Abstract: The goal of the present paper is to examine how the expansion of the economy from 2000 has affected rural off-farm labor market participation. Specifically, we seek to determine whether off-farm labor increased after 2000, what forms of employment are driving trends in off-farm labor and whether gender differences can be observed in off farm employment trends. Using a nationally representative dataset that consist of two waves of surveys conducted in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, this paper finds that off farm labor market participation continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there is a clear difference in the trends associated with occupational choice before and after 2000. In addition, we find that rural off-farm employment trends are different for men and women. Our analysis also shows that the rise of wage-earning employment corresponds with an increasing unskilled wage for both men and women.

China’s rapid development and urbanization over the past 30 years have caused large numbers of rural residents to migrate to urban areas in search of work. This has created a generation of children who remain behind in rural areas when their parents migrate for work. Previous research has found mixed impacts of parental migration on the educational achievement of left-behind children (LBC), perhaps because of methodological deficiencies and lack of recognition of the heterogeneity of this population of children. Our study attempts to examine the impact of six types of parental migration on the academic achievement of a rural junior high school sample. Our study uses a panel of 7148 junior high school students to implement a difference-in-difference analysis and finds that parental migration has a negative and significant impact on the academic achievement of junior high school students. Our study suggests that the Chinese Government should implement measures to dismantle barriers to the human capital accumulation of LBC to ensure sustainable economic growth and human capital development in China.

In this paper we have two objectives - one empirical; one methodological. Although China's leaders are beginning to pay attention to health care in rural China, there are still concerns about access to health services. To examine this issue, we use measure of travel distances to health services to examine the nature of coverage in Shaanxi Province, our case study. The mean distance by road to the nearest health center is more than 6 km. When we use thresholds for access of 5 and 10 km we find that more than 40 (15) percent of the population lives outside of these 5 (10) kilometer service areas for health centers. The nature of the access differs by geographical region and demographic composition of the household.. The methodological contribution of our paper originates from a key feature of our analysis in which we use Geographic Information System (GIS) network analysis methods to measure traveling distance along the road network. We compare these measures to straight-line distance measures. Road distances (produced by network analysis) produce measures (using means) that are nearly twice as great as straight-line distances. Moreover, the errors in the measures (that is, the difference between road distances and straight-line distances) are not random. Therefore, traditional econometric methodsof ameliorating the effects of measurements errors, such as instrument variables regression, will not produce consistent results when used with straight-line distances.

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Since economic liberalization in the late 1970s, China's health care providers have grown heavily reliant on revenue from drugs, which they both prescribe and sell. To curb abuse and to promote the availability, safety, and appropriate use of essential drugs, China introduced its national essential drug list in 2009 and implemented a zero markup policy designed to decouple provider compensation from drug prescription and sales. The authors collected and analyzed representative data from China's township health centers and their catchment-area populations both before and after the reform. They found large reductions in drug revenue, as intended by policy makers. However, they also found a doubling of inpatient care that appeared to be driven by supply, instead of demand. Thus, the reform had an important unintended consequence: China's health care providers have sought new, potentially inappropriate, forms of revenue. 

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Abstract: The overall goal of this article is to understand the progress in implementing the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, while seeking to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and, in particular, to understand its effects on the incidence of catastrophic medical payment. The study is based on two rounds of nationally representative household survey data collected in 2005 and 2008. The study found that the programme has a very high level of participation, and has increased farmers’ use of medical services. However, despite efforts by both central and local governments and high household participation, the programme is only partially achieving its policy objectives. In particular, it has been able to extend to almost all of the rural population, but has failed to cover expenses for catastrophic illness, due to insufficient funds.

Abstract The overall goal of this article is to understand the progress in implementing the New Cooperative

Medical Scheme, while seeking to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and, in particular,

to understand its effects on the incidence of catastrophic medical payment. The study is based on two

rounds of nationally representative household survey data collected in 2005 and 2008. The study found that

the programme has a very high level of participation, and has increased farmers’ use of medical services.

However, despite efforts by both central and local governments and high household participation, the

programme is only partially achieving its policy objectives. In particular, it has been able to extend to almost

all of the rural population, but has failed to cover expenses for catastrophic illness, due to insufficient funds.

This article explores the problem of cognitive delays among toddlers in rural China and the role of their caregivers in producing low levels of cognition (i.e., low IQ). According to the results of a well-tested international scale of child development, the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID), cognitive delays are alarmingly common, and nearly half the toddlers in our sample score an IQ of less than 84 on the BSID test (more than one standard deviation below the mean). In analyzing the source of this, we find that poor parenting—for example, not reading to, singing with, or engaging in stimulating play with one’s children—is closely associated with these delays. Even though mothers (as opposed to grandmother caregivers), and especially more educated mothers, are more likely to follow good parenting practices, quality parenting is rare overall. We seek to find out why so many young children appear to be neglected when it comes to modern parenting practices. We empirically rule out the hypotheses that caregivers discriminate according to their child’s gender; that the number of children in a given household is associated with the quality of parenting; or that caregivers living in relative poverty parent differently than their wealthier counterparts. According to the qualitative component of our study, we also find that inadequate parenting does not stem from parental indifference. Parents and grandparents obviously love their children and want them to succeed in life. Instead, the barriers appear to be primarily a lack of time and an absence of knowledge about the importance of good parenting practices. As a result, when they grow up, these children may not possess the levels of cognition needed to thrive in China’s increasingly high-skill-based economy. Overall, our findings suggest that China may be facing a national crisis due to inadequate rural early childhood development.

Policymakers in many developing countries regard upper-secondary technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a key element in economic growth and poverty reduction. Unfortunately, there is evidence that upper-secondary TVET programs in developing countries experience high rates of dropout. The overall goal of this study is to examine the dropout rates and reasons for dropout among uppersecondary TVET students in China. To meet this goal, we have three specific objectives. First, we seek to produce high-quality estimates of dropout rates among students in upper-secondary TVET schools in one coastal and one inland province of China. Second, we seek to identify which students drop out from upper-secondary TVET. Third, we test whether financial constraints, math and computer achievement, and parental education and migration status correlate with TVET dropout. Drawing on data from a survey of 7414 upper-secondary TVET students in two provinces of China, we find dropout rates of 10.7% across both provinces and as high as 22% in poorer inland areas, suggesting major gaps and disparities in Chinese TVET dropout rates. Furthermore, we find that baseline academic performance and maternal education and migration status are strong correlates for student dropout.