Rural industrial development and surplus labour in China

Abstract

This thesis addresses the issue of China's rural industrialization and rural employment, looking specifically at the fundamental impact of government strategies and policies on Chinese rural industrialization and absorption of rural surplus labour. Chinese rural industries refer to small-scale industries located and managed by local governments at country level. They are collectively and individually owned, involving more than 40 varieties of productive activities in 1989.

Originally, China was agrarian-based country with its majority population living in rural areas. This is still the main feature even in contemporary China. Because of its large population and the scarcity of arable land, it has a long history of rural unemployment and underemployment. Since the 1950s, the government adopted different strategies to deal with this problem, such as absorbing surplus labour through improved agricultural production and through rural enterprises. In the 1950s and the 1960s, rural industry inititally provided agriculture with many of the repair and maintenance facilities needed for tools and machinery, and played a less important role in providing employment. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the rapid growth of rural enterprises represented an alternative for rural labour absorption.

This thesis ends with the debates surrounding local government's interference with TVEs and rural migration, concluding that Chinese rural enteriprise have become one of the most important sectors in Chinese economy and represent great hope for employing rural labourers in the future.