The Research Of The Trends Of Labor Share Development In China Since The Period Of Reform And Opening

Labor share is defined as the portion belonged to the labor of the national initial income distribution, and it is also known as the proportion of labor remuneration or labor income share, for short as the labor share. Since1978, the Third Plenum of the CPC opened a new historical period of reforming and opening up. During30years of reforming and opening up, China has experienced remarkable long-term economic growth, and has made great achievements in economic and social development. However, along with China’s rapid economic development, labor share has declined dramatically and persistently in a long time. It has resulted in the low labor share in our country. Low share of labor has caused a series of serious economic and social problems. It is one of the social focus issues, and it is one of the further development of our core economic and social problems, so it has strong practical significance.The research of labor share has also great theoretical significance. Combining with the practice of China’s income distribution, mining the Marxist theory of labor share, absorbing the Western theory, can further enrich and develop Marxist theory of the labor share, enrich and develop Marxist theory of income distribution, and also promote the chinization of Marxist income distribution theory. The research of labor share in China has a global significance too. In terms of the world, China is the largest developing country, and is a transition country. It is strongly representative. So the research of labor share in China is different from the research in the developed countries. It can enrich the research within the world, and its conclusions can provide a reference for other developing countries.This paper selected China in space and the term of reforming and opening up in time as the research object. Having based on the theoretical analysis, we have analyzed the evolution trends, the causes and the laws in China since the termof reforming and opening up, and provided the reasonable policy choices to improve China’s labor share.The main conclusions of the paper is as follows: First, the comparative analysis of the theory of labor share. The labor share theory of Marxist is characteristic of the perspective of the relations of production to analyze. But the Western mainstream economics is characteristic of from the point of view of productivity. So we should be an integrated perspective to analyze labor share. The determinant system of China’s labor Share is not only including the same basic elements as the Western economies, but also including different elements because of China’s special economic system. So the determinants of labor share reflect the Chinese characteristics, and exhibit different evolution trends.Second, the evolution trends of labor share. From the point view of time, there were the overall declining trends and the fact of labor share before the term of reforming and opening up, and labor share experienced three upward terms and two downward terms after reforming and opening up. From the point view of the region, the proportion of the total remuneration increased in the east, and decreased in the middle and the west, so the gap widen in the total of inter-regional labor remuneration. From the point view of industry, the labor share of China’s primary industry is much higher than the second and tertiary industries. In the process of the transformation from the primary and secondary industries to the second and tertiary industries, the labor share dropped sharply. From the point view of comparison in Chinese and Foreign evolution trends, China’s current labor share is lower than the developed countries and other medium-developed countries, but higher than most of developing countries.Third, the evolution causes and determinants of labor share. The causes of increasing labor share are government policy, labor market changes and economic globalization. The causes of decreasing labor share are the rise in employment pressure, the reverse trade union bargaining power, the rising level of market, and dual economic structure. In these the main causes are the pressure on employment and the changes of dual economic structure. Combined with theoretical analysis, the main determinants of the labor share are government policy, labor market, economic globalization, the special economic system in society transition. The determining factor is changing. But the changes are of uncertain and ambiguous.Fourth, the measure system of improving labor share. Improving labor share should be under the guidance of scientific concept of development. In the process of improving labor share, government plays an important role. Government’s effect depends on its own reform. To improve labor share, the first is to establish institutional mechanisms to form a strong impact on the remuneration of labor compensation mechanism; the second is to create an growth mechanism to guarantee the payment for labor growing as labor productivity; the Third is to improve relevant laws and regulations to protect the benefit of workers.Fifth, the future trends of labor share. In the determinants of labor share, there are upward forces such as the changes of government initial distribution policy, the changes Of labor supply and demand market, the continuous improvement of their quality of workers, the progressive unification of the market, and there is also downward forces such as the changes in industrial structure, economic globalization, the increase in government revenue, and the role of trade unions. Overall, the labor share will continue to increase since2007, in which the government plays a key role.The government’s own reform is key to the speed and magnitude of labor share increasing.In the analysis of the development trend of labor share in our country since the term of reforming and opening up, we made the following contributions and innovations:First, we have compared the theory of Marxism and Western mainstream economics, clarified the conditions, defined the scope of the theory used. And we have analyzed the analytical framework and related theories in our country, put forward the determinants of labor share of our country theoretically.Second, using the method of the sum of province GDP, we have computed the labor share of our country and foreign representative countries from1978to2009, made the judgments and basic evaluation on the evolution trends of the labor share. And we have analyzed the reasons of labor share rising and declining, proposed the determinants of the labor share of our country using the method of the combination of empirical and theoretical analysis.Third, basing on definition of four meanings of improving the labor share of our country, we have put forward the measure system, summarized laws of the evolution trends of Chinese labor share. And using this law, we have forecasted the tendency of labor share of our country in the future.