Shaanxi Rural Residents' Income Gap Study

Since the implementation of the western development strategy, the net per income of rural residents of Shaan xi increased from1456yuan in 1999 to 3136 yuan in 2008.The average annual growth rate only is 8.9%, which is far less than the growth rate of per capita GDP 17.1% in Shaanxi, and there is a large income gap among rural residents.Firstly, the income of rural residents in Shaanxi and it's GDP growth were studied by the method of comparative analysis. And then using the Gini coefficient, the deviation coefficient, extreme value and other indicators measured the total income gap of rural residents in Shaanxi and the regional disparities in income.At last, analysis the difference of the three regions northern of Shaanxi, Guangzhong and southern of Shaanxi to get the income gap of rural residents with different sources of income.The basic conclusions I got from this time as followed:The Gini coefficeinets both the total income gap and the local income gap are reasonable. The gap of income between nouthern Shaanxi and Guanzhong,and the gap of income between southern Shaanxi and Guanzhong,nouthern Shaanxi.The income gap among the three regions has been determined in the 10 years since the Strategy Western Development Strategy were implemented.But it is the most important affecting factor that is the regional income gap. The affection of the regional income gap on the overall gap is up to 80% with ascendant tendency while on the regional gap is only 20%. The total internal gap of Guanzhong and northern of Shaanxi have a large fluctuation. But the internal income gap of Guanzhong is rapidly expanding, while the Northern regional income gap is narrowing continuously. The southern of Shaanxi is versa. Analysed the income gap of the rural residents from the perspective of income constitutes, I found some interesting things. Firstly, the family business income of rural residents is still the main source of income with an increscent trend, but the proportion has decreased year by year, and the affection on income inequality reduced too. Secondly, wage income increased year by year among the non-farm income, which got a good contribution to the income of rural residents, and is becoming the most important factor. Thirdly, there is an important and not to be neglected income source that is financial and transfer-payment incomes. Lastly, the difference on natural endowments, geographic location and the level of education are leading to regional income gap. At the end of the paper, there are some suggestions to pick up the growth speed of the rural resident'income and to narrow the income gap among the rural residents.