Impact of Income Growth and Economic Reform on Nutrition Intake in Urban China: 1986-2000

Xin Meng (), Xiaodong Gong () and Youjuan Wang
Additional contact information
Youjuan Wang: Chinese State Statistical Bureau

No 1448, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Although urban China has experienced a rapid income growth over the last twenty years, nutrition intake for the low income group declined in the 1990s. Does this imply a zero or negative income elasticity for the low income group? This paper examines this issue using large representative sample of repeated cross-sectional data for the period 1986-2000. It is found that income elasticities of calorie consumption for urban households are far from zero, and the lower the income level the higher the income elasticity. The main reason for the reduction in calorie consumption for the low income group in the early 1990s was a sharp increase in food price. In addition, in the mid to late 1990s large scale social welfare reform increased households’ need to pay for education, medical, housing expenses and the need to save for future consumption and income uncertainty. These factors seem to have played an important role in suppressing nutrition consumption of the low income group during this period.

Keywords: inequality; income growth; poverty; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 I31 O15 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-sea and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published as 'Impact of Income Growth and Economic Reform on Nutrition Availability in Urban China: 1986–2000' in: Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2009, 57 (2), 261-295

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1448.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1448

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().