang and Lei Hongzhen, “Discussion on Grassland Property Rights and Poverty in the Pastoral Areas of Tibet”, Journal of Northwest Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), Issue 1, 2014. 7 Du Mingyi and Zhao Xi, “Design of the Anti-poverty Mechanism in the Agricultural and Pastoral Areas of Tibetan Ethnic Areas in China”, Guizhou Social Sciences, Issue 8 (248 issues in total), 2010; Ning Yafang, “Poverty Alleviation Effect of the Rural Subsistence Allowances System: Evidence from Western Ethnic Minority Areas”, Guizhou Social Sciences, Issue 11 (299 issues in total), 2014.

380

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

Table 12.1 Distribution of surveyed samples Households (Tibetan)

Individuals (Tibetan)

Number Proportion Number Survey of (%) of coverage surveyed actual rate (%) samples samples (unit) (unit)

Number Proportion Number Survey of (%) of coverage surveyed actual rate (%) samples samples (unit) (unit)

Dongzhong 144 Village

18.44

159

90.57

505

18.87

568

88.91

Duoniang Village

243

31.11

246

98.78

735

27.47

751

97.87

Lanqing Village

196

25.10

209

93.78

739

27.62

775

95.35

Zuonuo Village

198

25.35

205

96.59

697

26.05

707

98.58

Daka Township

781

100.00

819

95.36

2676

100.00

2801

95.53

in Dongzhong Village stay the same. In terms of the distribution of different age groups, the group aged 16–45 is in the majority in Daka Township, accounting for 51.04% of the total population, and the group aged under 16 makes up 27.88%. In addition, the distribution of varied age groups in the four villages is similar to that in Daka Township. The gender ratio in Table 12.2 shows that the total number of males is basically the same as that of females in Daka Township. With respect to the four villages, females slightly outnumber males in Dongzhong and Duoniang villages, while Lanqing and Zuonuo villages have more males than females. The average household population in Daka Township is 3.43 persons, with the population size of households in Duoniang Village being the smallest and that in Lanqing Village being larger. However, in general, the average household population in the four villages is similarly small. With respect to the distribution of different household sizes, the proportions of households with two persons and those with three persons in Daka Township are the highest, both reaching 20%. Overall, the gaps among the proportions of households with one to five persons and those with six and above persons in Daka Township are small. The proportion of the working population in the total household population in Daka Township is 61.88%, and the proportions in the four villages are also between 59 and 62%. Based on the data of the sixth population census, the average age of the working population aged over 16 in Qinghai in 2010 was 39.55,8 and that of the working population aged 16–55 in Daka Township was 33.54. If the working age is set to be from 16 to 60 according to the standard of the population census, the average age of the working population in Daka Township is 34.58, five years lower than that in Qinghai Province. This not only reflects that the average life expectancy in Daka 8

Qinghai Provincial Bureau of Statistics, “Data of Qinghai—Increase of 2.21 years old in the Average Age of the Working Population in Qinghai in Ten Years”, Qinghai Statistics, Issue 2, 2012.

12.2 Survey Data and Statistical Description

381

Table 12.2 Demographic characteristics of the surveyed samples in Daka Township Daka Township

Dongzhong Village

Duoniang Village

Lanqing Village

Zuonuo Village

Average age

29.87

30.13

28.58

30.07

30.83

Average age of males

30.72

30.38

29.37

31.61

31.33

Average age of females

29.24

30.01

28.29

28.64

30.36

Proportion of 16.03 population aged 0–6 (%)

11.88

19.32

15.43

16.21

Proportion of 11.85 population aged 7–15 (%)

11.88

11.29

13.13

11.05

Proportion of 17.19 population aged 16–25 (%)

21.78

16.05

15.02

17.36

Proportion of 16.59 population aged 26–35 (%)

17.62

15.65

19.08

14.2

Proportion of 17.26 population aged 36–45 (%)

16.04

18.23

16.64

17.79

Proportion of 9.79 population aged 46–55 (%)

9.7

10.2

9.07

10.19

Proportion of 5.68 population aged 56–65 (%)

5.94

4.9

5.82

6.17

Proportion of 5.61 population aged above 65 (%)

5.15

4.35

5.82

7.03

Gender ratio

99.85:100

94.59:100

92.59:100

104.75:100

106.85:100

Number of individuals as samples (unit)

2660

504

728

733

695

Average household population

3.43

3.51

3.02

3.77

3.52

17.80 Households with one person (%)

13.89

15.64

21.94

19.19

Households with two persons (%)

23.61

27.16

11.73

15.66

19.72

(continued)

382

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

Table 12.2 (continued) Daka Township

Dongzhong Village

Duoniang Village

Lanqing Village

Zuonuo Village

Households with three persons (%)

19.97

16.67

23.87

17.35

20.2

Households with four persons (%)

16.13

19.44

17.7

11.73

16.16

Households with five persons (%)

11.91

11.81

8.23

15.31

13.13

Households with six and above persons (%)

14.47

14.57

7.41

21.94

15.66

Average proportion of working population in the total household population (%)

61.88

67.77

62.99

59.67

58.84

Number of households as Samples (unit)

781

144

243

196

198

Note The gender information in 16 samples is unknown, the gender ratio is defined as the numbers of males per 100 females, and the working population refers to people aged 16–55

Township has reached the average level in Qinghai but also shows that Daka Township neither has the population aging problem for now nor will it face it in the long future. In addition, as the labor force in most households in the entire township is abundant and there are newly added labor forces, employment problems are severe in Daka Township. The data show that the household size in Daka Township is small, with the average population in a household being 3.43 persons. As the family planning policy has not been implemented there, the family fertility rate has seen few changes for a long time. The smaller Tibetan household size in the pastoral areas may be because local households, by dividing themselves into smaller ones, seek to enjoy more policies and because the settlement of the nomadic people and the ecological migration have reduced the traditional household size.

12.3 Poverty in Daka Township

383

12.3 Poverty in Daka Township Daka Township is the ecological core area in the Sanjiangyuan National Natural Reserve. In Daka Township, there is one ecological migration community with 368 persons from 112 households, and the remaining 86.32% Tibetan households and 86.59% Tibetan population still rove around as nomads for a living now. 1. The income and poverty headcount ratio of the Tibetan herdsman households Traditionally, the income of the Tibetan herdsman households in Daka Township comes from animal husbandry that includes slaughtering livestock and selling furs and products such as butter and cheese. With the popularization of ecological migration and grassland subsidies, this single income structure has changed. Following the definition of the actual disposable income by the NBS, the Household Income Project was first carried out by households who calculated their incomes that were then verified by the investigators from the township governments. As the income sources of most households in Daka Township are relatively clear and the investigators are familiar with the surveyed households, the income data are reliable. According to the survey results (see Table 12.3), the per capita household income of Daka Township was RMB 3,176.8 in 2014, accounting for 78.71% of the per capita household income of Banma County that reached RMB 4,036 in that year. The per capita disposable income of farmer and herdsman households in the six autonomous prefectures in the Tibetan ethnic areas of Qinghai Province was RMB 7,071.2, and it can be seen that the per capita income of herdsman households of Daka Township was lower than half of the average of the six autonomous prefectures in the Tibetan ethnic areas. At the same time, the per capita income of herdsman households of Daka Township accounted for 32.11% of the per capita income of rural residents nationwide that reached RMB 9,892, and it was, with a realization degree of 27%, lower than the national standard of building a moderately prosperous society (RMB 11,838) by RMB 8,661.2. Measured by the poverty line of RMB 2,300 reset by the government in 2010, the poverty headcount ratio in Daka Township was 12.67%, four percentage points higher than the poverty headcount ratio in rural areas nationwide (8.5%) in 2013. Among all four pastoral villages, the poverty headcount ratio in Duoniang Village was 25.44%, the highest one followed by that of Zuonuo Village (11.33%), Lanqing Village (7.17%) and Dongzhong Village (3.96%), which was the lowest one. According to the division of the per capita household income, the per capita household income of most herdsmen in Daka Township and the four animal husbandry villages under its jurisdiction was lower than RMB 6,000, and the households whose per capita income was above RMB 6,000 accounted for only 5.6%; among all four villages, the herdsmen whose per capita household income was higher than RMB 6,000 in Lanqing Village accounted for 11.09%, the highest one, and the lowest one went to Zuonuo Village (0.43%). Given that the living cost in alpine areas is higher than that in other areas, the poverty headcount ratio in Daka Township will be much higher if the poverty line were above RMB 2,300.

384

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

Table 12.3 Per capita household income in Daka Township 2014 Daka Township

Dongzhong Village

Duoniang Village

Lanqing Village

Zuonuo Village

Per capita 3176.8 household income (2676) (RMB)

3147.7 (505)

3083.7 (735)

3784.4 (739)

2651.8 (697)

Population with a 12.67 (339) per capita household income below RMB 2,300 (%)

3.96 (20)

25.44 (187)

7.17 (53)

11.33 (79)

Population with a 81.73 (2187) per capita household income between RMB 2,301 and RMB 6,000 (%)

91.09 (460)

69.12 (508)

81.73 (604)

88.24 (615)

Population with a 2.65 (71) per capita household income between RMB 6,001 and RMB 10,000 (%)

3.56 (18)

1.63 (12)

5.14 (38)

0.43 (3)

Population with a 2.95 (79) per capita household income above RMB 10,000 (%)

1.39 (7)

3.81 (28)

5.95 (44)

0 (0)

Note The figures in parentheses refer to the number of corresponding surveyed samples

2. Poor Tibetan herdsman households: a high proportion of households with no houses and poor living conditions In traditional pastoral times, local herdsmen mainly lived in tents made of yak fur and were accustomed to this way of residence, and the houses of civil architecture, the houses made of stones, woods and hollow bricks, and the fortress towers were just newly built in pastoral areas in recent years. This survey did not calculate the tents that are made of yak fur and already owned by herdsmen. According to the survey data, there were 367 households with permanent housing in Daka Township, which means that 46.99% of the population had permanent housing. The survey found that, generally speaking, the living conditions in Daka Township were very poor. Although the local government has popularized nomad-settlement housing, the rebuilding of dilapidated houses and incentive housing since 2008, approximately 50% of the herdsmen did not enjoy these policies due to the limited quota of a dozen units for every township. Among all the registered households with houses, the largest area of nomad-settlement housing was 85 square meters, the smallest was 25 square meters, and most areas were 34 and 55 square meters,

12.3 Poverty in Daka Township

385

which was related to the government’s previous policies on unified development. The per capita living space of herdsmen in Daka Township was 9.1 square meters, still short of the indicator of building a moderately prosperous society (above 27 square meters) by 17.9 square meters. At the same time, in addition to the local fortress towers that were self-built recently, the early-built nomad-settlement earth houses and the resettlement housing for ecological migration were of poor quality, and the proportion of dilapidated houses was high. In Table 12.4, the average living space of the impoverished households in Daka is 15.11 square metres, nearly 10 square metres lower than the average of the township, which is 25.04 square metres; the per capita living space of the impoverished households is only 4.3 square metres, which is less than half of the average of the township, which is 9.1 square metres; the proportion of the households without houses reaches 72.16%, 20 percentage points higher than the average of the township. The average living space and the per capita living space of the impoverished households in the four pastoral villages in Daka are both lower than the average of the villages, and the proportions of the impoverished households without houses are both higher than the average of these villages. 3. The common phenomenon of some Tibetan herdsman households suffering from unemployment To lack livestock, each of the 112 households in the ecological migration community of Daka is living on government subsidies and a bonus of approximately RMB 10,000, which include fuel subsidies (RMB 2,000 per year), feed and grain subsidies (RMB 6,000 per year) and a bonus for protecting the grassland ecological environment (RMB 2,000 per year). According to statistics, in 2014, there was no transfer of the labor force from relocated households or the labor force becoming employed in industries subsequently, which indicates that those relocated households do not have other income sources. Although most households’ per capita income exceeded the poverty line of RMB 2,300 and those households were not defined as impoverished ones, some with more population could not make a living. That the ecological migration households rely on fiscal transfer payments renders them vulnerable to poverty, and some family members lose faith in future life. The 669 nonecological migration households in Daka still rove around as nomads for a living. In the township, there are 13,296 yaks, with each household possessing an average of 20 and each person possessing less than 6. The number of sheep there reaches 25,244, with each household possessing 38 and person 11 on average. In addition to approximately ten percent of households that possess over 30 yaks and can basically make a living, most possess less than 20 yaks and 38 sheep, and 97 impoverished households only have five yaks per person, which makes them struggle to support themselves. According to population statistics, the laborers aged 16–25 are 1,546 in number, accounting for 67% of the total population of Daka. This means that Daka Township is rich in the labor force and possesses fewer elderly people. Theoretically, if calculated in accordance with the per capita maximum work amount, only 391 persons are needed to take care of the livestock there (herdsmen generally believe that one person

386

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

Table 12.4 Housing conditions of the herdsman households in Daka Township Daka Township

Dongzhong Village

Duoniang Village

Lanqing Village

Zuonuo Village

Average living space of households (m2 )

25.04 (781)

39.49 (144)

12.88 (243)

19.95 (196)

34.51 (198)

Per capita living space of households (m2 )

9.10 (781)

14.72 (144)

4.71 (243)

7.51 (196)

11.99 (198)

Proportion of the households without houses

53.01 (414)

32.64 (47)

70.37 (171)

63.78 (125)

35.86 (71)

Proportion of the households with a living area of less than 30 m2

6.91 (54)

4.86 (7)

7.82 (19)

3.57 (7)

10.61 (21)

Proportion of the households with a living area of 30–60 m2

36.49 (285)

58.33 (84)

16.46 (40)

32.14 (63)

49.49 (98)

Proportion of the households with a living area of 61–90 m2

1.79 (14)

0.69 (1)

4.12 (10)

Proportion of the households with a living area of over 91 m2

1.79 (14)

3.47 (5)

1.23 (3)

1.52 (3)

0.51 (1)

2.53 (5)

Total

100 (781)

100 (144)

100 (243)

100 (196)

100 (198)

Average living space of impoverished households (m2 ) (unit: household)

15.11 (97)

15 (4)

11.1 (60)

21.43 (14)

23.16 (19)

Per capita living space of impoverished households (m2 ) (unit: person)

4.30 (97)

4.27 (4)

3.68 (60)

5.68 (14)

6.58 (19)

75 (3)

81.67 (49)

57.14 (8)

52.63 (10)

Proportion of the 72.16 (70) households without houses in impoverished households (%)

Note The figures in parentheses refer to the number of corresponding surveyed samples

12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township

387

can at least take care of 200 sheep or 50 yaks), accounting for 25% of all laborers. The remaining 1,155 laborers (75%) are unemployed. At present, the population size and the number of cattle and sheep have to some extent exceeded the carrying capacity of local grasslands, and no young laborers choose to find jobs outside Daka, bringing about the serious employment situation and directly influencing the increase in herdsmen’s income.

12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics, deems development as a process in which all people can equally expand their freedom; thus, development means the process of reducing poverty and narrowing the welfare gap or granting people more equal treatment.9 Western ethnic minority areas lack a strong bedrock for economic development but have diverse and complex ethnic (cultural) and regional (natural) conditions, which causes them to face great difficulties in boosting development.10 As a remote, isolated and poor alpine pastoral area, Daka encounters economic and social development dilemmas. Consequently, grasping and understanding the dilemma serves as an important basis for achieving local development in all respects. 1. Lack of good cohesion between ecological protection policies and balanced development Daka Township, part of the Sanjiangyuan National Natural Reserve, has implemented large-scale projects of ecological protection and returning grazing land into grassland since 2013. The 112 herdsman households relocated in the ecological migration villages have basically become households with no livestock. Except for approximately 80 people in the four pastoral villages who run small shops, drive taxis, and deliver goods in their settlements, most of the remaining ecological migrants due to their low-level education, insufficient vocational skills, lack of follow-up industries, and the severe unemployment situation of the working population have become veritable “vagrants” who are unable to increase their income and improve their lives and will even turn into a hidden danger to social stability. As the ecological economic value of pastoral areas has increased, infrastructures have been improved, and logistics have become more convenient, the prices of yak meat, milk, and rare Tibetan medicinal materials have risen by leap. As a result, those who retain livestock become rich, and those without livestock or few livestock who respond to the call to sell livestock and contribute their pasture cannot even afford meat or milk. Therefore, the gap between rich and poor within herdsmen is structurally differentiated. There are 16 households with 79 people in the four pastoral 9

Sen, Amartya, “Development as Freedom”, Alfred A. Knopf New York, 1999. Hao Shiyuan, How the Communist Party of China Addresses Ethnic Issues, Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2011, p. 143.

10

388

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

villages of Dhaka Township with a per capita income of more than RMB 10,000 and 97 households with 339 people in poverty. Some of these poor households with only subsidy income (RMB 678 per capita grassland subsidy, covering the whole township and following per capita distribution and RMB 59 forestry subsidy for herdsmen only) are in extreme poverty. Others have to work in the summer grassland and graze livestock for the herdsmen who live in the same village with them to get paid. A new imbalance triggered by policy measures has thus formed, and some poor people are dissatisfied with the government and doubtful about its policies. Employment is the most important determinant of living standards. The current and future development challenges facing Daka Township are to increase the productivity of grazing and create employment opportunities other than grazing. At the same time, however, the geographical conditions, resource endowments, social atmosphere and current development level of Daka Township also make it very difficult for the local area to expand employment. A large number of studies have confirmed that equity and development are mutually reinforcing. People should enjoy equal opportunities in pursuing the life of their choice, which will help promote sustainable growth and development and should ultimately not result in extreme poverty.11 Local Tibetan herdsmen generally believe in Tibetan Buddhism, which pursues the equality of all living beings in terms of core morals and ethics. Therefore, Tibetan herdsmen not only care about their personal well-being but also pay attention to fairness in their behaviors. In the choice of development methods in Tibetan ethnic areas, as the shared growth model promotes economic growth, the promotion of equality of opportunities and fair participation should especially be considered. 2. Undistributed basic education and insufficient human capital investment Most contemporary economists attribute economic growth to the three elements of technology, capital and human resources. Countries that have maintained sustainable and rapid economic development for a long time have made great efforts in national education and human capital investment.12 Many studies have shown that investment in children’s early education has a higher return than that in subsequent stages. This is because children must learn how to learn; otherwise, they will have no foundation and lose their development potential.13 The overall education level of the herdsmen in Daka Township is very low. The number of herdsmen who have received secondary and higher education is minimal, and the dropout rate is relatively high. There is only one boarding elementary school in Daka Township, with 20 faculty members (including eight staff of management and service), 183 students, five grades and classes, and no kindergarten. In the survey data, there were a total of 294 children between the ages of seven and 14, and the 11

World Bank: Equality and Development, Tsinghua University Press, 2006, p. 2. World Bank: The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development, China Financial Publishing House, 2008, p. 32. 13 Behrman, Jere R, and James C. Knowles, “Household Income and Child Schooling in Vietnam”, World Bank Economic Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1999, pp. 211–256; Andrabi, Tahir, Jishinu Das, “What Did You Do All Day? Maternal Education and Child Outcomes”, Policy Research Working Paper Series, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009. 12

12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township

389

actual proportion of students at school was 62%. Due to the poor teaching quality in the county’s junior high schools, less than 40% of the students can enter the senior high schools of the prefecture level after graduating. In the past 30 years, only 12 of the herdsmen’s children in Banma County have been admitted to college. The survey found that parents generally think poorly of the school’s living conditions and teachers’ sense of responsibility in supervising students. They believe that sending their children to a monastery is more reassuring than to a boarding school. At present, there are two monasteries in the township, with 239 monks and nuns who permanently live in the monasteries. In addition, there are 36 people from the township who have become monks or nuns in monasteries in Seda County, Sichuan Province. The number of monks and nuns accounts for 10.12% of the population of the township, making it one of the areas with the highest proportion of monks and nuns in Tibetan ethnic areas (including Tibet). The poverty headcount ratio of children under 16 in Daka Township is 14.9%, two percentage points higher than that among the whole township. It shows that they are facing malnutrition and lack of education, which adversely affect their intellectual development, physical health, and work capacity, thus causing an extremely high risk of the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Good education not only has the effect of awaking people’s wisdom but is also the most powerful measure for herdsman households to improve their living conditions. It is also of great significance for maintaining long-term stability and building a moderately prosperous society. 3. Backward infrastructure needed for economic growth Due to the special geographical location and climate conditions, many remote regions inhabited by Tibetans still face a serious lack of roads, bridges and convenient ways of goods transport, thereby being nearly “isolated from the outside world.” The herdsmen in Daka Township dwell in large and scattered areas (one ecological migration community and areas centered approximately 15 cooperatives), making it difficult to provide access to roads, electricity, drinking water for both people and stock and radio, television and communication networks. As shown in Table 12.5, of the people from the 781 households in Daka Township, 20.25% have access to roads and electricity, 4.97% can enjoy drinking water for both people and stock, 16.11% gain access to radio, television and communication networks, and only 4.19% have access to all the above infrastructures. Of the people from the 97 poor households, 15.04% have access to roads and electricity, 1.77% can enjoy drinking water for both people and stock, 8.55% gain access to radio, television and communication networks, and not a single household gain access to all the above infrastructures. Almost 84% of local herdsmen are unable to keep abreast of the Party’s and state’s policies. The efforts of the government to spread modern scientific knowledge, values and ideas and to forge a sense of community among the Chinese people in the local area have produced very few effects. The survey data clearly indicate that due to a lack of conditions and capacities for people-to-people exchange and the exchange of materials and information with the outside, the local places remain relatively isolated and tend to have a strong exclusionary attitude toward nonlocal cultures.

390

12 Poverty Status and Development Dilemma …

Table 12.5 Infrastructure of Daka Township Daka Township (unit)

Dongzhong Township (unit)

Duoniang Township (unit)

Lanqing Township (unit)

Zuonuo Township (unit)

39.41 (199)

10.07 (74)

30.31 (224)

6.46 (45)

9.7 (49)

3.54 (26)

6.09 (45)

1.87 (13)

Calculated in the unit of person Proportion of people having access to roads and electricity (%)

20.25 (542)

4.97 (133) Proportion of people having access to drinking water for both people and stock (%) Proportion of People having access to radio, television and communication networks (%)

16.11 (431)

30.5 (154)

10.2 (75)

15.7 (116)

12.34 (86)

Proportion of people having access to all the above infrastructures (%)

4.19 (112)

8.91 (45)

3.54 (26)

4.87 (36)

0.72 (5)

Note The figures in parentheses refer to the number of corresponding surveyed samples

As the foundation for economic growth, infrastructure is evidently of great importance. Based on research and statistics, it is estimated that since the reform and opening up, China’s investments in infrastructure over the past years have always been above seven percent of GDP and have become one of the major reasons for the constant, rapid economic growth.14 Normally, giving priority to the development of communications infrastructure not only benefits education, enhances the transparency of government work and encourages the government to offer better services but also helps disseminate information to the producers and consumers involved in the economy, improve productive forces and production efficiency and boost consumption. In an era when the internet is rapidly developing, e-commerce has also acted as an essential channel for the startups of businesses, pushing forward the integration of markets nationwide. Against this backdrop, strengthening the infrastructure in Tibetan ethnic areas, especially promoting access to all the abovementioned infrastructures, is becoming a pressing task in driving local development, creating jobs for 14

World Bank: The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development, China Financial Publishing House, 2008, p. 31.

12.4 Dilemma of Economic and Social Development in Daka Township

391

herdsmen and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. In addition to the construction of artery roads, special attention should also be given to the planning and building of low-cost minor roads and bridges as well as paths for livestock that are convenient for the masses’ work and life. The above development obstacles facing Daka Township are typical of all Tibetan ethnic areas, particularly the border areas among the four provinces and autonomous regions. The inequality of development opportunities between Tibetans and residents in other regions caused by disparate economic growth will continue to increase and even go beyond the economic sector to political and social fields, eventually compounding the social problems in Tibetan ethnic areas. The market economy in Tibet still has a long way to go, and there is an urgent need to formulate and implement the goals of economic growth under the leadership of a government that is competent, decisive, courageous and reliable. The inclusive development that attracts international attention is in essence to achieve shared economic growth, social integration and solidarity, ecological balance and resource conservation for different economies. Apparently situated in remote, isolated and poor alpine pastoral areas, Daka Township should adopt the idea of inclusive development and follow a development path with local characteristics to speed up economic growth. Only in this way can the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in 2020 be possibly achieved. Meanwhile, unlike inland cities, the specific targets of building a moderately prosperous society in these remote alpine areas cannot be set uniformly, as the GDP and economic indicators of these areas are difficult to reach. Therefore, the indicators concerning people’s wellbeing should be highlighted and ensured to meet the requirements of a moderately prosperous society.

Chapter 13

Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance and Constraints of the Effects in the Border Areas of West Yunnan

Ethnic minority areas are the main battlefield of China’s poverty reduction and development. As the support of poverty reduction and development becomes stronger, the poor population in China is more concentrated in the rural areas of the western region. The villages in the southwestern ethnic minority areas have poorer populations and higher poverty headcount ratios. Based on the working ability of the poor population, China mainly adopts two types of strategies to lift them out of poverty. The strategies—the development-oriented strategy and the assistance-oriented strategy—are represented as development-oriented poverty alleviation and development and social assistance in policies. In the 13th Five-Year Plan, it was approached that “we will adopt categorized, targeted poverty alleviation measures to ensure poverty alleviation.” Specifically, the Plan put forward that “we will ensure that other poor populations—those who have partially or completely lost the capacity to work—have their basic living needs met through social security policies.” The western ethnic minority areas possess a large proportion of agricultural population and relatively underdeveloped economy and society, so the social security system and the social welfare system cannot play a dominant role in providing the basic living needs while the rural social assistance system is the most important institutional arrangement for the poor who have lost their working ability completely or partially in those areas. Hence, it is of great realistic significance to research the poverty reduction effects of the rural social assistance system and the constraints of the effects in the western ethnic minority areas. There are abundant studies on the poverty reduction effects of the rural social assistance system but fewer on the constraints of the effects in the western ethnic minority areas. Some scholars believe that the subsistence allowance system cannot exert influences on those areas because of local conditions and the deficiencies of the system. Ye Hui conducted research on 18 impoverished ethnic minority counties in the southwestern region and found that only 46.7% of rural households were satisfied with the rural subsistence allowance system. Taking Yunnan as an example, some held that the system had some positive yet limited influences on poverty alleviation and the ease of income disparity, and there were regional and ethnic differences. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_13

393

394

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

However, these studies do not focus on the constraints of the poverty reduction effects of the rural social assistance system in ethnic minority areas. As one of the key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, Lancang, which lies in the mountainous areas of the border areas of West Yunnan, is an important area for poverty elimination during the 13th Five-Year Plan period and a significant weak link in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Therefore, this chapter chooses the rural social assistance system in Lancang as the object of research and analyzes the necessity and poverty reduction effects of the social assistance system by providing basic living needs and the constraints of the effects to offer an experience to strengthen the poverty reduction effects of the system by providing basic living needs in the rural areas of the Western ethnic minority areas.

13.1 Reasons for Rural Social Assistance Reducing Poverty by Providing Basic Living Needs in Lancang County 1. Serious poverty situation Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Lancang still exceeds the whole country and the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in the poor population and the poverty headcount ratio, although it has seen the poor population and the poverty headcount ratio be reduced (see Table 13.1). According to the data released by the Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of Lancang County, there were 368,000 poor rural residents, and the poverty headcount ratio was 78.6% in 2002; from 2009 to 2014, the ratios were still over 40%. In 2009, 2012 and 2014, the poverty headcount ratios in Lancang were 15.2, 5.4 and 5.7 times higher, respectively, than those of the same period nationwide. The proportion of the agricultural population in the total population of Lancang, a typical agricultural county, reached 87.87% in 2012, which means that most poor populations in Lancang live in rural areas. The serious poverty situation faced by local rural residents results in the heavy poverty alleviation pressure of rural social assistance. 2. Rural residents enjoying low business operation income The poor shaking off poverty mainly depends on the increase in their wage income and business operation income. However, the per capita net income of the rural residents in Lancang is far lower than the national average, and in 2014, it accounted for only 42.5% of the national average.1 Single industrial structure and relatively low agricultural modernization and industrialization serve as the main constraints of the low income of rural residents. In 2014, the ratio of the three industries (primary industry, secondary industry and tertiary industry) in Lancang was 31.27:39.97:28.76, with the proportion of the primary industry exceeding the provincial level by 15.72 percentage 1

Calculated in accordance with the data provided by the Development and Reform Bureau of Lancang County.

13.1 Reasons for Rural Social Assistance …

395

Table 13.1 Poor population and poverty headcount ratio in Lancang county Indicator

2009

2010 2011

2012 2013 2014

Poverty line (RMB)

1196

1274 2536

2625 2736 2800

Poor population (10,000 Lancang county 29.0 26.4 – persons) Eight ethnic provinces 1451.2 1034 3917 and autonomous regions

3121 2562 2205

Poverty headcount ratio (%)

27.5

19.7

16.7

National level

3597.1 2688 12,238 9899 8249 7017

Lancang county

57.9

52.8

–

55.0

–

41.2

Eight ethnic provinces 12.0 and autonomous regions

8.7

26.5

21.1

17.1

14.7

National level

2.8

12.7

10.2

8.5

7.2

3.8

Sources (i) The data relating to poor population are calculated in accordance with the work summaries of the Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of Lancang County from 2009 to 2014; (ii) The data of the national level and the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions are from the “Monitoring Results of Rural Poverty in Ethnic Minority Areas 2014” on the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/4/15/art_31_225897.html)

points.2 Industries such as green life, tea, forestry, saccharose, fishing and animal husbandry, ethnic culture tourism, hydropower and mining have yet to develop on a large scale. Against the backdrop of rural residents enjoying low business operation income, the poor population with low wage income and the number of potential recipients of rural social assistance remain large. 3. Limited poverty reduction effects of other rural social security systems Except for medical assistance and the rural subsistence allowance system, other rural social insurance programs and social welfare programs in Lancang County were established relatively late. At present, the new rural social endowment insurance system, the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, and the old age allowance are the three main factors that constitute the rural social security system in addition to social assistance. However, the low premium paid by the insured individuals and the relatively low-level guarantee cause the limited poverty reduction effects of the new rural social endowment insurance. In Lancang County, the new rural social endowment insurance premium mainly concentrates on the level of RMB 100 per year. The low enthusiasm for participating in insurance and payment leads to the widening gap between the income of the new rural social endowment insurance and the current pension expenditure, from 7.14 million in 2012 to 9.853 million in 2014.3 In terms of benefits, the new rural social endowment insurance provides a basic pension of RMB 75 per month, which is far lower than the rural subsistence allowance standard of RMB 189 per month. For the new rural cooperative medical 2

Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of Lancang County, “Reporting Materials Concerning Poverty Alleviation and Development Work in Lancang County”. 3 Based on the data provided by the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Lancang County.

396

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

insurance system, due to the insufficient ability and low level of medical and health services, this system in Lancang County plays a minor role in the actual poverty reduction of farmers, especially those in remote villages. The high cost of medical care, transportation, food and lodging and the high price of medicines weaken the poverty reduction effects of this system. Generally, the poverty reduction effects of those two systems are limited. The poor elderly people and those who fall into or sink back into poverty due to illnesses can only receive assistance by applying for rural social assistance.

13.2 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County Rural social assistance mainly includes the rural subsistence allowance system and the rural medical assistance system, as well as education assistance, housing assistance, and temporary assistance systems. Among them, the rural subsistence allowance system and the medical assistance system, with respect to the poverty reduction effects of the rural poor and the improvement of the system itself, are better than other projects. Therefore, this chapter focuses on analyzing the poverty reduction effects of the rural subsistence allowance system and the medical assistance system in Lancang County. 1. Poverty reduction effects of rural subsistence allowances (1) Increasing number of people receiving assistance The number of people receiving rural subsistence allowances in Lancang County increased from 97,000 in the first quarter of 2008 to 172,287 in the fourth quarter of 2015 (see Table 13.2), with an annual growth rate of 5.30%. From 2008 to 2012, the proportions of recipients in the agricultural population were 24.91, 31.16, 36.30, 37.45 and 39.47%, respectively. From 2008 to 2015, the proportions of the number of recipients of Lancang County in the national total and in that of Pu’er City continued to rise, and the proportion of Lancang County in Pu’er City accounted for the highest proportion. This proportion in the fourth quarter of 2015 surpassed the subsequent proportion by 24.79 percentage points. From the composition of the recipients, females account for the highest proportion, followed by minors and the elderly. From 2010 to 2015, the proportion of rural female recipients rose from 8.65% in the first quarter of 2010 to 44.16% in the fourth quarter of 2015. During the same period, the proportion of rural minors increased from 0.81 to 15.78%, that of the elderly decreased relatively, from 24.61 to 14.54%, and that of rural recipients with disabilities was lower than the national level and the level of Pu’er City by 1.46 and 6.47 percentage points, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2015. In summary, the number of people assisted by the rural subsistence allowance system in Lancang County has grown rapidly since its establishment in 2011. The growth rate of the number of recipients slowed down since the system started to

13.2 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural …

397

Table 13.2 Number of people receiving rural subsistence allowances in Lancang county Quarter

Number of the recipients

Proportion of the number of the recipients in the national total (%)

Proportion of the number of the recipients in that of Pu’er city (%)

1st quarter in 2008

97,000

0.27

33.59

4th quarter in 2008

114,000

0.27

33.40

4th quarter in 2009

141,845

0.30

35.25

4th quarter in 2010

165,545

0.32

36.38

4th quarter in 2011

170,255

0.32

36.08

4th quarter in 2012

172,345

0.32

35.17

4th quarter in 2013

172,345

0.32

35.13

4th quarter in 2014

172,345

0.33

37.14

4th quarter in 2015

172,287

0.35

38.82

Source According to the quarterly subsistence allowance data released on the website of the MCA (http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/sj/tjjb/dbsj/)

cover all people in need of assistance and enhanced the dynamic management of the recipients in 2011. Female, elderly, minors, and people with disabilities are the four groups with relatively high poverty head count ratios, whose sum of the proportions of the recipients increased from 19.49% in the first quarter of 2010 to 76.77% in the fourth quarter of 2015, which means that the rural subsistence allowance system gradually became more accurately targeted. (2) Increasingly growing rural subsistence allowance standard and per capita expenditure In the initial establishment of the rural subsistence allowance system in 2007, the subsistence allowance standard was only RMB 30 per month. From 2010 to 2015, the standard in the county increased from RMB 70 to 189 per month. From 2007 to 2015, the annual growth rate of the standard averaged 22.69%, much higher than that of the per capita net income of farmers during the same period. The rural subsistence allowance standard of Lancang County, basically equal to the average level of Pu’er city, generally witnessed a higher proportion in the national average rural subsistence allowance standard, with a rise from 59.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 71.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015.4 During the same period, Lancang County also saw the per capita expenditure on rural subsistence allowances keep rising from RMB 72 per month to RMB 143.2 per month, with an average annual growth rate of 12.14%. Meanwhile, the proportions of the per capita expenditure on such aspects of Lancang County in the national total were 80.3, 88.7, 98.9, 101.7 and 99% from 2011 to 2015. Despite the high poverty headcount ratio, the guaranteed level of the rural subsistence allowance system in Lancang County is basically the same as the national average. 4

Calculated in accordance with the quarterly subsistence allowance data released on the website of the MCA.

398

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

(3) Fast-growing investment in rural subsistence allowances The total expenditure on the rural subsistence allowances of Lancang County increased from RMB 57.48 million in 2008 to RMB 2,959.61 million in 2015, with the average annual growth rate being 22.86%, which was significantly higher than that of the country (18.72%) and that of Pu’er city (20.49%) during the same period. In addition, the proportions of expenditure on the rural subsistence allowances of Lancang County in the national total and in that of Pu’er City grew year by year from 2008 to 2015, with the proportion in the former increasing from 0.26 to 0.34% and in the latter rising from 33.45 to 38.76%.5 2. Effects of rural medical assistance on poverty reduction As people are easily falling into or sinking back into poverty due to illness, the rural medical assistance system, like the rural subsistence allowance system, also plays a fundamental and guaranteed role in alleviating poverty. In addition, medical assistance can be provided by subsidizing the poor to participate in the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and by directly subsidizing self-paid medical expenses. (1) Increasing residents subsidized to participate in the new rural cooperative medical insurance system In 2006, the government in Lancang County subsidized 23,560 people in extreme poverty and those with disabilities to participate in the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, accounting for 7.71% of the total participants in the system. In 2008, the subsidized rural participants living on subsistence allowances in the system were 114,000, making up 27.12% of the total, and in 2010, the number increased to 142,730, accounting for 37.61% of the total. Since 2013, the number of subsidized participants living in poverty in the system has gradually stabilized and was 181,123 in 2013 and 182,463 in 2014.6 (2) Increasing growth in medical assistance funds for self-paid medical expenses Since the medical assistance system was put in place, the number of rural people in poverty with their self-paid medical expenses directly subsidized and the medical assistance funds in Lancang County have continued to rise. The number of recipients of the funds for self-paid medical expenses increased from 14 in 2006 to 16,482 in June 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 119.38% (see Fig. 13.1). Especially after 2009, the number has seen a rapid surge. The proportions of the number of recipients in that of the rural subsistence allowances were generally on the rise, which were 0.29, 3.33, 2.17, 5.38, 13.09, 7.97 and 9.56% from 2008 to 2015 (with the data in 2012 missing).7 In addition, medical assistance funds increased from RMB 5

Ibid. Calculated in accordance with the work summaries in corresponding years by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Management Center of Lancang County. 7 As the data of the number of recipients of medical assistance in 2015 are collected in the first half year, the actual proportion should be higher than 9.65%. 6

13.2 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural …

399

Fig. 13.1 Data of medical assistance in self-paid medical expenses under the new rural cooperative medical insurance system in Lancang county (2006–2015). Note The data in 2015 are collected in the first half of the year. Source Calculated in accordance with the work summaries from 2006 to 2015 by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Management Center of Lancang County

31,910 in 2006 to RMB 8.5,878 million in 2010, with an average annual growth rate of 206%. The medical assistance funds, despite being reduced continuously from 2011 to 2014, still remained above RMB 6 million and showed a growing trend again in 2015. In Lancang County, the proportions of the expenditure on medical assistance funds of rural areas in that of urban and rural areas were consistently high, which were 93.79, 65.1, 73.84, 90.02, 92.82, 88.99, 59.60 and 80.61% from 2006 to 2014 (with data in 2012 missing), and the proportion in the first half of 2015 was 91.10%. Although the micro effect of medical assistance on poverty reduction cannot be tested by the impoverished patients’ personal medical expenditures, the funds for engaging people to participate in the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and the medical assistance funds directly reflect to what extent the burden of medical expenses of poor households have been reduced or exempted. Therefore, the data on investment at the macro level show that the rural medical assistance system plays an increasingly significant role in alleviating the burden of medical expenses for the poor.

400

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

13.3 Constraints of the Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social Assistance in Lancang County The effect of a public policy is determined not only by how rational its own framework is designed but also by the external environment where the policy functions and the efficiency of relevant supporting policies. Generally, constraints of the poverty reduction effects of rural social assistance in Lancang County involve deficiencies in the assistance system itself, the special reality of the county, ethnic minority-centered recipients of rural social assistance and the implementation of public policies such as development-oriented poverty alleviation and basic public services. 1. Deficiencies in the rural social assistance system (1) Weak service capacity and regulation capability Specifically, the weak service capacity and regulation capability of rural social assistance agencies in Lancang County are illustrated by insufficient, unstable primarylevel employees and regulators. For instance, in the fourth quarter of 2015, the 37 primary-level employees and regulators of the civil affairs administrations at both county and township (town) levels in Lancang County dealt with the application, approval and dynamic management work for 172,287 rural recipients of subsistence allowances in total. The ratio of staff to service receivers was 1:4,656, far higher than that in other ethnic minority areas. In addition, such few regulators also make it difficult to conduct efficient supervision. Moreover, the lack of ample, necessary funds and subsidies for their work makes the staff team of social assistance agencies highly unstable. All these problems exert a direct, negative influence on the smooth running of the rural subsistence allowance system, further making it hard to dynamically manage the rural recipients of subsistence allowances. (2) Great obstacles to household income and expenditure surveys Ethnic minority areas universally confront great obstacles to conducting household income and expenditure surveys toward applicants of subsistence allowances. For Lancang County, the difficulties first lie in identifying wage income with increasing rural residents working in cities. Second, household income is hard to ascertain because it is uncertain how long crops and livestock can start to realize profits. Last, it is also difficult to determine whether rural households have savings. Without clear household income and expenditure surveys, the social assistance workers would have problems determining the residents eligible for social assistance. Moreover, targeting errors also often occur in the rural social assistance system, as the concept of poverty in the mind of local rural households differs from that defined by the rural social assistance system, and there is a strong sense of egalitarianism and regional poverty. (3) Restricted accuracy of assistance recipient determination due to household-based subsistence allowances Allocating subsistence allowances based on households is not a measure suitable for the current rural areas in Lancang. On the one hand, the county, with a large

13.3 Constraints of the Poverty Reduction Effects …

401

poor population, faces a sharp imbalance between the supply and demand of the number of recipients of rural subsistence allowances. On the other hand, through the household-based allocation of subsistence allowances, the young and middle-aged adults in some families also receive the same assistance and other benefits bundled with the subsistence allowances. With the supply of the number of recipients of rural subsistence allowances far lower than the demand, the measure of householdbased subsistence allowances makes farmers less aware of the accuracy of recipient determination for rural social assistance. This is currently an inherent challenge to the sustained operation of the rural social assistance system in Lancang County. (4) Serious problems of bundled medical assistance benefits Illness is the major reason for rural households in Lancang to fall or sink back into poverty. Households receiving rural subsistence allowances are automatically eligible for medical assistance and other special assistance. However, low-income households are ineligible to apply for medical assistance. This bundling of eligibility for various types of assistance leads to the recipients’ heavy reliance on subsistence allowances and low intention to withdraw from the subsistence allowance system. The bundled eligibility for medical assistance and the serious poverty in Lancang strengthen its rural residents’ intention to receive subsistence allowances in turn. 2. Special reality of Lancang County (1) Large quantities of residents impoverished by frequent natural disasters Since the early twenty-first century, Lancang County has been plagued annually by a variety of disasters, such as hailstorms, frosts, droughts, floods, diseases and pests, mudslides and landslides. More than ten percent of the agricultural population in Lancang received subsidies for food in most years for natural disasters.8 Large quantities of residents were impoverished by frequent natural disasters. Families encountering these irresistible catastrophes are identified as second-class guaranteed households in the rural social assistance system. Households impoverished by crop failures and house damages need to rely on social assistance to maintain their basic living for at least one year. (2) Single industrial structure making it difficult for farmers to raise their income and shake off poverty The poor population varies inversely with labor income. However, the economic and industrial structure in Lancang County is singular, making it difficult for farmers to raise their income and shake off poverty. On the one hand, the county has a small and low-quality aggregate economy, an imbalanced industrial structure and weak internally driven growth; on the other hand, with a low level of industrial and market-based agriculture, farmers also see slow growth in their income from the business of agricultural products. 8

Calculated in accordance with the work summaries of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lancang County from 2001 to 2015.

402

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

(3) Being fiscally unviable hinders the improvement of rural social assistance Since the twenty-first century, the government of Lancang County has taken increasingly more responsibilities for infrastructure, poverty alleviation, education, medical care and health, social security, narcotics control and AIDS prevention and environmental governance; in addition, the various projects to improve people’s wellbeing that were under territorial management and in need of supporting funds from the county-level government also required the government’s responsibilities. All of this combined to widen the gap between local government revenues and expenditures that has seen a rise from RMB 155.4 million in 2000 to RMB 2.17175 billion in 2012. Taking rural subsistence allowances as an example, the proportions of spending on rural subsistence allowances in Lancang in the general budget revenue of local finance were all above 50% except for 2007 (46.7%) (see Fig. 13.2). If the medical assistance funds and temporary assistance funds had been included, the proportions would have been much higher. If the government of Lancang County was to bear all the funds, it would take the government over half of its fiscal revenue each year. At present, the central and provincial-level governments extend assistance to Lancang with its rural subsistence allowances by means of special transfer payments. It is this kind of status quo where the county-level government relies on the financial support of the governments at higher levels that leads to the county-level government’s lack of initiative in improving social assistance and security. (4) The increase in the number of particular populations affected by poverty puts great pressure on social assistance The particular populations affected by poverty in Lancang mainly include AIDSinfected patients and their household members and members from the impoverished households formed by means of cross-border marriage. From 2009 to 2014, Lancang reported the largest number of AIDS-infected patients in Pu’er City. In previous years, AIDS-infected patients in rural areas accounted for over 80% of the total infected population in the county, and for a long period of time, Lancang has been confronted with the serious threat that AIDS has been spreading from high-risk groups to average people.9 The great difficulties in AIDS prevention and treatment also aggravated the pressure on the assistance for HIV sufferers and their households who have fallen into poverty due to illness. To implement the policy of “Four Exemptions and One Care”— free antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment, free voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), free prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programs and free education for AIDS-orphans, and providing care and assistance for HIV sufferers and their households—targeting AIDS-infected patients, Lancang has included HIV sufferers and their households in the rural subsistence allowance system to assist them. For example, in 2013, the funds for subsistence allowances for AIDS-infected patients reached RMB 406,000, accounting for 57.5% of the total expenses on AIDS

9

Based on the work summaries of previous years provided by the Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment Commission of Lancang County.

13.3 Constraints of the Poverty Reduction Effects …

403

Fig. 13.2 Revenues and expenditures of the government of Lancang county (2000–2014). Sources The quarterly subsistence allowance data released on the website of the MCA (http://www.mca. gov.cn/article/sj/tjjb/dbsj/) and the data from the Statistical Database of Economic and Social Development in China (http://tongji.cnki.net/kns55/index.aspx)

prevention and treatment.10 As Lancang is located in the southwestern border areas of China, AIDS-infected patients there have put the rural social assistance system under great assistance pressure that is not to be ignored. This is one of the special challenges confronting the system in Lancang. Although cross-border marriage has alleviated the problem of “bachelor village” in Lancang, the number of impoverished households started by disadvantaged men and women gradually increases.11 According to statistics, the number of cross-border marriages lawfully registered under the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lancang rose from 31 couples in 2007 to 202 couples in 2014.12 However, the actual number should have 10

Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment Commission of Lancang County, “Work Summary of AIDS Prevention and Treatment in 2013 and Work Plan in 2014 in Lancang Lahu Autonomous County”. 11 According to the “Cross-border Marriage in Lancang County” provided by the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lancang County, people involved in cross-border marriage are mainly rural residents living in difficulties. In households formed by means of cross-border marriage, the living standards of most households are lower than the average standard of local residents. 12 Based on the “Table of the Basic Information of Cross-border Marriage in Lancang County in Previous Years” provided by the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lancang County.

404

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

exceeded the above statistics. Women and children in these impoverished households could not obtain social assistance due to unsolved problems concerning the nationalities and household registrations of women from other countries. Although the Chinese household members could apply for rural social assistance, it was difficult for the assistance benefits granted on an individual basis to exert effective poverty reduction effects on the whole household. 3. Constraints of other public policies (1) Backward rural financial services In 2014, among all the institutions under the jurisdiction of the Rural Credit Cooperative Union of Lancang, there were only 10 township (town) service centers and two extended end outlets. However, the distances between Wendong Wa Ethnic Township, Ankang Wa Ethnic Township, Dashan Township and other remote townships and towns and the county are all over 130 km. The insufficient rural financial services led to the failure to distribute subsistence allowances through social security channels, thus weakening the poverty reduction effects of rural subsistence allowances. On the one hand, people eligible for subsistence allowances in remote rural areas were faced with high costs to receive allowances. On the other hand, the extended period for people to obtain subsistence allowances made it impossible for people eligible for subsistence allowances to make use of the assistance funds in a timely manner. (2) Insufficient employment assistance for the poor with the capacity to work During the 12th Five-Year Plan period of China, the training expenditures on the transfer of labor force invested in the county’s rural development-oriented poverty reduction endeavor were only RMB 5.28 million that was used to train a mere total of 9,100 persons, among which only 11.87% received skills training.13 Lancang extended insufficient employment assistance for the poor with the capacity to work in its rural development-orientated poverty reduction endeavor, which led to the failure to bring into play the income increase effects of the rural developmentorientated poverty reduction and imposed greater poverty reduction pressure on the rural subsistence allowance system.

13.4 Research Implication and Suggestion As one of the key counties for national poverty alleviation and development in the contiguous poor areas of the border areas of West Yunnan, Lancang County is the main battlefield of targeted poverty alleviation during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. By analyzing the development of the rural social assistance system in Lancang, the 13

Based on the “Work Summaries of Poverty Alleviation and Development from 2003 to 2007” and the “Statistics Form of the Transfer Training of Labor Force” provided by the Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of Lancang County.

13.4 Research Implication and Suggestion

405

research shows that the system still plays a fundamental role in meeting people’s basic living needs in the subsequent process of targeted poverty alleviation. Therefore, according to the defects of the rural social assistance system and the special operating environment facing its development, the poverty reduction effects of the system can be improved by taking measures from the following six aspects. First, the regulation and operation of the rural social assistance system should be strengthened. The first measure is to increase the number of employees working on social assistance in civil affairs administrations at the county, township (town) and village levels by providing college graduates with a post of public officials and public-service jobs. The second is to improve the salaries and benefits of the employees in rural social assistance programs. The third is to focus on enhancing professional training in aspects such as the household income and expenditure survey, dynamic management of the recipients of rural social assistance, assistance benefits, and supervision of subsistence allowances. The fourth is to reinforce the bilingual (multilingual) training of employees and regulators in ethnic minority areas to increase the effectiveness of service and regulation. Second, the household-based allocation of subsistence allowances should be improved to provide more targeted social assistance. The first measure is to improve the income and expenditure survey of the rural households eligible for subsistence allowances, such as optimizing the methods of property review and giving full play to the advantages of the democratic evaluation of neighborhoods, to identify impoverished households more accurately; the second is to promote publicity of policies and innovate the approach to publicity, thus eliminating the difference between the poverty concept of the local members of various ethnic groups and that defined by the rural social assistance system and enhancing the rural residents’ recognition for the principle and value orientation of the system. Third, the connecting mechanism between rural subsistence allowances and special assistance, such as medical assistance, should be improved. Rural residents pay more attention to preferential policies under the subsistence allowance system, namely, the effects of medical assistance on alleviating poverty caused by illness and sharing their heavy payment costs of subscribing to the policy of the new rural cooperative medical insurance. It is suggested to implement multiple income lines (for instance, 125% of the poverty line, 150% of the poverty line and 180% of the poverty line), increase the investment in medical assistance funds and extend the coverage of medical assistance to low-income groups. Fourth, the dynamic adjustment mechanism of the rural subsistence allowance system should be improved, and the initiative of local governments in adjusting the allowances should be enhanced. There are two reasons why local governments should strengthen the initiative: first, as Lancang is located in remote border areas with inconvenient transportation, the prices there stand at a higher level, and the residents there who enjoy the same rural subsistence allowances as other places have lower actual purchasing power. Second, due to the great differences in the basic consumption items and diet structures of all ethnic groups in ethnic minority areas, the government should take into account the differences when defining people’s

406

13 Poverty Reduction Effects of Rural Social …

basic living standards and subsistence allowance standards. Consequently, countylevel civil affairs administrations should fully raise their initiative and enthusiasm when determining local rural subsistence allowance standards and take responsibility for establishing the monitoring mechanism of basic consumption structures for all ethnic groups to promote the guaranteed level of the rural subsistence allowance standard. Fifth, enhancing the effects of the rural social security system on poverty reduction and lessening the pressure of the rural social assistance system on poverty reduction. Measures should be taken to further raise the actual reimbursement rate of the new rural cooperative medical insurance, the basic pension of the new rural social endowment insurance (merging with the social endowment insurance for nonworking urban residents afterwards), and the benefits of projects such as the old age allowance and the nursing subsidy for people with disabilities, thus building a sound social security system on poverty reduction. Sixth, the connecting mechanism between the rural social assistance system and the rural poverty alleviation and development system should be optimized. The first measure is that rural poverty alleviation and development work should give priority to strengthening the skill training of the rural impoverished labor force and enhancing their vocational skills and human capital accumulation. The second is to realize the cobuilding and sharing of the information database of the poor, which can increase the accuracy of identifying impoverished people and households and improve their dynamic management. The third is to open connecting mechanisms for the poor living on rural subsistence allowances to actively engage themselves in poverty alleviation and development. In addition, the government should improve the rural financial service system to ensure the smooth implementation of social assistance benefits and other subsidies benefiting farmers and reduce the cost of the poor to enjoy the above benefits. To solve the problem that the impoverished households formed by means of crossborder marriage fail to obtain social assistance, the government can take the reform of the residence card system at present as an opportunity to strengthen the collaborative innovation of civil affairs administrations and public security departments in the management of the nationalities and household registrations of members from households formed by means of cross-border marriage and simplify the household registration process for them, ensuring that these impoverished households can enjoy the right of rural social assistance equally.

Chapter 14

Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas

Since the Central Ethnic Work Conference in 2014, the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council have paid even more attention to ethnic work and the development of ethnic minority areas. A series of national conferences were held to analyze the new situations and problems of ethnic work and ethnic minority areas and put forth solutions and countermeasures. These efforts boosted the stability and sustained development of ethnic minority areas and clarified the direction and tasks for the areas toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects together with the rest of the country. All government departments and regions, particularly ethnic minority areas themselves, should put more effort into ethnic work and take proactive actions to implement the Five-sphere Integrated Plan (a plan to promote coordinated progress in the political, economic, social, cultural and ecological fields) in ethnic minority areas.

14.1 Ethnic Work and the Stability and Development of Ethnic Minority Areas Receiving Great Attention from the Party and the Government Ethnic work has always received great attention from the Party and government, as China is a unified multinational country. For some time, the prominent problems affecting the stability of some ethnic minority areas exerted a seriously negative impact on the development of all ethnic minority areas. Meanwhile, with China’s economy entering a period of new normal, ethnic minority areas are facing more challenges in economic development. The theoretical controversies concerning ethnic work, represented by the heated discussion on “the second-generation ethnic policy,” have disrupted the mind and morale of the officials and masses in ethnic minority areas to a certain extent. In this context, the Party’s Central Committee and the State Council have been paying close attention to the relevant major issues, such as how to grasp the current situation of ethnic minority areas’ development and ethnic work © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4_14

407

408

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

and how to implement more targeted countermeasures against the main problems of ethnic minority areas’ development and ethnic work in a bid to improve work efficiency and accelerate the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas. Stability and development remain two dominant themes in the work related to ethnic affairs and even all the other aspects in ethnic minority areas, especially in border regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party’s Central Committee has put in place a raft of essential strategies and measures centered on the stability and development of ethnic minority areas in border regions, bolstering the harmonious, stable and comprehensive development of ethnic minority areas. During his visit to the members of the second session of the 12th National Committee of the CPPCC in March 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the ethnic work under the new circumstances must adhere to the correct political direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics.1 Xi Jinping also remarked during his inspection tour to Xinjiang in April 2014 that the major principles and policies made by the Central Committee on the work related to Xinjiang under the new situations must be fully implemented with the focus on maintaining long-term social stability, and coordinated efforts should be made to promote work in all fields to create favorable conditions for Xinjiang to capitalize on historic opportunities and realize leapfrogging development.2 On the second Central Symposium on Xinjiangrelated Work in May 2014, the guiding principles, basic requirements and main targets for work related to Xinjiang were clarified based on the scientific analysis of Xinjiang’s situation, outlining the overall plans for the work concerning Xinjiang at present and in the period to come.3 In June 2014 in Beijing, the NEAC and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly convened a symposium on the development of the capital market in ethnic minority areas to tackle the key problems of lagging development and capital shortages in the financial market system of ethnic minority areas. In September 2014, the Central Committee and the State Council summoned the Central Ethnic Work Conference and the State Council’s Sixth Commendation Conference for Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress to accurately understand the features and patterns of ethnic issues and work under the new circumstances, achieve unity in thoughts, clarify the targets and tasks, boost confidence and resolution and enhance the officials’ competence to deal with ethnic work. At the conference, Xi

1

Xinhua News Agency, “Xi Jinping: Chinese People of All Ethnic Groups Shall Cherish the Political Situation of Ethnic Unity”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2014/3/5/art_31_ 200098.html). 2 Xinhua News Agency, “Xi Jinping’s Inspection to Xinjiang: Ethnic Solidarity is the Foundation for Development and Progress”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2014/5/4/ art_31_203830.html). 3 Xinhua News Agency, “Xi Jinping’s Remarks on the second Central Symposium on Xinjiangrelated Work: Governing Xinjiang According to the Law, Promoting Solidarity and Stability in Xinjiang and Uniting All Ethnic Groups to Build a Socialist Xinjiang on a Long-term Basis”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2014/5/30/art_31_205673.html).

14.1 Ethnic Work and the Stability and Development of Ethnic Minority Areas …

409

Jinping delivered a comprehensive analysis of the domestic and international situations facing China’s ethnic work and elucidated the major principles and policies for the country’s ethnic work at present and in the period to come. Premier Li Keqiang gave a speech on accelerating the development of ethnic minority areas and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The Party’s Central Committee proposed clear tasks and requirements for a series of ethnic work in the new era, including having a clear knowledge of China’s multinational characteristics, handling ethnic relations and ethnic issues appropriately and promoting ethnic unity. Based on the new features of China’s ethnic work at the present stage, Xi highlighted that to accomplish current ethnic work, a correct path with Chinese characteristics to solve ethnic issues in light of reality should be followed unswervingly with a pioneering and innovative spirit. The top-level design should be meticulous, coordinated policies should be put in place, and work arrangements should be prudent and reasonable, thus enhancing the recognition of the great motherland, the Chinese nation, the Chinese culture and socialism with Chinese characteristics by people of all ethnic groups. Regional ethnic autonomy is a fundamental political system in China and the right path with Chinese characteristics to solve problems relating to ethnic minorities. Continuous efforts should be made to combine unification and autonomy, consider both ethnic and regional factors and follow both the Constitution of the PRC and the Law of the PRC on Regional Ethnic Autonomy to help the autonomous regions improve their economy and the livelihood of their people.4 To implement the guiding principles of the central ethnic work conference, in December 2014, the Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work Under New Circumstances”, which proposed 25 opinions from the following six aspects: unswervingly following the correct path with Chinese characteristics to solve ethnic issues, promoting economic and social progress in ethnic minority areas with a focus on improving people’s livelihood, strengthening the exchange and integration among all ethnic groups, fostering a shared spiritual home for all China’s ethnic groups, enhancing the capacity to regulate ethnic affairs according to the law and improving the Party’s leadership over ethnic affairs.5 This document has become an essential guideline for accomplishing the ethnic work in the new era, promoting the stable development of ethnic minority areas and accelerating the building of a moderately prosperous society. The Central Committee again held the Central Conference on United Front Work in May 2015 after an interval of nine years. At the conference, Xi Jinping underscored the importance of united front work and put forward principles, methods, policies and measures for united front work under new circumstances. He also emphasized that Party committees at all levels should ensure the full implementation of the guiding principles of the Central Ethnic Work Conference in 2014 to properly handle the 4

“The Central Ethnic Work Conference and the State Council’s Sixth Commendation Conference for Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress Held in Beijing”, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news. xinhuanet.com/politics/2014-09/29/c_1112683008.htm). 5 “‘Opinions on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work Under New Circumstances’ Issued by the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council”, the website of Xinhuanet (http://news. xinhuanet.com/2014-12/22/c_1113736752.htm).

410

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

work related to ethnic and religious affairs, thus enabling the people of all ethnic groups to live together happily, work together for a common cause, and develop in harmony. The basic principles and tasks for work related to religious affairs were also put up, setting a course for the National Conference on Religious Work in April 2016. The promulgation of the “Regulations of the CPC on United Front Work (for Trial Implementation)” marked that the united front work was put on a legal footing. The Central Conference on United Front Work also specified another major task for ethnic work and the stable development of ethnic minority areas, which was to give top priority to safeguarding and enhancing ethnic solidarity, social stability and national unity. Sun Chunlan, head of the United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee, stated that as China got increasingly stronger international influence, hostile forces abroad stepped up their efforts to use so-called democracy and human rights concerns and matters related to ethnicity, religion, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang as excuses to westernize and split China. By stirring up troubles on China’s ethnic and religious issues, they covertly and overtly supported ethnic separatists, religious extremists and violent terrorists. Using Hong Kong and Taiwan as the weapon to contain China’s development, the hostile forces abroad kept obstructing China’s reunification and threatening its national security and core interests.6 The Central Conference on United Front Work has pointed the way forward in further work concerning ethnic and religious affairs and in the overall orientation and tasks for united front work. Tibet and Xinjiang are of strategic significance as two border provinces with the largest land areas in China, long land borders and many neighboring countries. They also hold an important position in the overall work of the Party and the state, as the two ethnic minority areas have plenty of ethnic groups, higher proportions of ethnic minority population, strong religious atmosphere and their own distinctive ethnic cultures. In August 2015, the Central Committee convened the Sixth National Symposium on Work in Tibet, where Xi Jinping, based on his important strategic idea that “to govern the country well we must first govern the frontiers well, and to govern the frontiers well we must first ensure stability in Tibet,” further put forward the guideline of “governing Tibet according to law, promoting the prosperity of the Tibetan people and the region on a long-term basis, increasing cohesion and building a solid foundation,” which has been the major principle for the work concerning Tibet by the Central Committee since the 18th National Congress. The government should adhere to the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy”7 and the Party’s strategies to govern Tibet and focus on national unity and ethnic solidarity in its work. Incessant

6

Sun Chunlan, “Scientific Guidance and Action Plan for United Front Work Under New Circumstances—Learning and Implementing the Guiding Principles of the Central Conference on United Front Work”, People’s Daily, June 4, 2015. 7 The “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy” refers to China’s strategic plan for building socialism with Chinese characteristics, that is, to make comprehensive moves to complete a moderately prosperous society in all respects, to further reform, to advance the rule of law, and to strengthen Party self-governance.

14.1 Ethnic Work and the Stability and Development of Ethnic Minority Areas …

411

efforts should be made to fight against separatists, boost economic and social development, guarantee and improve people’s wellbeing, promote the exchange and integration among all ethnic groups and ensure national security and long-term stability, sustainable, sound economic and social progress, increasingly better material and cultural lives for all Chinese people and a good ecological environment. Li Keqiang remarked at the symposium that Tibet must adhere to the “Five Combinations”8 to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects together with the rest of the country.9 In September 2015, the fifth National Conference on Work Related to Pairing-up Support for Xinjiang proposed the key tasks and breakthrough points of the pairing-up support work for Xinjiang during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2011–2015). The Outline of the Thirteenth Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development formulated by the Central Committee in November 2015 made it clear that transfer payments to old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas and poor areas should be increased and efforts should be focused on these areas in the battle against poverty, indicating the determination of the CPC Central Committee to “build a moderately prosperous society with no ethnic group being left behind.” To provide guidance and support for the stable, comprehensive development of ethnic minority areas and raise awareness of ethnic solidarity, the Central Committee and state authorities have issued a series of policies and regulations. The “Measures of the NEAC for the Administration of Bilingual Personnel Training Bases (for Trial Implementation)”, which came into effect in January 2014, introduced specific approaches to improving the bilingual ability of personnel in public departments in ethnic minority areas. According to the document, the bases aim to foster ethnic language translators for people at the primary level, train bilingual talents for ethnic minority areas and for Party and government bodies, militaries, armed police forces and other departments and units relating to ethnic minorities, and develop bilingual teachers for ethnic minority areas.10 In July 2014, the document of the “Opinions of the NEAC on Launching Campaigns for Promoting Ethnic Solidarity and Progress in Institutions, Enterprises, Communities, Township (Town) Schools and Temples” was issued to offer more comprehensive guidance for innovating the work related to ethnic solidarity. In June 2015, the NEAC and the Ministry of Public Security rolled out the “Measures for the Administration of the Ethnic Composition Registration of Chinese Citizens,” which further standardized the management work of citizens’ 8

The “Five Combinations” refers to combining efforts on five aspects: upholding both the principle of relying on and serving the people and the oversight over the key few leading officials; focusing on both ideological work and institution building in the political work of the Party; combining democracy and centralism; and drawing upon both fine traditional Chinese culture and achievements of the cultures of other countries. 9 Xinhua News Agency, “Xi Jinping’s Remarks at the Sixth National Symposium on Work in Tibet by the CPC Central Committee: Accelerating the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in Tibet”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/8/26/art_31_235130.html). 10 Department of Education and Technology of the NEAC, “Measures of the NEAC for the Administration of Bilingual Personnel Training Bases (for Trial Implementation)”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2013/12/18/art_142_196990.html).

412

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

ethnic composition. In August 2015, the State Council published the “Decision of the State Council on Expediting the Development of Minority Education” (No. 46 [2015] of the State Council) to further narrow the large gap between the overall education level of ethnic minority areas and the national average. The Decision stated that the development of education should uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China, narrow the development gap, put equal emphasis on the structure and quality, introduce both preferential and special policies and govern education according to law. Furthermore, it also formulated the development goal of “gradually ensuring equal access to basic public education services by making the overall development level and main indicators of education in ethnic minority areas approach or reach the national average level in 2020.”11 In December 2015, to support the development and opening up of major border areas, the document of “Opinions of the State Council on Several Policies and Measures for Supporting the Development and Opening-up of Major Border Areas” was issued, in which specific measures were put forward to thoroughly promote the program of prospering border areas and enriching the inhabitants therein and realize the stability and prosperity of border areas. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, especially from 2014 to 2015, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have continued intensifying the ethnic work and the development of ethnic minority areas, a phenomenon rarely seen in the past. With the care and support of the CPC Central Committee, the governments in ethnic minority areas made great efforts to strengthen the implementation of the “Five-sphere Integrated Plan,” especially the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects based on the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy” and the “Five Development Concepts” of innovation, harmonization, green, openness and sharing proposed on the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC, with the efforts typically demonstrated in the fight against poverty. In the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy,” the most direct goal is to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, and the key to achieving the goal lies in whether ethnic minority areas and ethnic minorities can shake off poverty as scheduled. Therefore, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have put ethnic work and the development of ethnic minority areas in the most prominent place. The efforts in this aspect are fully reflected in the formulation of poverty alleviation plans and basic principles for work in Xinjiang and Tibet and in the construction of demonstration zones for ethnic solidarity and progress.

11

The State Council, “Decision of the State Council on Expediting the Development of Minority Education”, the website of the Central People’s Government of the PRC (http://www.gov.cn/zhe ngce/content/2015-08/17/content_10097.htm).

14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan …

413

14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects in Ethnic Minority Areas Since the 18th National Congress, the CPC Central Committee, against the backdrop of the comprehensive and deeper reforms, has strengthened the top-level design in political development. A variety of new concepts, viewpoints, ideas and measures for governing the country have been put in place in the political work of ethnic minority areas, bringing out a new look for local political development. With the in-depth implementation of the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy,” political work in ethnic minority areas has seen a clearer orientation, a more prominent focus and an increasingly distinct development roadmap. The “Assessment Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2012–2015)” shows that the right of ethnic minorities to participate in managing state and social affairs on an equal basis is guaranteed in accordance with the law. All 55 minority groups have deputies at the NPC, and minority groups with a population of over one million all have their own members at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Furthermore, all 155 ethnic autonomous areas have citizens from the ethnic groups exercising regional autonomy acting as directors or deputy directors in their standing committees of people’s congresses. The chairpersons of autonomous regions, governors of autonomous prefectures and heads of autonomous counties are all citizens from the ethnic groups exercising regional autonomy of the said areas. The proportion of civil servants from ethnic groups in the national total is higher than that of the ethnic minority population in the national total.12 In addition, the CPPCC at all levels in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions engaged a wide range of representatives from different sectors of society and varied ethnic groups, improved people’s capacity for participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs and widened the channels for participating in politics from 2014 to 2015. In addition, since 2013, the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions and other ethnic autonomous areas have seen the governance capabilities of Party organizations be continuously improved, theoretical, organizational and institution building strengthened, the Party’s leading bodies improved and the number of Party members increased. Moreover, the Central Ethnic Work Conference in 2014 reaffirmed the importance and legitimate status of the system of regional ethnic autonomy. Responding to the requirement of improving the basic system of the country, the organs of state power, the Central People’s Government and its functionary departments, centering on developing the economy and improving people’s livelihood, actively promoted the healthy operation of the system of regional ethnic autonomy. With regard to the development of grassroots democracy in ethnic minority areas, 12

Department of Policies and Regulations of the NEAC, “Fulfilling Targets and Tasks Set by the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2012–2015) as Scheduled and Effectively Protecting the Rights and Interests of Ethnic Minorities”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/ art/2016/6/15/art_31_257258.html).

414

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

residents committees and villagers’ committees were generally established as local autonomous institutions in the urban and rural areas of ethnic minority areas and achieved orderly governance at the primary level through “self-management, selfeducation and self-service.” Moreover, the dominant members of local villagers’ committees are elected through democratic procedures. From 2014 to 2015, with a strongly growing momentum, the economy in ethnic minority areas saw its growth rate be far higher than the national average and rank among the top in the country, becoming a new highlight in the “new normal” phase of economic growth. Driven by major strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), new-type urbanization and integrated development of regional economies, the continuously accumulating benefits of the reform and opening up in ethnic minority areas brought out positive changes in the economic structure. During the same period, ethnic minority areas witnessed their development outpace that of the whole country and the western region, and their overall strength was enormously enhanced. Furthermore, the industrial structure was gradually transformed during development, with the primary industry developing steadily, the proportion of the secondary industry declining and that of the tertiary industry growing considerably. Fixed-asset investment was still the main driver for economic growth in ethnic minority areas. With fiscal revenue and expenditures in ethnic minority areas increasing, fiscal expenditures were constantly raised on reform and development, people’s livelihood, education and other key areas. Amid the continuous advancement of urbanization in ethnic minority areas, the incomes of urban and rural residents were boosted substantially, with the growth in the disposable income of rural residents generally higher than that of urban residents. Attaching great importance to improving the development capabilities of ethnic minorities in border areas, the Central Government, for prospering border areas and enriching the inhabitants therein, allocated a total of RMB 6.1 billion as subsidies and earmarked a total of RMB 4 billion for investment in its budget from 2011 to 2014. With the economic development capacity dramatically enhanced, the border areas saw its output value total RMB 946.1 billion, and its average annual growth rate during the 12th Five-Year Plan period was higher than the national average and that of the Eastern and Central regions in 2014. From the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan period, the public budget income increased by 134.6% to RMB 81.5 billion, and the fixed-asset investment rose by 90.6% to RMB 769.7 billion. Further breaking the traffic bottleneck, the border areas witnessed 46,768 km of newly built roads, and the number of counties connected to expressways increased from 18 to 46.13 Alongside the development of the “Five-sphere Integrated Plan” and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, poverty alleviation and development are also important strategic measures put in place in ethnic minority areas. As impoverished people are increasingly concentrated in the western region, especially in ethnic minority areas, growing poverty alleviation funds from 13

“New Impetus to Enabling Border Areas to Keep in Line with the Country in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in all Respects Through the Program of Prospering Border Areas and Enriching the Inhabitants Therein—An Interview with Luo Liming, Deputy Director of the NEAC”, China Ethnic News, December 15th, 2015.

14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan …

415

the country and society are pooled into various poverty alleviation programs. From 2011 to 2015, the special poverty alleviation funds from the central government increased from RMB 27.2 billion to RMB 46.745 billion, an average annual increase of approximately 18%.14 With various entities participating in poverty reduction, the effects of poverty alleviation and development in ethnic minority areas were continuously reinforced. The impoverished population in the five autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang and the three provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai dropped from 31.21 million in 2012 to 18.13 million in 2015.15 From 2014 to 2015, the scale of poverty in ethnic minority areas was reduced, the rate of poverty alleviation was faster than the national average, and the production and living conditions of social members and the social undertakings in ethnic minority areas were improved dramatically. Moreover, the effect of social assistance on poverty reduction came into play, and the sense of fulfillment of the poor was enhanced from the anti-poverty through social security. New achievements have been made in the development of social programs in ethnic minority areas. First, ethnic minority areas have made great progress in science and technology. The absolute number of R&D personnel increased from 123,000 in 2010 to 160,000 in 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 9.2%; the expenditure on R&D reached the average annual growth rate of 20.2% from 2010 to 2013. Second, minority education has achieved rapid development. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the number of all full-time teachers except for those teaching primary school children in ethnic minority areas had a much higher annual growth rate than that in the whole country. The country has attached great importance to the equal development of education in ethnic minority areas. From 2012 to 2015, the country launched the construction project of senior high schools in the counties with weak educational infrastructure in ethnic minority areas and supported the construction of 318 senior high schools in these areas. In the same period, higher education institutions directly under the NEAC planned a total enrollment of over 124,000 undergraduates, including more than 46,000 from the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. Higher education institutions affiliated with other central government departments and local higher education institutions planned a total enrollment of over 185,000 ethnic minority students in preparatory classes. In terms of the training of teaching faculties, from 2012 to 2015, the country implemented the middle and western China projects and kindergarten teacher projects under the “National Cultivation Plan,” the Free Normal Education program, and the “Plan of Cultivation of Postgraduate Teachers in Rural Education.” Between 2011 and 2015, 528 projects in aiding Xinjiang education were carried out, with an investment of RMB 10.8 billion. As of 2015, the number of various projects to support education in Tibet had reached 405, with the funding adding up to RMB 938 million, and the number of various projects 14

“How to spend hundreds of billions of poverty relief funds?”, the website of Xinhuanet (http:// news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-12/08/c_1117394491.htm). 15 Policy and Regulations Department of the NEAC, “Fulfilling Targets on Schedule to Guarantee the Rights of Ethnic Minorities Stipulated in the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2012–2015)”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2016/6/15/art_31_257258. html).

416

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

providing education aid to Qinghai had achieved 134, with the total funding of RMB 670 million.16 Third, medical service conditions and capabilities have been gradually improved. In the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions, the number of medical institutions, the number of health care technicians and the total number of hospital beds mostly had higher annual growth rates than the national total between 2011 and 2014. The number of health care technicians per 1,000 people in ethnic minority areas is on the rise, and the gap between the numbers in these areas and the whole country is narrowing. Fourth, investment in and coverage of social security have been expanding. From 2011 to 2014, the investment in social security in ethnic minority areas increased for several years in a row. For example, the average annual growth rate of the 12 western provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) was 13.1%, higher than both the rate of the Eastern region and that of the whole country. With the implementation of the Social Insurance Law of the PRC and the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure, the number of people participating in social insurance in ethnic minority areas continues to increase, and thus, an increasing number of people are covered by social insurance. During the 12th FiveYear Plan period, the number of insured individuals in the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents, the basic endowment insurance system for the urban working group, the social endowment insurance system for rural residents and nonworking urban residents, and the new rural cooperative medical insurance system had average annual growth rates of 6.8%, 5.5%, 4.1% and 0.6%, respectively, in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions. The urban and rural subsistence allowance system has basically realized that “all residents entitled to the cost of subsistence allowances receive them,” and the number of people receiving social assistance in urban and rural areas has stabilized. In terms of ecological civilization construction, as the restoration projects of ecological functions and major ecological projects are pushed forward, ethnic minority areas have invested more and more funds in ecological restoration, emission reduction and pollution control, and the construction of ecologically functional zones and ecological reserves, and thus the governance effects on ecosystems have gradually emerged. According to the statistics, six of the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2014 witnessed an increase in the rate of harmless disposal of municipal solid waste. In the same year, ethnic minority areas saw a decrease in the total emission volume of the main water and air pollutants and the volume of pollutant emissions per RMB 100 million of GDP, illustrating that the optimization of the pollutant emissions in the areas was on an upward trend. In ethnic minority areas, the proportions of both the total investments in the treatment of industrial pollution and forestry and the investments in their specific projects in the national total all exceeded those of GDP in the national total. Since 2014, the investment in the governance and protection of the ecological environment in the areas has been higher than that in other areas of the country. In 2014, the number of nature reserves in ethnic minority areas reached 643, with a total area of 101.065 million hectares, which accounted for approximately 80% of the national total area. The results of the 16

Ibid.

14.2 New Progress in Implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan …

417

third-party evaluation also demonstrate that in 2014, the levels of ecological civilization construction (namely, GECI) in all eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions except for Ningxia and Xinjiang were higher than the national average.17 With regard to the cultural protection of ethnic minorities, the cultural development of ethnic minority areas in recent years has made rapid progress in fields such as the protection of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and ethnic minority villages with cultural significance, the cultural industry, the “go global” strategy of Chinese culture, and public cultural services. According to the statistics, by the end of 2015, nine natural and cultural sites scattered in ethnic minority areas, including the Potala Palace, had been added to the World Cultural Heritage List. A total of 18 ethnic minority projects, such as Uygur Muqam of Xinjiang and Qiang New Year Festivals, were registered on the “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of the ICH of Humanity” and the “List of ICH in Need of Urgent Safeguarding”, respectively. In the four national representative lists of ICH and the four national lists of representative inheritors of ICH that have been made public, the total numbers of representative ethnic minority heritage items and inheritors and their proportions in the national total all have increased rapidly. The book series of explanatory notes on ancient books of ethnic minorities, entitled Synopsis on the General Catalog of Ancient Books of Ethnic Minority Groups of China, was published in 2014.18 Regarding the preservation and promotion of ethnic minority villages with cultural significance, by 2015, the country had organized and implemented 1,000 pilot projects of ethnic minority villages with cultural significance, which directly benefited hundreds of thousands of people of more than 40 ethnic minority groups and covered most ethnic minority areas geographically.19 In terms of the cultural industry, in January 2015, the Ministry of Culture of the PRC (MOC) carried out the work in collecting the cultural industrial projects of 2015, which piloted the collection of major cultural industrial projects of the BRI for the first time. The MOC has selected eight provinces and autonomous regions along the Belt and Road—Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Hainan and Guangxi—as pilot areas to take the lead in collecting the major cultural industrial projects of the BRI.20 From the perspective of public cultural services, after the country issued the policy of the government procurement of social services, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and other provinces and autonomous regions immediately released the guiding catalog regarding the government procurement of public cultural services from private actors, consisting of five categories and 38 kinds of projects. 17

Yan Geng et al., China Ecological Civilization Construction Progress Report 2014, Peking University Press, 2015, pp. 39–52. 18 Department of Policy and Regulations of the NEAC, “Fulfilling Targets and Tasks Set by the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2012–2015) as Scheduled and Effectively Protecting the Rights and Interests of Ethnic Minorities”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/ art/2016/6/15/art_31_257258.html). 19 Wang Tian, “Symposium on the Protection and Development of Ethnic Minority Villages with Cultural Significance”, China Ethnic News, November 27th, 2015. 20 “The Ministry of Culture Pilots the Collection of Major Cultural Industrial Projects of the BRI”, China Ethnic News, February 6th, 2015.

418

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

This measure has gradually boosted the supply of public cultural services in ethnic minority areas. In the “go global” strategy of Chinese culture, ethnic minority areas have taken the strategy of the BRI as an opportunity to spread and publicize the colorful ethnic cultures all over the world by issuing special plans or organizing performances and exhibitions.

14.3 Great Confidence of Urban and Rural Residents in Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects Between 2014 and 2015, China ushered in the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan and began to lay a solid foundation for its implementation. Although the economic growth rates of the country fell to single digits and the national economy was in a relatively flat growth, the rates were basically the same as those of all the years during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. The economic growth rates of ethnic minority areas, especially the rates of the least developed provinces and autonomous regions such as Tibet and Guizhou, were higher than the national total, which provided a more solid material foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the areas. In addition, ethnic minority areas enjoyed more coordinated development in public services, social governance, cultural development and ecological civilization construction, and the progress made in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects was witnessed by all, further strengthening the confidence of urban and rural residents. According to the analysis of household questionnaires of the “Comprehensive Survey of the Economic and Social Development of China’s Ethnic Areas at the Beginning of the 21st Century” (referred to as the “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas”) in 2014 and 2015, the respondents of all ethnic groups in ethnic minority areas have high levels of confidence in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. The “Survey of Ethnic Minority Areas” in 2014 and 2015 collected a total of 12,703 valid household questionnaires, the sampling areas of which covered 30 counties and cities from 12 provinces and autonomous regions, namely, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. The samples of the door-to-door household survey are selected according to random systematic sampling. The sample data show that urban and rural residents are confident that the CPC and the Chinese government can achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.21 On the whole, 83% of the respondents express confidence in the attainment of the goal (none of the respondents in Tibet believes that it is impossible for Tibet to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, that is to say, the proportion reaches up to 100%); nine percent of the respondents are 21

Wang Yanzhong and Ding Sai, Survey Questionnaire Analysis 2013·Comprehensive Volume, China Social Sciences Press, 2015.

14.3 Great Confidence of Urban and Rural Residents …

419

Table 14.1 Confidence level of the respondents in different ethnic minority areas in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects from 2014 to 2015 (unit: %) Very confident

Confident

Not too confident

Impossible

Never heard

Total number of samples

Inner Mongolia

38

44

11

1

5

100 (1303)

Jilin

27

50

15

1

6

100 (454)

Zhejiang

27

54

7

1

12

100 (424)

Hubei

22

53

22

2

1

100 (427)

Guangxi

19

69

7

1

3

100 (1190)

Hainan

25

51

13

2

8

100 (393)

Sichuan

19

50

14

5

10

100 (892)

Yunnan

24

57

12

3

5

100 (1269)

Tibet

55

41

2

0

2

100 (1888)

Qinghai

21

44

11

3

21

100 (828)

Ningxia

40

46

7

1

5

100 (842)

Xinjiang

27

59

8

1

5

100 (1982)

Total

31

52

9

2

6

100 (11,892)

not too confident; only two percent of the respondents think it is impossible to achieve the goal; and six percent of the respondents never heard of the slogan or goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the local areas by 2020. The proportions of respondents who felt very confident in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia were much higher than those in other ethnic minority areas. In addition, in all these areas except for Sichuan and Qinghai, more than 75% of the respondents showed confidence in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the local areas by 2020 (see Table 14.1). From the perspective of ethnicity, respondents of all ethnic groups had relatively high levels of confidence in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the local areas by 2020. The proportion of the respondents who hold that it is impossible to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects is low, less than five percent in most ethnic groups; the proportion reaches six percent only among Yi respondents in Sichuan. The proportions of the respondents of the Korean ethnic group and the Tujia respondents who feel not too confident are both 22%, which is relatively higher than other ethnic groups (see Table 14.2). It is indicated that, in the comparison of horizontal development level, ethnic minorities in the Central region and ethnic autonomous areas of the Northeastern region still have concerns about whether the regions they reside in can build a moderately prosperous society in all respects comparable to other regions on schedule. Therefore, enhancing the fairness of ethnic policies and resource distribution in supportive development and

420

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

Table 14.2 Confidence level of the respondents of different ethnic groups in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects from 2014 to 2015 (unit: %) Very confident

Confident

Not too confident

Impossible

Never heard

Total

Han

27

53

13

2

6

100 (3512)

Mongolian

42

39

11

2

7

100 (276)

Hui

41

48

6

0

4

100 (854)

Tibetan

47

42

3

2

6

100 (2406)

Uygur

33

58

4

1

5

100 (316)

Miao

18

67

8

0

7

100 (203)

Yi

27

40

12

6

15

100 (430)

Zhuang

27

63

7

1

1

100 (363)

Korean

24

46

22

0

8

100 (83)

Dong

16

72

8

1

3

100 (137)

Yao

17

71

6

1

6

100 (339)

Bai

34

55

11

0

0

100 (56)

Tujia

24

50

22

1

2

100 (294)

Hani

15

78

5

0

2

100 (87)

Kazak

23

65

5

0

8

100 (371)

Li

30

53

10

0

6

100 (205)

Lisu

31

51

13

1

4

100 (149)

She

28

54

7

2

10

100 (61)

Lahu

11

66

14

0

10

100 (167)

Naxi

38

43

14

3

3

100 (37)

Kirgiz

30

60

4

0

5

100 (271)

Daur

23

57

14

2

4

100 (177)

Qiang

11

66

16

2

5

100 (349)

Salar

26

47

10

2

15

100 (374)

Nu

37

55

4

0

3

100 (92)

Dulong

33

56

6

3

3

100 (79)

Other ethnic groups

26

50

15

2

7

100 (204)

Total

31

52

9

2

6

100 (11,892)

development-oriented poverty alleviation is the main focus of completing ethnic work in these areas. In addition, more attention should be given to the relatively high proportions of the respondents of Yi, Salar, Lahu, She, and other ethnic groups who never heard of the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the local areas. This means that it is necessary to further increase the publicity of the goal at the primary level, especially to ethnic minorities in remote Western ethnic minority

14.3 Great Confidence of Urban and Rural Residents …

421

areas, reinforce the awareness of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and unite people’s hearts and minds to enhance the confidence of all ethnic groups to unite as one and become prosperous together. The author further analyzes the confidence level of urban and rural residents in ethnic minority areas in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in accordance with the dimensions such as respondents’ age, education level, household registration (in urban or rural areas), and occupation. In terms of age, the proportions of the respondents of all age groups who feel confident exceed 80%, and the confidence level of older respondents is higher than that of younger respondents. Of the respondents aged 29 and below, 14% hold attitudes of “Not too confident” or “Impossible”, while this proportion is only seven percent among the respondents aged 60 and above. In terms of education level, the proportion of the respondents with a college degree or above who feel confident is relatively low, which is 79%, and these proportions of the respondents in the three categories of primary school and below, junior high school, and senior high school are 84%, 85%, and 84%, respectively. The higher the education level is, the higher the proportion of respondents who have attitudes of “Not too confident” or “Impossible” in building a moderately prosperous society by 2020. This proportion of the respondents with a college degree and above is 19%, and the proportions of the respondents of the three categories mentioned above are 12%, 10%, and 17%, respectively. The causes of this kind of difference are worth further analysis. From the attitudes of urban and rural residents, there is not much difference between the proportions of urban and rural respondents who feel confident, and the proportion of rural residents is slightly higher than that of urban residents. The proportion of urban residents who are not too confident or think this goal is impossible to achieve (15%) is higher than that of rural residents (nine percent) by six percentage points. In building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the local areas by 2020, the proportions of the respondents in different occupations who show confidence fluctuate between 77 and 86%, the gaps in which are small. The confidence level of urban and rural residents in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects reflects the rapid economic and social development of ethnic minority areas in recent years and has laid a solid mass foundation for the future work in these areas, especially for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The rapid development of ethnic minority areas from 2014 to 2015 is the result of the regional Party committees and governments implementing the central government’s Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy, and it is also the result of increased investment, continuous innovation of working methods, and comprehensive coordination and promotion of various tasks. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, especially after the Central Ethnic Work Conference, the economic and social development and ethnic work in ethnic minority areas have achieved remarkable results, and the foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas has been further consolidated.

422

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

14.4 Severe Challenges Facing Ethnic Minority Areas in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects While achieving the Five-sphere Integrated Plan in ethnic minority areas, due to the influence of many factors, China still faces severe challenges in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and in ethnic work. The challenges that ethnic minority areas face in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects are specifically reflected in the problems and constraints confronted by the five-in-one development of politics, economy, society, culture and ecology in ethnic minority areas. 1. Anti-poverty tasks in ethnic minority areas remain heavy According to the statistics, of the 680 counties in the 14 national contiguous impoverished regions, 371 are located in the ethnic autonomous areas, accounting for 54.6%; among the 592 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, 263 counties are located in ethnic autonomous areas, accounting for 44.4%; of the 30,000 poor villages identified in the “Whole Village Advancement in Poverty Alleviation and Development During the 12th Five-Year Plan Period,” 13,158 villages are located in ethnic autonomous areas, accounting for 43.9%.22 From the perspective of poverty in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions in 2015, the proportion of the rural poor accounted for 32.5% of the national total, a slight increase from 31.4% in 2014 and 1.1 percentage points higher. The poverty reduction rate in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions was 17.8%, slower than the national poverty reduction rate in the same period, which reached 20.6%. The proportion of the rural poor in the eight ethnic minority provinces in the rural population, namely, the poverty headcount ratio, was 12.1%, which was 6.4 percentage points higher than that of the whole country (5.7%). Against the background of China’s economic slowdown, poverty reduction in ethnic minority areas is becoming increasingly difficult. The poverty reduction rate in ethnic minority areas is slowing down as that in the whole country is, but it is slowing down at an accelerated speed. At present, ethnic minority areas are still the focus and main battlefield of China’s poverty alleviation and development. Anti-poverty efforts in ethnic minority areas are currently facing the following problems and challenges. First, the poverty-stricken areas in ethnic minority areas are located in ecologically vulnerable areas where natural disasters can cause a relatively high risk of sinking back into poverty for poor households. Second, a large gap still exists in the allocation of basic public services in ethnic minority areas; weak infrastructure and a single industrial structure restrict the effective improvement of the poor population’s own development capabilities. Third, ethnic minority areas still have a large population and a wide range of areas in 22

China Ethnic News, “Commentator of the China Ethnic News: Ethnic Minority Areas Bust Be Included in the Complete Victory in the Fight Against Poverty-Volume I On Studying and Implementing the Spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC”, the website of the NEAC (http://www.seac.gov.cn/art/2015/11/3/art_31_241642.html).

14.4 Severe Challenges Facing Ethnic Minority Areas …

423

poverty, as well as the internal difference of poverty. How to implement the fair and targeted allocation of poverty alleviation resources is a difficult problem that needs to be addressed. Fourth, the problem of insufficient participation of poor farmers and herdsmen still exists in the current development-oriented poverty alleviation programs led by the government, which restricts the performance of poverty alleviation policies. Fifth, the government’s funding for development-oriented poverty alleviation projects is still insufficient, and the poverty alleviation resources are not distributed fairly between poor households and those with low income, resulting in poor people not benefiting much from these projects. Sixth, the financial mechanism of various developing projects requires county-level public finance to provide supporting funds, which restricts both the willingness of poverty-stricken counties in ethnic minority areas to apply for the projects and the implementation of poverty alleviation projects. Seventh, anti-poverty policies in ethnic minority areas have not yet formed an anti-poverty synergy because educational support policies, social security systems, population policies, basic public services and other policies that can produce anti-poverty effects from different perspectives and levels have failed to coordinate and promote each other. 2. Insufficient social development in ethnic minority areas has obvious constraints on regional and personal development The current level of social development in ethnic minority areas has made significant progress vertically, but from the perspective of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, there is still a large gap in the level of social development compared with the Eastern and the Central regions. From the perspective of technological innovation, the level of scientific research in ethnic minority areas is relatively backward, and the technology market turnover in these areas is relatively low. In recent years, the technology market turnover in the eight ethnic provinces and autonomous regions has accounted for less than five percent of the country, far below that in the Eastern and the Central regions. In terms of education, although the number of teachers in higher education and secondary vocational education has increased steadily, secondary vocational education is still short of teachers. Many indicators of education in these areas are still far from those in other regions and the national average, which restricts the cultivation of top-quality talent. In terms of medical and health care services, the gap between ethnic minority areas and other regions is narrowing in indicators such as the number of medical professionals, the number of hospital beds, the number of medical institutions, the new rural cooperative medical insurance system and the basic medical insurance system for nonworking urban residents. However, the scattered residences of ethnic minorities and the inconvenient transportation in ethnic minority areas result in low convenience for residents in these areas to obtain medical services, especially in remote ethnic minority areas where the cost of obtaining high-quality medical services for rural residents is too high. The allocation of effective medical resources at the primary level is still inadequate, leading to the growing phenomenon that an increasing number of residents in ethnic minority areas fall into or sink back into poverty due to illness. For infrastructure construction, classified roads are still not popularized in most ethnic minority

424

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

areas. Although the project of extending the coverage of roads to all villages has been implemented, the low traffic rate and serious road safety problems also restrict urban and rural residents’ travel. The construction of the Internet and express delivery is still lagging behind, which not only restricts residents in remote ethnic minority areas from obtaining external information and knowledge but also limits the external transportation of agricultural products. The high transportation cost is a restraint of the sale of agricultural products, which forms the high prices in ethnic minority areas. 3. Ethnic minority areas still lack strong internal and external momentum for economic development Since 2014, ethnic minority areas have achieved rapid economic growth, but they still lag far behind developed areas in the overall economy due to poor local conditions and a weak foundation for economic development. Specifically, there are several aspects. First, ethnic minority areas possess a small aggregate economy that cannot reach the levels of the Central and Eastern regions. Second, the tertiary industrial structure needs to be further improved. The proportion of the primary industry in all industries of ethnic minority areas is higher than the national average level, while the proportion of tertiary industry is lower than the national average level. Third, fixed-asset investment still serves as the momentum of economic growth in ethnic minority areas, but the growth speed there is getting slower with a single economic driver. Fourth, although both the fiscal revenue and spending of ethnic minority areas are growing stably, there exists increasing pressure between them, which restricts the sustainable development and the expanded reproduction of the regional economy. Fifth, the unsound financial service system renders local economic development vulnerable to fund shortages, which restricts the implementation and expansion of projects. The unsound system also brings about the relatively low efficiency of resource use, which restricts the overall effectiveness of local economic development. Sixth, the laborers in ethnic minority areas lack vocational skills and professional knowledge, which hinders the adjustment of local industrial structure and the transformation and upgrading of local enterprises, resulting in the insufficient motivation of the economy to achieve self-innovation and self-development. 4. Insufficient effectiveness of ecological environmental governance impedes sustainable social and economic development Since the beginning of the 21st century, governments at all levels have input substantial funds to improve the ecological environment and the ecological civilization construction of ethnic minority areas. However, the situation that ethnic minority areas lag behind other areas of China does not change. Compared with other areas, ethnic minority areas are faced with greater double pressure of developing society and economy and protecting the ecological environment. Studies suggest that in 2014, the emission reduction and pollution optimization in ethnic minority areas lagged behind the national average level, and the emissions of wastewater and waste gas per unit of RMB 100 million total output value in most ethnic provinces were higher than the national average. In addition, ethnic minority areas are vulnerable to being

14.4 Severe Challenges Facing Ethnic Minority Areas …

425

haunted by natural disasters, which present a vicious cycle of mutual inducements with environmental degradation. With regard to the dynamics between economic development and environmental protection, optimizing the industrial structure and energy consumption structure, reducing pollutant emissions and improving the optimization of pollutant emissions are common problems facing ethnic minority areas. The fragile ecological environment and weak sustainable development influence each other, and they are the most difficult problems for ethnic minority areas to achieve future development. 5. The one-sided preservation and protection of traditional culture in ethnic minority areas In the process of developing the cultural industry of ethnic minority areas, the relationship between the preservation and the development of ethnic culture needs to be clarified. Due to the pursuit of economic development and material gains and the lack of basic knowledge of local culture, the phenomenon featuring remolding or fabricating ICH and ethnic culture in the process of developing tourism resources is common. Moreover, in the process of developing ethnic cultural industry, some problems, such as insufficient support for private organizations that develop ethnic cultural industry and the shortage of coordination mechanisms within cultural industry management departments to manage the efficiency of fund use, often occur. In regard to the construction of villages with cultural significance, the governmentled protection work only focuses on the outer form of the villages, such as distinctive buildings, but entirely neglects or pays less attention to the “people” within these villages and their life. In view of the protection of ICH in ethnic minority areas, governments at all levels have input more materials and manpower and have made great achievements. However, in the actual declaration of ICH, the phenomena of the fragmented protection of cultural ecology and of “paying more attention to declaration than protection” are still common. The fragmented declaration and protection cannot achieve the expected protection effect, but worse, they would damage the balance of cultural ecology and rob the vitality of ICH projects. The projects that have been included in the World Cultural Heritage List are commonly put on the stage or used for commercialization, which twists in different degrees the original form of ICH projects. In addition, there exists another problem for ethnic minority areas in the protection of ethnic culture; that is, the fund for protecting ICH projects is not effectively utilized. With regard to the development of public cultural services, some problems relating to the public culture supply system may emerge, including the thick administration vibe in conceiving how to supply public cultural services, the single channel for supplying public cultural services, the mismatch between the content of the supply and the cultural needs of ethnic minorities, and the inconvenience for ethnic minorities to receive public cultural services. 6. The management and service abilities of urban ethnic work need to be enhanced At the Central Ethnic Work Conference, it was proposed that “the focus of ethnic work was inclining to cities and urban management and service would encounter

426

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

more ethnic factors.” As laborers of ethnic groups move to cities for work or flow across regions with the companion of their family members, the poor management and service abilities of urban ethnic work become more obvious. Specifically, there are five main shortcomings. First, some regions lack adequate awareness of urban ethnic work; in other words, urban ethnic work has gained less attention. Second, the departments about urban ethnic work in some regions get “marginalized”, which leads to the lack of effective subjects in the proceeding of local urban ethnic work. Third, communities lack strength in dealing with ethnic work and cannot adapt to the downward trend of urban ethnic work or provide effective management and service. Fourth, the promotion of law-based urban ethnic work is going ahead at a relatively low speed, which impedes the proceeding of work. Fifth, the mobile population of ethnic minority groups may find it hard in in-flow places to receive basic public services in aspects such as employment, religion, education and medical care, which makes it difficult for them to integrate into local society.

14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of Ethnic Minority Areas and the Construction of a Moderately Prosperous Society To promote the innovation of ethnic work in ethnic minority areas, improve the effectiveness of ethnic work, and in the end advance the sustainable and healthy development of ethnic minority areas and the construction of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the fairness of supporting the development of both ethnic minority groups and ethnic minority areas should be improved from the perspective of perfecting the policies on ethnic affairs, and the modernization of the governance of primary-level governments should be enhanced from the perspective of the “Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy.” In addition, enhancing the modernization of the governance ability of the governments of ethnic minority areas should be integrated into the specific work of pushing ahead the “Five-sphere Integrated Plan.” To pursue innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, primary-level governments should work harder on the promotion of law-based ethnic work and administration, on the sorting of the coordinated development system and mechanism and on the advancement of the supply-side structural reform of the basic public services that are beneficial to ethnic minority groups. In general, strengthening ethnic work and promoting the healthy development of ethnic minority areas serve as systematic projects. From multiple perspectives and levels and through multiple channels, supporting policies should be implemented, and supporting resources should be input in a targeted and effective manner to benefit both ethnic minority areas and ethnic minority groups. Specifically, during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the following measures from different aspects can be taken to promote the innovation and sustainable development of ethnic work in ethnic minority areas.

14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development …

427

1. Improving policies on ethnic affairs and enhancing the governance ability of ethnic minority areas from the perspective of the combination of ethnic and regional factors At present, ethnic problems in essence are problems concerning the development of ethnic minority areas and ethnic minority groups. To promote the economic and social development ability of ethnic minority areas and the harmony of ethnic relations, it is of vital importance to strengthen the internally driven growth of ethnic minority areas and minority groups and create favorable development conditions for them. Statistics show that the sense of social fairness is a significant factor that influences respondents’ evaluation of ethnic relations. Hence, the key to further promoting harmony between ethnic groups by improving policies on ethnic affairs lies in the enhancement of the horizontal fairness of policies. To realize this goal, on the one hand, the overall plan of General Secretary Xi Jinping that “we should combine unity with autonomy and combine ethnic factors with regional factors, put the Constitution and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy into place, and more importantly, help autonomous regions develop their economies and improve local people’s livelihood” should be implemented; the policies on ethnic affairs should be put into the connection and coordination of the policy system concerning the development of ethnic minority areas to comprehensively determine the improvement approach of the policies; regional factors should be taken into consideration to improve the policies; in a certain region, the public policies, especially those relating to the equalization of basic public services, should be consistent. Combining ethnic factors with regional factors can, in a more tailored way, promote the ethnic groups in the same region to fairly participate in national economic and social development and share the benefits brought by the development. On the other hand, given the diversity and complexity of ethnic minority areas and the implementation conditions of the policies on ethnic affairs, the supporting policies toward ethnic minority areas, especially some special policies targeting Xinjiang and Tibet, should not be entirely identical, and other ethnic minority areas should not be compared because policies depend on differences. One-size-fits-all policies cannot adapt to the objective reality of China’s diversified ethnic minority areas. In regard to the improvement of the governance ability of ethnic minority areas, more work needs to be finished. Overall, a multiple social governance system with the leadership of the CPC and the government should be materialized, and the self-organization and self-development abilities of civil force and the general public should be given full play to strengthen the coordination and effectiveness of the multiple social governance system. 2. Increasing investment in poverty alleviation resources and promoting the quality of targeted poverty alleviation and the effectiveness of anti-poverty For poverty in ethnic minority areas to be eradicated and the development capabilities of and conditions for the impoverished population and areas to be promoted, the overarching approach should focus on the strategy of targeted poverty alleviation and elimination implemented in the 13th Five-Year Plan. To accelerate the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in ethnic minority areas,

428

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

the improvement of the effectiveness of development-oriented poverty reduction in ethnic minority areas during the 13th Five-Year Plan period should be taken as the objective. Consequently, a synergy should be formed by fully pooling the anti-poverty power of anti-poverty policies such as regional economic development, the improvement of the social development level, the equalization of basic public services, education-oriented poverty alleviation, the fundamental effects of population policies on poverty reduction, development-oriented poverty reduction and social poverty alleviation and assistance. First, for contiguous impoverished regions, strategies of contiguous development and whole township and village advancement should be implemented. In addition, in the process of contiguous development, great importance should be attached to breaking the constraints of administrative division, and industrial development should emphasize the large-scale development of industrial poverty alleviation in contiguous impoverished regions, unify the planning and make full use of similar contiguous natural resources to enable poor rural households to benefit more from industrial poverty alleviation. Second, industrial poverty alleviation projects should be improved, new economic organizations in rural areas should be fully fostered, and their guiding role should be leveraged to involve impoverished households in the industrial chain at higher levels in the process of industrial development. Meanwhile, the agricultural reinsurance system should be developed to lower the market risks that impoverished rural households may encounter in industrial poverty alleviation projects. Third, investment in poverty alleviation resources and efforts to integrate resources should be strengthened to improve the efficiency of various poverty alleviation funds and resources by taking the improvement of the self-development capabilities of impoverished households as the main task. Fourth, social security should be given more opportunities to perform its function of meeting basic needs. Fifth, investment in poverty alleviation resources should be increased, and poverty alleviation methods should be diversified. At the same time, great importance should be attached to the satisfaction of the personalized needs of impoverished households, and feasible and targeted poverty alleviation measures should be formulated based on the poverty reasons of specific impoverished households to improve the effectiveness of the investment in poverty alleviation resources. 3. Promoting law-based urban ethnic work and strengthening the management and service capacities of urban ethnic work The reform and opening up and the urbanization process have accelerated the urbanrural mobility of social members of different ethnic groups, thus prompting the increasing number of ethnic minority populations inhabiting cities. Urbanization has actualized the multinational city in reality from the multinational country in perception, which is an unprecedented situation involving changes in ethnic composition and the competition and sharing of interests.23 According to the survey data, the ethnic minority respondents hold that the proportion of the inconvenience caused by ethnic identity in the process of larger-scale regional mobility is higher. As a result, 23

Yan Qing, “Restart of Urban Ethnic Work in China—Analysis and Implementation of the Guiding Principles of the National Urban Ethnic Work Conference”, Minzu Tribune, Issue 1, 2016.

14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development …

429

improving the abilities of the ethnic minority mobile population and the population settling in cities to obtain access to urban basic public services should be given priority in the process of further promoting the management and service capacities of urban ethnic work. Specifically, the first measure is to intensify the training of government and Party employees at the community level in their abilities to manage ethnic work; the second measure is to make the management and service of urban ethnic work more law-based; the third measure is to rely on and make full use of the management featuring the integration of priorities and entirety and the entities extending services such as communities and mobile service centers to establish and strengthen the grid-based management and service platform for the residence, work and life of ethnic minorities in cities. 4. Improving the social governance capabilities of primary-level governments and increasing the effective supply of basic public services In the new phase of urbanization and during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, social members of different ethnic groups accelerated their mobility between urban and rural areas and among different regions, thus giving rise to more disputes involving interests and ethnic factors among social members. As parties involved in these disputes are different in aspects such as values, customs and culture and religions, it is necessary for the government to act as the intermediate party to perform its guiding role and its role of intervention. Specifically, primary-level governments should improve their abilities to carry out public management and supply public services. In terms of enhancing the ability to carry out public management, primarylevel governments should first adopt a law-based approach to deal with ethnic affairs and disputes involving interests and ethnic factors to enable the rule of law to safeguard the lawful interests of people of different ethnic groups to a larger extent. Second, efforts should be made to improve Party conduct, standardize officials’ conduct and responsibilities and enhance the awareness and abilities of government agencies and their staff to serve the people. This is how harmonious engagement between officials and the people is established to propel the efficient management of disputes involving interests and ethnic factors. Last, since these disputes are related to the insufficient aggregate supply of basic public services and their unbalanced distribution to a large extent, improving the primary-level governments’ abilities to provide public services and make the supply of these services fairer also serve as important measures to promote the harmonious development of local ethnic relations. 5. Strengthening the concept of sustainable development and creating a situation where economic development and ecological construction reinforce each other in a benign manner Ecological civilization construction is one of the essential parts in the “Five-sphere Integrated Plan”. Ecological construction in ethnic minority areas not only has direct effects on the production and life of local social members of different ethnic groups and their sense of fulfillment and happiness but also relates to the ecological construction and residents’ sense of happiness elsewhere in China. Therefore, the promotion of ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas should be given

430

14 Surveys and Thoughts on Accelerating the Building …

priority. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, to further propel ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas to provide a favorable environmental basis for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the following measures for improvement should be adopted. First, various national policies and regulations should be implemented, and the ecological civilization system in ethnic minority areas should be established and improved. The Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress should serve as the basis for law-based ecological civilization construction in ethnic minority areas, and the aims are to improve the legal system and increase the efforts at law enforcement and application. Second, the industrial structure of ethnic minority areas should be adjusted and optimized. The aims are to fully leverage the advantage of ethnic minority areas in terms of green tourism and to change the extensive economic structure of ethnic minority areas, such as the undue dependence on mineral resource exploitation, so that the environmental improvement of ethnic minority areas can effectively integrate with the economic growth in the areas, thus forming a sustainable structure and mode for economic development. Third, we should strengthen energy conservation and emission reduction in ethnic minority areas by vigorously developing and utilizing clean energy. On the premise of not damaging the ecological function, industries related to developing and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on local conditions in specific areas with stronger environmental and resource capacity in key ecologically functional zones should be supported. Furthermore, the natural advantages of ethnic minority areas should be brought into play to vigorously develop clean energy such as wind energy, solar energy, biogas and geothermal energy, thus solving the energy needs of people in mountainous, plateau and grassland areas. Fourth, we should continue to increase the central government’s support for ethnic minority areas and practically implement the system of paid use for natural resources and the ecological compensation system. The principle of paying for the use of resources should be followed. Those who pollute the environment or destroy the ecology should pay for the loss, and those who benefit from resources should compensate the environment. In this way, the contribution of ethnic minority areas to the ecological environment can be reasonably compensated. Fifth, we should intensify the publicity and education of ecological civilization to involve all people in ecological civilization construction. We should fully rediscover and publicize the fine ecological visions of different ethnic groups and comprehensively strengthen the publicity and education of ecological civilization to improve the masses’ environmental and legal awareness to form a good atmosphere where all people pay attention to, support, participate in, supervise and benefit from ecological civilization construction. 6. Giving full play to the initiative of ethnic minorities in cultural protection and promoting the connection between the preservation and protection of ethnic culture and its development and innovation In the process of developing cultural industry, we should be far-sighted and fully respect the willingness of ethnic minorities; we should involve them in the development plan for cultural industries of their own ethnic group and with local features to fully leverage their advantage of being the main carrier to protect the ethnic

14.5 Suggestions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development …

431

culture and ensure that the development of cultural industry and its preservation and protection can reinforce each other in a benign manner. Meanwhile, the working mechanism for the coordinated arrangements of cultural industry projects and funds among different departments should be enhanced to improve the efficiency of the resources for the development of cultural industries. In the process of constructing ethnic minority villages with cultural significance, it is recommended that, instead of dominantly intervening in the process, the government should actively guide the local residents to voluntarily involve themselves in the process. In terms of the protection of ICH, a cultural and policy environment filled with ease and freedom should be created by means of system and mechanism innovation. The reasonable and effective mechanism for preservation should be further promoted to enable the inheritors to give full play to their creativity and autonomy. We should reform the top-down mode of the administrative system for the protection of ICH by shifting the role of the government from a dominator to a coordinator that offers service. The inheritors should be given more initiative in the protection of ICH so that they can inherit the heritage in their daily life. In terms of the supply of public cultural products, we should, based on a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the cultural needs of local ethnic groups, construct a “demand-driven service system for public culture” to achieve the equalization of public services, and we should also mobilize social resources to leverage the functions of market and social organizations.

References

1. Chen Jiagui, ed. 2008. Economy of China: Analysis and Forecast (2009). Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press (China). 2. Mu Huaizhong, 2003. National Wealth and Social Security Income Redistribution. Beijing: China Labor and Social Security Press. 3. Wang Yanzhong et al., 2013. Social Security Survey on Income Redistribution Effect in China. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press (China). 4. Wang Yanzhong, ed. 2012. Report on China Social Security Development (2012): Social Security and Income Distribution. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press (China). 5. Ma Rong, 2001. Ethnicity and Social Development. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House. 6. Chen Chengwen and Tan Rihui, 2004. “Research on the Relationship between Social Capital and the Employment of College Students”, Journal of Higher Education, (Issue 4): 29-32. 7. Chen Jiangsheng and Wang Cairong, 2011. “Impacts of Family Background on the Transition from University to Work for College Graduates—An Empirical Study in China Based on the Survey Data in 2009”, Journal of Northwest Normal University (Social Sciences), (Issue 2): 97-101. 8. Ding Yuanzhu, 2003. “Correct Perception of the Current ‘Difficulties in the Employment of College Students’”, Macroeconomics, (Issue 3): 3-6+28. 9. Du Guiying and Yue Changjun, 2010. “Research on Factors Influencing the Employment Opportunities of College Graduates”, Journal of Higher Education, (Issue 11): 67-70. 10. Gao Yao et al., 2012. “Human Capital’s Impact on the Quality of the First Job for College Students—An Empirical Study Based on the Network Survey Data in 2010”, Education Science, (Issue 4): 77-85. 11. Jiang Chengfeng, Mi Hong and Wang Zhigang, 2015. “Discussion on the Employment of Ethnic Minority College Students in Xinjiang from the Perspective of Culture”, Research on Development, (Issue 2): 134-137. 12. Lai Desheng, 2001. “Labor Market Segmentation and Unemployment of College Graduates”, Journal of Beijing Normal University, (Issue 4): 69-76. 13. Lai Desheng and Meng Dahu, 2007. “Increased Responsibilities of the Government by the Unemployment of the Educated”, People’s Tribune, (Issue 15): 44-46. 14. Liu Xiaoyu and Hu Jungang, 2008. “Empirical Analysis of Factors Influencing College Graduates’ Employment Based on the Regression Model”, Journal of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, (Issue 2): 115-120. 15. Sun Qiang et al., 2012. “Investigation and Analysis of the Employment Problems of Ethnic Minority College Students in Xinjiang”, Northwestern Journal of Ethnology, (Issue 4): 5-18. 16. Tu Siyi, 2005. “Analysis of the Causes and Countermeasures of College Students’ Difficulties in Employment”, Journal of Chengdu College of Education, (Issue 1): 13-15. 17. Wang Yanzhong, 2010. “Development of Social Welfare System in China and its Influence on Urbanization” (Part 2), Journal of Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, (Issue 3): 64-70. © China Social Sciences Press 2022 Y. Wang and S. Ding, Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5504-4

433

434

References

18. Wang Yingzi, 2006. “Employment Survey and Analysis of Ethnic Minority College Students in Xinjiang”, China University Students Career Guide, (Issue 16): 35-38. 19. Xie Zhiyuan, 2005. “Thoughts on Fostering the Employability of College Graduates”, Research in Educational Development, (Issue 1): 90-92. 20. Yang Weiguo and Wang Fei, 2004. “Employment of College Students: Promotion Policies Abroad and Their Reference to China”, Chinese Journal of Population Science, (Issue 4): 67-73+82. 21. Zhao Xiaofang, 2009. “Particularities of the Employment of Ethnic Minority College Students and Corresponding Suggestions and Solutions”, Northwestern Journal of Ethnology, (Issue 3): 216-219. 22. Zheng Gongcheng, 2006. “Employment Difficulties of College Students and Policy Directions of the Government”, China Labor, (Issue 4): 17-19. 23. Zheng Jie, 2004. “Family Socio-economic Status and Possibility of Students’ Employment—A Perspective of Social Capital”, Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences), (Issue 3): 111-118. 24. Zhou Jianmin and Chen Lingxia, 2005. “Brief Analysis on the Evolution of the Employment Policies for College Students in China”, Journal of Liaoning Institute of Technology, (Issue 2): 103-106. 25. Zeng Xiangquan, 2004. “Job Seeking of College Graduates in Employment Environment under Transition”, Economic Research Journal, (Issue 6): 87-95. 26. Feng Jin, 2004. “Welfare Analysis of China’s Endowment Insurance System Reform”, Economic Research Journal, (Issue 2): 55-63. 27. Gao Wenshu, 2012. “Inequality Reduction Effects of Social Security on Income Disparity—An Empirical Study Based on the Household Survey Data of Baoji”, Social Security Studies, (Issue 4): 61.68. 28. Hou Mingxi, 2007. “Guarding Against the Reverse Transfer of Income Distribution by the Social Security System”, Reform of Economic System, (Issue 4): 137-140. 29. Li Shi and Yang Sui, 2009. “Impact of the Subsistence Allowances Policy on Income Distribution and Poverty Reduction in Urban China”, Chinese Journal of Population Science, (Issue 5): 19-27+111. 30. Long Yuqi, 2015. “Endowment Insurance System and Anti-poverty in Rural Ethnic Areas”, Social Science in Guangxi, (Issue 2): 142-148. 31. Peng Haoran and Shen Shuguang, 2007. “A Comparative Study on the Effects of Endowment Insurance System on Income Redistribution before and after the Reform in China”, Statistical Research, (Issue 2): 33-37. 32. Tao Jikun, 2010. “A Comparative Analysis of the Role of the Western Social Security System in Adjusting the Gap in Income Distribution”, Contemporary Economic Research, (Issue 9): 65-69. 33. Wang Maofu and Xie Yongcai, 2012. “Research on the Reverse Regulation of China’s Social Security to Income Distribution”, Studies on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theories, (Issue 6): 46-50+103+115. 34. Wang Xiaojun and Kang Bowei, 2009. “An Analysis of the Income Redistribution Effect of the Current Social Endowment Insurance System in China”, Statistical Research, (Issue 11): 75-81. 35. Wang Yanzhong et al., 2016. “Research on the Income Redistribution Effect of Social Security in China”, Economic Research Journal, (Issue 2): 4-15+41. 36. Wei Pu, 2015. “Relevance of Poverty, Poverty Risk and Social Security”, Social Sciences in Guangxi, (Issue 2): 134-141. 37. Xiang Ling, 2007. “Questions Concerning the Regressive Effect of the Redistribution in the Endowment Insurance System”, Fujian Tribune (The Humanities & Social Sciences Monthly), (Issue 1): 31-35. 38. Zhang Haomiao, 2007. “Analysis of the Issue of Poverty from the Discipline of Social Security”, Lanzhou Academic Journal, (Issue 5): 97-99.

References

435

39. Zhang Shibin and Liang Hongzhi, 2012. “Study on the New Rural Social Endowment Insurance System in Ethnic Minority Areas of Guizhou Province”, Guizhou Ethnic Studies, (Issue 5): 93-98. 40. Zheng Gongcheng, 2010. “Income Distribution and Social Security”, Social Sciences in Heilongjiang, (Issue 5): 123-126. 41. Huang Rongqing, 2009. “An Analysis of the Educational Status of Ethic Minority Groups in West China”, Tribune of Education Culture, (Issue 2): 22-28. 42. Xu Shiying and Li Nan, 2009. “Measure and Predictive Analysis of Educational Progress of Ethnic Minorities with a Population over One Million in China”, Journal of Research on Education for Ethnic Minorities, (Issue 2): 63-67. 43. Sun Baicai, Zhang Yang and Liu Yunpeng, 2014. “Educational Achievement and Education Equality of All Ethnic Groups in China: An Analysis Based on the Three Recent Nationwide Population Censuses”, Ethno-National Studies, (Issue 3): 25-36+124. 44. He Lihua and Cheng Aihua, 2015. “Educational Development and Education Equality of China’s Ethnic Minority Areas: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Three Recent Nationwide Population Censuses”, Ethno-National Studies, (Issue 4): 11-12+123. 45. Hong Yanbi, 2010. “Ethnic Groups and Educational Inequalities: An Empirical Study of the Educational Attainment of the Ethnic Minorities in Western China”, Chinese Journal of Sociology, (Issue 2): 45-73. 46. Tan Min and Xie Zuoxu, 2011. “Family Background, Ethnic Identity and Chinese Minorities’ Acquisition of Higher Education”, Journal of Higher Education, (Issue 10): 50-58. 47. UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) and NBS (National Bureau of Statistics) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), 2013. “Population Status of Children in China—Facts and Figures”. 48. Lei Wanpeng and Xu Lu, 2011. “Government Responsibilities in the Development of Rural School Buses—Under the Background of the Adjustments of Compulsory Education Schools”, Journal of the Chinese Society of Education, (Issue 1): 16-19. 49. Zhu Qiguo and He Wei, 2013. “Research on the Sustainable Development of the Rural Subsistence Allowances System in Western Ethnic Minority Areas”, Theoretical Observation, (Issue 10): 69-70. 50. Ye Hui, 2014. “A Study on the Satisfaction Degree with the Rural Subsistence Allowances System—Taking 596 Rural Households in the Poverty Alleviation Counties of Southwestern Ethnic Minority Areas as Examples”, Journal of South-Central University for Nationalities (Humanities and Social Sciences), (Issue 1): 142-145. 51. Ning Yafang, 2015. “An Analysis of the Poverty Alleviation Effect of the Rural Subsistence Allowances System in Ethnic Minority Areas—Evidence from Yunnan”, Academic Journal of Zhongzhou, (Issue 2): 77-81. 52. Rural Credit Cooperative Union of Lancang Lahu Autonomous County, 2015 July 9. “Information Disclosure Report on the Rural Credit Cooperative Union of Lancang County 2014”, Pu’er Daily. 53. Huang Shuping, 2014. “A Review of Influencing Factors of Ethnic Relations in Recent Years”, Social Sciences Journal of Universities in Shanxi, (Issue 3): 27-30. 54. Ma Rong, 2015. “Dynamics of the Ethnic Relations in the Urbanization Process of China”, Northwestern Journal of Ethnology, (Issue 1): 19-34. 55. Shu Xihong and Nie Jun, 2014. “Probing into Influencing Factors of Ethnic Relations Between Hui and Han in Northwest China”, Journal of North Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), (Issue 1): 61-67. 56. Wang Deqiang and Shi Bingqing, 2012. “An Empirical Study on the Correlation Between the System of Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Minorities and the Harmony of Ethnic Relationship: On the Basis of the Questionnaire Data from the Tibetan Ethnic Areas in Yunnan”, EthnoNational Studies, (Issue 2): 13-22+108. 57. Wang Yanzhong and Ning Yafang, 2014. “Investigation and Evaluation on the Current Situation of Ethnic Relations in Yunnan”, Social Sciences in Yunnan, (Issue 6): 97-102.

436

References

58. Yan Qing, 2016. “China’s Urban Ethnic Work at a New Starting Point—Interpreting and Implementing the Spirits of National Conference on Urban Ethnic Work”, Minzu Tribune, (Issue 1): 5-9. 59. Zhang Jun, 2015. “Social Association and Ethnic Relations Between Tibetan and Han—Influencing Factors of Ethnic Relations Based on the Survey in Tibet”, Journal of Southwest Minzu University (Humanities and Social Sciences), (Issue 8): 17-22. 60. Zhou Jinghong, 2008. “Ensuring of Harmonious Ethnic Relationship: Speeding up the Social Construction Focusing on the Improvement of People’s Livelihood”, Ethno-National Studies, (Issue 5): 9-15+108. 61. Zhou Jinghong, 2015. “Multiplicity, Mobility and Situationality: Understanding Ethnic Identity and National Identity”, Lanzhou Academic Journal, (Issue 4): 25-29. 62. Beche, 1975. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education, 2nd ed., New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. 63. Granovetter, 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal Sociology, (Issue 78): 1360-1380. 64. Nan Lin, 2001. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 65. Niall O’Higgins, 2002 July 11. “Government Policy and Youth Employment”, Paper Prepared for the World Youth Summit to Be Held in Alexandria, Egypt. 66. Schultz, 1961. “Investment in Human Capital”, The American Economic Review, (Issue 51): 1-17. 67. Gordon, Milton M., 1964. Assimilation in American Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press.