MOTIVATION
For China to continue its successful economic growth, its rural labor markets must play a crucial role in both continuing to provide goods and services in rural areas and supplying labor to urban markets in the form of migrants. IFPRI’s Rural-Urban Linkages for Development Research Program uses state-of-the-art economic, statistical, and geographical techniques to examine how the mechanisms in labor, capital, and product markets affect both the rural and urban poor. Using both an economy wide framework and micro-level data analysis, IFPRI and its partners at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy evaluate policies that strengthen linkages to promote more equitable growth.
OUTCOMES
The expansion of China’s rural economy is an ongoing process. IFPRI research on rural labor markets has contributed to the related policy debate, providing evidence cited in the 2008 World Development Report and publications by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, the UN Environment Programme, the World Food Programme, and the World Bank.
Additionally, while women are finding more labor opportunities in off-farm job markets, they are also working more in farm management. In response to this trend, IFPRI produced a background paper for the World Development Report 2012, titled The Feminization of Agriculture with Chinese Characteristics, which discusses how balanced gender roles in agriculture contribute to productivity.
IFPRI is currently collaborating with Nanjing Agricultural University, with support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets, to systematically study the special characteristics of China’s demographic change and its impacts on economic and social development, especially that in rural areas.
