Boosting rural labor off-farm employment through urban expansion in China

Yu Sheng, Yuhan Zhao, Qian Zhang, Wanlu Dong and Jikun Huang

World Development, 2022, vol. 151, issue C

Abstract: Rural development is widely believed to interact with the structural transformation, but little is known about how this happens in developing countries. This paper explores the impact of structural transformation on rural development through the length of analyzing the role of urban growth in creating off-farm employment for rural labor in China. By combining five waves of farm surveys for 1,234 households for the period of 2000–2018 with a newly constructed urban gravity index for 370 cities, we show that rapid urban growth in China has significantly contributed to rural development by increasing off-farm employment for rural labor by 47–71 million since 2000. Moreover, the positive impact started with the emergence of a few large metropolitan cities but ended with the growth of local, relatively small cities, suggesting the interaction between structural transformation and rural development is at a nationwide level.

Keywords: Rural development and structural transformation; urban gravity index; rural off-farm employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:151:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x21003429

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105727

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