Author: Scott Rozelle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2020-09-29
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 022674051X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A study of how China’s changing economy may leave its rural communities in the dust and launch a political and economic disaster. As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern. China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries. Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China. Today, that is no longer the case. With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan. For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people. Recent progress may come too late. Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas. Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere. In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe. If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious. Understanding the situation in China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions. This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike. Praise for Invisible China “Stunningly researched.” —TheEconomist, Best Books of the Year (UK) “Invisible China sounds a wake-up call.” —The Strategist “Not to be missed.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK) “[Invisible China] provides an extensive coverage of problems for China in the sphere of human capital development . . . the book is rich in content and is not constrained only to China, but provides important parallels with past and present developments in other countries.” —Journal of Chinese Political Science
Author: Gordon G. Liu
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-18
Total Pages: 420
ISBN-13: 1351143514
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →China's urban population growth rate has doubled in the past 20 years and the Chinese government has made further urbanization a developmental priority. How Chinese cities cope with such rapid population increases has become a question of critical concern. This book provides an analysis of the welfare implications of China's urbanization, the development of the labour market including migration between rural and urban sectors, and natural and social environmental issues arising from urbanization. The book covers both academic and policy perspectives and, together with its sister volume Urban Transformation in China, brings together a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary overview of China's urbanization.
Author: Li Zhang
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Published: 2016-03-25
Total Pages: 433
ISBN-13: 1783474742
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →China’s urbanization is one of the great earth-changing phenomena of recent times. The way in which China continues to urbanize will have a critical impact on the world economy, global climate change, international relations and a host of other critical issues. Understanding and responding to China’s urbanization is of paramount importance to everyone. This book represents a unique exploration of the demographic, spatial, economic and social aspects of China’s urban transformation. Based on years of fieldwork and data analysis from different types of cities and towns in every region of China, the authors present a detailed description of how China has urbanized since 1978 and an original theory about the way in which top-down and bottom-up policies have impacted urbanization. They describe China’s on-going urbanization process as a ‘double-dual’ transformation from a planned economy to a more market-oriented one and from a concern with the quantity to the quality of urbanization. In doing so, the authors provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on Chinese urbanization to date. This scholarly study will appeal to academics and practitioners, including professors and postgraduate students of urban studies, planning, geography, Asian studies, and other social science disciplines and professional fields concerned with cities and urban development. Professionals involved in international development, particularly in China and elsewhere in Asia, will be particularly interested in the book.
Author: Russell Southard
Publisher:
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 99
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →While there are projections that global population growth will slow down over the next 50 years, the rate of urbanization will continue to increase over this same period of time. For developing countries all over the world, urbanization is seen as the key to global advancement. In the case of these countries this typically means making an attempt to move away from a predominantly agrarian society toward an urban one through the migration of millions of rural farmers into cities. The hope is that an urban life style will offer more opportunities to the people while at the same time allowing the people to become more productive citizens for the country. Although the most frequently mentioned concerns for these people are better education and medical care, the primary form of investment for this new urban population is mass housing.