Spatiotemporal differentiation of urban-rural income disparity and its driving force in the Yangtze River Economic Belt during 2000-2017

The income imbalance between urban and rural areas has seriously affected social fairness and justice and has become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of the economy and society. The analysis of the spatiotemporal laws and causes of urban-rural income disparity is of great significance to realizing the coordinated and integrated development of regional urban and rural areas. In this study, the coefficient of variation, Theil decomposition index, spatial autocorrelation method and GeoDetector model were used to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of the urban-rural income gap and its driving force in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2017. The results show that the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in the study area shows a trend of rapid growth from 2000 to 2017. The urban-rural income gap in the study area showed an inverted "U"-shaped development process as a whole, and the relative difference showed an increasing trend. Regarding the spatial pattern, the study area showed a significant east-west differentiation pattern. The spatial distribution of the urban-rural income gap in the study area has an obvious positive spatial correlation, that is, the phenomena of high-value agglomeration and low-value agglomeration were significant. The economic development level, the industrial structure, the regional development policy, transportation, topographical conditions and resource endowments can strongly explain the spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap in the study area. The spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap is affected by both natural factors and socioeconomic factors. Among them, socioeconomic factors are the dominant factors, followed by natural factors. There is a significant interaction between natural factors and socio-economic factors, and the combination of socio-economic factors and adverse natural factors can significantly affect the regional urban-rural income gap.