Study On The Quality Of Population Urbanization In China

With the urbanization rate approaching 50%, China is in the critical period of transforming from the traditional society to the modern mode. Population urbanization, as the core of Urbanization, should be accelerated along with the transformation from quantity expansion to quality promotion. The quality of population urbanization not only determines the healthy development of population urbanization itself, but also has an impact on the quality of overall development of Urbanization; hence, it ultimately contributes to the harmonious and sustainable development of population, resources, environment, economy and society.Population urbanization not only embodies the process of converting farmers to townsfolk, also includes the process of the second urbanization of the newly-urbanized farmers and the original city residents in the bath of urban modern civilization. The ultimate objective of population urbanization is the realization of modernization for all the urban population. Based on such cognition, the research firstly provides the theoretical definition of population urbanization:population urbanization is the process in which the percentage of the city dwellers in a state or area among the total population continually ascends. Thereby, population urbanization became an independent and clear concept after being split off from the concept of urbanization. The subsequent study reveals that, when the urbanization is developing rapidly in China, it is urgent to realize the significant transformation from quantity expansion to quality elevation in terms of population urbanization. The research focuses on the systematic illustration of the theories on quality of population urbanization, and it puts forward the innovative conclusion, i.e. the high-quality population urbanization must synthesize the appropriate quantity and the comprehensive development levels. The moderate quantity is embodied in the coordinated development of the level and speed of population urbanization in the process of industrialization, the transition of industrial structures and employment frames as well as the economic development. The inclusion of different development levels is manifested in the comprehension of the three development levels, in other words, the enhancement of survival abilities, the advance of development competence and the promotion of life quality. Hence, the high-quality population urbanization can meet the development demands of various levels, like survival, development and entertainment; on the other hand, it can impel the progression of the demand from the lower level to the higher one. On the basis of the illustration of the theoretical system, the study constructs the theoretical framework of the index system for evaluating the quality of population urbanization. It also specifies the concrete evaluation indexes according to certain principles. Then, it works out the synthetic evaluation and observation on the quality of China's population urbanization. After adopting the multi-index comprehensive evaluation approach, it made an empirical assessment and a comparative analysis of the longitudinal time and the horizontal regions, from the perspectives of moderation of levels and speed, and the inclusion of various development levels. Judging from the whole nation, the level of China's population urbanization lags behind the non-agriculture level although population urbanization rate coordinated with economic growth rate. The inclusive rate is relatively low as well. Consequently, the overall quality of China's population urbanization is not high. In view of regions, there is significant difference in the quality of population urbanization in the 31 provinces, municipalities or autonomous regions. Overall, there is the tendency that the quality of population urbanization lowers successively in correspondence with the gradual lowering of urbanization levels from the eastern China to the western area. In conclusion, the study brings forward the corresponding measures for the major issues on the quality of China's population urbanization.