Chinese Economic Development & Rural Women

The rapid industrialization and economic growth of China is associated primarily with its urban areas, and particularly with the southern coastal provinces and cities such as Shanghai. However, industrialization has also had an extensive impact on rural China, where most of China's population still lives. This impact has been both indirect and direct.

On the indirect side, the rapid economic growth of China's urban economic zones has created a powerful draw reaching into rural China. In spite of governmental efforts to limit internal migration, millions of rural Chinese have flocked to the cities in search of greater opportunities. To take only one dimension of this internal migration, some three million young, unmarried rural women have gone to the cities to take jobs there as household workers.

At the same time, factories have sprung up in many rural districts. These factories have broadly the same fundamental economic impact on the countryside as does economic growth in the urban areas. They have this impact, however, without the pressure to migrate with its various disruptive effects on individuals and families, the rural communities they leave, and th

. . .
e migrants to the cities) lies outside the scope of the current discussion. The evolution of rural economic development, however, is worthy of specific attention. The Chinese Communist system borrowed numerous elements from its Soviet Russian mentor and prototype, but a notable element it did not borrow was the Soviet system of highly centralized economic control. Whereas Soviet factories were under ministerial control, largely bypassing local and regional governmental bodies, the Chinese vested broad authority in local government. As a result, when the national governments of the postMao era successively relaxed ideological demands upon local and regional authorities, and then called for active development, the local authorities took the lead in rural economic development, including industrial development. This has led to a pattern that Jean Oi characterizes as the local corporate state. In effect, local officials have come to think and behave somewhat as businessmen. The operate with a view to pursuing profits, which can be invested in further growth and expansion, and which provide remuneration for themselves. A significant effect of this pattern is an element of local control over economic development and over
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
China China's, Ibid Women, Chinese Revolution, Overseas Chinese, Jean Oi, Knippers Black, China Rural, Denise Hare, Rural Chinese, , rural women, economic development, rural chinese, rural factories, chinese women, rural chinese women, rural china, economic growth, women china, women rural, reservation wage, rural women china, particularly southern coastal, rural factories tend, available rural chinese,
Approximate Word count = 2282
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Chinese Economic Development & Rural Women