The Study On China's Agricultural Development And The Full Employment Of Rural Labors

In recent years, owing to the continuous growth of production cost of agriculture, the peasants'profits from farming increase slowly. With the expanding income gap between urban and rural residents, more and more agricultural labors move to secondary and tertiary industry, which leads to the fact that supplies of domestic agricultural products can not meet the demands, and the quantity and total value of import expand increasingly. Duo to the shortage of supplies, the price of agricultural products has risen quickly, and then inflation comes with it, which shows that agriculture is a weak sector in national economy and not strong enough to support the development of economy. But a large number of young peasants keep on moving to non-agricultural industries, which will further impair the development of agriculture. It is necessary to formulate a reasonable policy to make peasants gain rational profits, and spur employment of peasants on the basis of the development of agriculture.Traditional dual economy theories excessively emphasize industrialization, believing that modern sectors can solve the employment of rural labors through their own efforts, thus bringing about transformation of dual economy structure. However, such theories neglect the importance of agriculture; fail to realize that the shortage of agricultural surplus will greatly do damage to national economy and society.In fact, China's dual economy structure appeared during the Westernization Movement in 1870s', and has existed to 1970s'without great change when China began to carry out the policy of reform and opening up. Although the adjustment of economy structure has sped up ever since, the employment in agriculture still occupied 45% of total employment until 2005, whereas the increment of agriculture only occupied 12.5%, which embodies the characteristic of dual economy structure.The sluggish development of agriculture not only reduces the supplies of agricultural products, but also spoils the full employment of rural labors, which can be accomplished only if the rural labors emigrate to other industries when agriculture enjoys a high degree of development. However, it only brings harm to the development of agriculture and national economy to encourage emigration of rural labors when agricultural products cannot be fully supplied; it is not helpful for the full employment of rural labors.Both data and practice show that the input of labors is greatly related to the output of agricultural products.After the Great Leap in industrial construction 1958, the scale of industry construction increased rapidly, and demanded more labors. The state transferred a large number of rural labors to cities through administrative means. Labors engaged in agricultural production in 1958 decreased to 154.9 million from 193.09 million in 1957, while labors in secondary industries increased to 70.76 million from 21.42 million in the same period of time. The percentage of employment in agriculture dropped to 52.8% in 1958 from 81.2% in 1957, and the percentage in the second industries sharply went up to 26.6% from 9.0%. The excessive emigration of rural labors resulted in critical shortage of food. The production of food dropped in succession from 1959 to 1961. In 1958, the output of food was 197.65 million tons, but in 1961, it was only 136.50 million tons; the volume of possession per capita reduced from 302 Kg in 1958 to 206 Kg in 1961. The serious shortage of food supply forced the state to adopt the opposite measure to interfere the transfer of rural labors, encouraging city residents to move to rural areas and engage in agricultural production.After China carried out the policy of Reform and Opening-up, the reduction of output of grain took place in 1985, 1994 and 2003 respectively, which are related to the decrease of labors in agriculture. Obviously, the supplies of agricultural products guide the flow of agricultural labors. Only with enough supplies of agricultural products is the emigration of agricultural labors helpful to employment growth, and the change of economy structure.The reasons for the emigration of agricultural labors are economic development strategy, irrational national income distribution, income gap between urban and rural residents, and lower profits in agriculture, and so on.From 1949 to 1978, China adopted the non-equilibrium economic development strategy, mainly investing in industries, especially in heavy industries. To implement the strategy of industrialization, the state enrolled a large number of workers from rural areas to meet the demand of development of industries in cities, which is the main reason for the emigration of agricultural labors in the early period of reform and opening up.Another reason is irrational national income distribution, which includes the First Distribution and the Redistribution. In the First distribution, agricultural surplus is transferred to industrial sectors through the scissors gap between the prices of industrial products and agricultural products, and the peasants gain fewer profits. In the Redistribution, fiscal fund is mainly invested into industrial sectors, which results in the weak foundation of agriculture in the long time.The income gap between urban and rural residents is another important reason why peasants give up farming. It's natural choice for them to work in non-agricultural sectors after they compare the income of being a worker and being a farmer.Over a long period of time, the growing agricultural production cost leads to fewer profits for farmers and even loss for them. Any rational people will choose to work in non-agricultural sectors if they cannot gain profits from farming.Owing to the above-mentioned reasons, 140 million peasants have found work in village and township enterprises, and 120 million migrant workers work from cities to rural areas till now, which means about a half of agricultural labors have been employed in non- agricultural sectors, but full employment of agricultural labors is far from being fulfilled.Although these migrant workers are no longer engaged in agriculture, their identity is not changed, which is restricted by household registration system and social security system, and the like. Even if they have lived in city for several years, they are obliged to go back to rural areas, to take up agriculture again because of their ages, techniques, and their children's education, etc.The peasants who stay in the countryside and are engaged in traditional agriculture normally have received low degree of education, so most of them are not qualified for non-agricultural jobs; besides, they are unable to improve agricultural productivity, to apply modern techniques to agriculture, or to transform traditional agriculture into modern one, therefore, their employment is a big problem.The first thing for the government to keep in mind is that the development of agriculture is the basis of emigration of the rural labors when promoting employment. When domestic agricultural products are insufficient, excessive emigration will bring about more import of agricultural products and a waste of labors. So the government should implement the strategy of harmonized development in urban and rural areas, in industries and agricultures. The government should improve conditions for agricultural production such as adding investment into agriculture, decreasing production cost of agriculture, and increasing agricultural profits. By doing so, the peasants'income can be increased, the supplies of agricultural products can be raised, and the pressure of employment can be lessened.Second, the state should objectively analyze the difficulties the agricultural labors are confronted with. Both the emigrants and the remainders have their own problems, so different measures should be adopted to the two groups.To these emigrants who have transferred to cities, institutions that restrict their identity must be changed, so these emigrants can obtain the right to live in cities forever rather than traveling to and fro between urban and rural areas. Their rights and social security are obtained at the cost of giving up their lands. Current land system is characterized by household which is not helpful to scale economy and lowers agricultural outputs and efficiency. To those peasants who are willing to give up their lands, the state should provide social security for them to be free of worries. Such measures can also control birth in rural areas. In the long term, such measures are helpful to decrease agricultural labors, and quicken dual economy transformation.Due to their low education, agricultural labors who have not emigrated to cities are incompatible with non-agricultural work that demands for certain techniques. So in the short term, they are only engaged in traditional agriculture production. In the long term, the state should invest in compulsory and vocational education in rural areas to improve their technical standard, make them be competent at non-agricultural jobs, and impel the transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, thus realizing the goal of full employment.