Trends and inequalities of rural welfare in China: Evidence from rural households in Guangdong and Sichuan

This paper studies the trend of Chinese rural welfare and its inequality in the second half of the 1980's using rural household survey data of Guangdong and Sichuan. In this connection, different indicators of economic well-being are used. Compared with other transitional economies, rural inequality in China increased moderately in the second half of the 1980's. In spite of a more rapid pace of transition, Guangdong's rural inequality did not increase. No monotonic relationship between the pace of transition and rural inequality is thus discernible. Finally, by decomposing overall rural inequality into its between-region and within-region inequalities, we explore the relative importance of inter-provincial inequality. (C) 1998 Academic Press.