Analysis of the Changes in Rural Chinese Family Structure since Reform and Opening Up

This article uses data from censuses since 1982 to reveal changes in the family structure of rural China since the launch of reform and opening up and against the backdrop of institutional relocation,social transformation and an aging population.Since the advent of reform and opening up,rural family structure and its changes can be divided into two phases.Before the 1990 s,the household contract responsibility system was implemented,labor in rural villages was still mainly engaged in farming,and the number of nuclear families remained stable with a steady rise.After the 1990 s,as reform progress deepened,substantial numbers of young and middle-aged laborers in rural villages began to relocate into non-farming sectors and aging in rural villages rose.As those born in the early days of the family planning policy gradually matured,family structure was directly affected and changed in new ways and forms not seen before.Vocational divisions of labor among the parents of young families and married offspring emerged and the significance of cooperation for family economy and daily life between parents and offspring rose in importance.Also,the prevalence of immediate families with three generations climbed while the standard nuclear families declined,the ratio of middle-aged couples with young children that worked outside the home increased,the function of middle-aged and senior parents in the upbringing of infants and children enhanced,and the commonness of incomplete family types such as only grandparents with grandchildren increased.During this phase,the number of seniors living alone surged to the point of becoming a matter worthy of attention.

Secular Changes of Stature in Rural Children and Adolescents in China, 1985-2010

Objective To analyze and assess secular change in stature in rural children and adolescents in China from 1985 to 2010. Methods Data were obtained from the 6 rounds of the Chinese National Survey on Student＇s Constitution and Health. The subjects enrolled in the study were children and adolescents aged 7-18 years in rural areas of provincial capitals. Results An overall positive secular trend in stature occurred in rural areas of provincial capitals in China from 1985 to 2010. The overall average increase rates were 3.1 and 2.4 cm/decade for boys and girls, respectively. The total body height increases for grown up boys and girls were 3.6 and 2.3 cm and the increase rates were 1.4 and 0.9 cm/decade, respectively. There were differences in body height increase among eastern, central and western regions. The average body height of the children or adolescents in eastern region was highest, followed by central region and western region. The overall increase rates in central region were highest among the three regions. The difference between eastern/central region and western region was obvious. 〈br〉 Conclusion Positive secular trend in stature of children or adolescents has occurred in rural area of China, and rural boys and girls showed a great potential for continuous growth. More attention should be paid to the differences in children＇s body height between western region and eastern/central region.

A Preliminary Study on the Rural Land System Reform in the Context of Rural Revitalization

With the deepening of reform and opening up,the rural land system has experienced the evolution from contracting to transfer to the current rural revitalization strategy,and has always been closely linked to the well-being of farmers and the vigorous development of the rural economy.The reform of this system is not only a key driving force for rural economic development,but also an important cornerstone for realizing the rural revitalization strategy.Through in-depth analysis of the connotation of rural revitalization and rural land system reform,this study discusses in detail the internal dynamic mechanism of rural land system reform driving rural revitalization,and comprehensively analyzes the current implementation of rural land system reform.On this basis,this study puts forward the strategic concept of promoting the rural land system reform in the context of rural revitalization.Studies have shown that the rural land system reform has mainly played a positive role in the following four aspects in promoting rural revitalization:providing a solid material foundation for rural revitalization,optimizing the allocation of rural resources,promoting the transformation and upgrading of rural industrial structure,and promoting rural social harmony and stability.In the context of the current rural revitalization,the rural land system reform is undoubtedly one of the core issues of China s rural development.In order to further improve this system,we need to continue to optimize and innovate the rural land transfer system,the homestead reform system,and the rural collective construction land market entry system.

Research on driving forces for rural settlement land changes in China

During the rapid urbanization period, the contradiction between demand for the construction land and the preservation of cultivated land for food security is getting more and more serious in China. With the urbanization the rural settlement land is increasing instead of decreasing; This paper aims at.finding the driving forces for rural settlement land expanston. Based on land use change survey data （1996-2006） by the Ministry of Land and Resources P. R. C., this paper find, that per capita area for rural settlement land is more than per capita area for city; township and industrial land in each province except Tibet. Besides, rural settlement land area and per capita rural settlement land area are increasing while the rural poputation is decreasing in most provinces. The main problems of rural settlement land use are low efficiency, high vacancy rate, chaotic layout and illegal occupancy. Then the driving forces [br rural settlement land expansion, including economic development, family income, family scale, psychological factors, urbanization, transportation, lack of planning, limited circulation of dwelling-house land and imperfect sociat security, ate explored based on above analysis, Finalty, policy recommendations, in view of different influencing factors, are put forward to control the disorder expansion of rural setttement land.

Characteristics of Changes in Energy Consumption of Rural Residential Buildings from the Perspective of Province and Recommendations

In the context of the new period,the living standards and comfort demands of rural residents are increasing,which promotes the continuous growth of the total energy consumption of rural residential buildings.In this study,it estimated the total energy consumption of rural residential buildings in 30 provinces(or cities)in China from 2004 to 2016.Through the division of climate regions of the residential buildings,this paper analyzed the characteristics of changes in the energy structure of residential buildings and the trend of energy consumption from the perspective of the province.Then based on the people s livelihood and from the perspective of development,it came up with some pertinent strategies and recommendations for energy saving and emission reduction in rural residential buildings.

RS and GIS-based Analysis of Landscape Pattern Changes in Urban-rural Ecotone:A Case Study of Daiyue District,Tai' an City,China

Based on RS data of Daiyue District,Tai'an City in 2000,2005 and 2010,changes of land use types in urban-rural ecotone of Tai'an City from 2000 to 2010 were analyzed.Ecological theories,ArcGIS techniques and landscape structure analysis software Fragstats were applied to select relevant landscape pattern indexes and analyze changes of landscape structure,and compare changes in two durations(2000-2005,2005-2010).The results showed that area of natural landscapes in the study area declined from 2000 to 2010,construction land expanded,land use types were mainly transferred from natural landscapes to man-made landscapes.In terms of landscape level,number of patches(NP),patch density(PD),patch shape index(SHAPE),Shannon's diversity index(SHDI) and Shannon's evenness index(SHEI) increased,the largest patch index(LPI) declined.In terms of type level,arable land were influenced by the most human interventions,large-scale patches turned fragmented,and landscape dominance degraded;woodland landscapes were concentrated in mountainous areas,waterscape indexes showed slight changes.Dominance of regional dominant landscape types degraded,landscape fragmentation and landscape heterogeneity increased,and landscape stability declined.

Construction of Rural Grass-roots Water Conservancy Service System in the Context of Institutional Changes

At present,it is urgent to solve problems of reforming and improving grass-roots water conservancy management mode in rural areas and improving rural water conservancy public service ability. Through analyzing institutional changes of grass-roots water conservancy management in rural areas,this paper discussed current situations and outstanding problems in grass-roots water conservancy services in rural areas of Kunming City. On the basis of current situations and problems,it came up with policy recommendations from reform of management institutions,reform of personnel system,construction of human resources,development of rural water use cooperation organizations,and improvement of fund input mechanism,to build rural grass-roots water conservancy service system.

Dynamic Changes in Per Capita Net Income of Rural Residents in Nyingchi City of Tibet

Through an in-depth analysis of the per capita net income of rural residents in Nyingchi City,it was known that the per capita net income of rural residents in Nyingchi City was increasing at high speed in recent 10 years. However,the wage income,household operating income,and agricultural income gap constitute the major factors influencing the gap of the per capita net income of rural residents in Nyingchi City. Finally,it came up with recommendations including promoting the reasonable flow of labor to the secondary and tertiary industries,increasing the wage income and transfer income of rural residents,accelerating the construction of small towns in rural areas,promoting the development of rural cooperatives,implementing the strategy of " benefiting farmers and strengthening tourism",promoting integration of agriculture and eco-tourism,promoting the development of modern agriculture,and expanding diversified production income of farmers.

Land-use Change and Socio-economic Driving Forces of Rural Settlement in China from 1996 to 2005

While urbanization has accelerated, the rural population in China has started decreasing in recent years. However, the expansion of rural settlement has not been sufficiently curbed. The questions of why this has happened and who has driven the land-use change(LUC) of rural settlement in China have aroused great interests among researchers. In this paper, it is suggested that population is not always a positive driving force for the LUC of rural settlement in China. Furthermore, socio-economic driving forces other than urbanization, population and industrialization are analyzed. On a national scale, the major driving forces are the per-capita rural housing area and the cultivated land area. On a regional scale, the main driving forces in the eastern China are the house-building capacity of rural households and the per-capita rural housing area; while in the central China, the main driving forces are rural housing investment, the proportion of primary industry employees in the rural working population, and the cultivated land area. For the western China, the main driving forces are rural register population and cultivated land area.

Study on the Influencing Factors of Land Transfer Price in the Context of Rural Land Reform

Agricultural land is the key to large-scale agricultural management,and the transfer price is the key to the success or failure of land transfer. At present,there are many problems in the pricing of rural land transfer in China,such as low price,random pricing,and large price difference,which seriously hinder the development of rural land transfer. Drawing lessons from the research results of domestic and foreign scholars,combined with the actual situation of rural land transfer in China,this paper analyzes the influencing factors of land transfer price in the context of rural land reform. Finally,according to the influence of different factors on the behavior of agricultural land transfer,this paper proposes establishing and perfecting the evaluation system of contracted land,perfecting the evaluation institution of transferred land assets and establishing a unified dynamic monitoring system of land transfer price in the whole country,and then driving the broad masses of farmers to get rich together,which is of great significance to achieving the revitalization of China’s rural areas.

Climate Change, Adaptive Strategies and Rural Livelihoods in Semiarid Tanzania

Climate change is a global challenge to both sustainable livelihoods and economic development. In Tanzania as in most African countries, farming depends almost entirely on rainfall, a situation that makes agriculture and thus rural livelihoods especially in semiarid environments particularly vulnerable to climate change. This study analyses the impacts of climate change and variability on rural livelihoods with particular focus on agricultural production, food security and adaptive capacities in semiarid areas of Tanzania. The methods used in this study included focus group discussions, key informant interviews, household surveys and field observations. Results from the study indicate that communities understood climate change in terms of variability in rainfall patterns and amount, temperature patterns, wind, water availability, increased incidences of drought and decreased agricultural productivity. Communities in the study area acknowledged that while rainfall amounts have decreased over the last thirty years, temperatures have increased;an experience is also supported by meteorological data. Such changes were claimed to have reduced agricultural productivity particularly due to prolonged drought, inadequate and uneven distribution of rainfall as well as unpredictable onset and ending of rains. Stressors such as crop diseases and pests, low soil fertility and inadequate extension services were also reported to contribute to the decline in agricultural productivity and re-occurrence of food insecurity. In response, communities have developed multiple adaptation strategies, including growing of drought tolerant and early maturing crop varieties, increasing wetlands cultivation, water harvesting for small-scale irrigation and livestock keeping. However, households with limited livelihood assets are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and food insecurity. The study argues that diversification of adaptive strategies, such as water harvesting for small-scale irrigation, integration of livestock and crop production are crucial to ensuring sustainable livelihood in a changing climate.

Effects of land use change on the spatiotemporal variability of soil organic carbon in an urban-rural ecotone of Beijing,China

Understanding the effects of land use changes on the spatiotemporal variation of soil organic carbon （SOC） can provide guidance for low carbon and sustainable agriculture. In this paper, based on the large-scale datasets of soil surveys in 1982 and 2009 for Pinggu District -- an urban-rural ecotone of Beijing, China, the effects of land use and land use changes on both temporal variation and spatial variation of SOC were analyzed. Results showed that from 1982 to 2009 in Pinggu District, the following land use change mainly occurred： Grain cropland converted to orchard or vegetable land, and grassland converted to forestland. The SOC content decreased in region where the land use type changed to grain cropland （e.g., vegetable land to grain cropland decreased by 0.7 g kg-1; orchard to grain cropland decreased by 0.2 g kg-l）. In contrast, the SOC content increased in region where the land use type changed to either orchard （excluding forestland） or forestland （e.g., grain cropland to orchard and forestland increased by 2.7 and 2.4 g kg-1, respectively; grassland to orchard and forestland increased by 4.8 and 4.9 g kg-1, respectively）. The organic carbon accumulation capacity per unit mass of the soil increased in the following order： grain cropland soil〈vegetable land/grassland soil〈orchard soil〈forestland soil. Therefore, to both secure supply of agricultural products and develop low carbon agriculture in a modern city, orchard has proven to be a good choice for land using.

Credit risk constraint mechanisms in rural financial reform

To research the operating mechanisms of rural financial reform, through setting up a contract model, the constraint roles of reputation and legal intervention on the default risk arising in the operating of the credit union funds are inspected. Analysis indicates that the increase in reputation cost can reduce the probability of union member default behavior and the probability of turning to the law for the credit union funds. Meanwhile, the amount of loans and the interest rates can increase the probability of turning to the law for the credit union funds. Below the marginal values, the penalty mechanisms can reduce the balancing probabilities of member default behavior and turning to the law for the credit union funds, namely, the penalty has some "substitution effect" for turning to the law for the credit union funds.

Administrative reforms and the impacts on rural-urban relations in China

New and distinctive regions of economic interaction and growth, known as Extended Metropolitan Regions (EMRs), are emerging in China. This paper will examine the role of the various levels of the Chinese governments and their administrative reforms in the development of one of the urbanising regions in China: the Shenyang Dalian EMR, Liaoning Province. It is primarily concerned with to what extent EMR's spatial growth pattern is influenced by governmental policies and how the changes in administrative boundaries have impacted rural urban relations.

China’s Rural Reform: Journey, Experience and Outlook

Since 1978, China's rural reform has gone through four stages, including the re-establishment of the economic status of farmer households, the transition from planned to market-based resource allocation, the initial development of the new-type urban-rural relationship, and the deepening of reforms in all respects. Underpinned by the household contract responsibility system, China's rural reform follows a gradualist and marketoriented approach that has progressed from encompassing a single domain to encompassing all fronts and from pilot programs to nationwide rollout with the core mandate of protecting farmers' rights and interests and promoting their initiative in agricultural production. Such a gradualist reform is consistent with China's national conditions and has incentivized farmers and integrated rural development, laying a solid institutional foundation for China's rapid development. China's four-decade experience suggests that reform and innovation are the primary drivers of rural development. During this period, China's rural reform has developed extensive experience with significant achievements. In the future, China should take integrated measures to deepen rural reform in all respects, promote farmers' and grassroots initiative, and unlock agricultural development potentials.

Chinese Comprehensive Rural Reform: Institutional Vicissitude, Theoretic Framework and Content Structure

The social and economic development level of rural areas, the productivity of agriculture and the life quality of farmers were always the greatest concerns of Chinese Central Government. Therefore, the research related to rural areas, agriculture and farmers had remained as the prominent parts for a long period and would continue to be prominent in the future to build China into a moderately prosperous nation in an all-round way. Chinese rural area had constantly experienced three significant system reforms since 1978, namely the reform of rural management system, the rural tax and fee reform and the rural comprehensive reform. This paper attempted to analyze the theoretic framework and the content structure of the comprehensive rural reform since it was the higher stage of rural institutional vicissitude, which had changed the governance and operation system and thus promoted the great changes to fundamental social and economic system in rural areas. The theoretic framework of comprehensive rural reform covered three aspects in its content, namely the rural governance theory, the government function theory and the public finance theory. The comprehensive rural reform was a complicated system engineering with multiple dimensions and targets mainly including rural political restructuring, rural economic restructuring and rural public products allocation restructuring. The reform had focused on enhancing the vitality of agricultural and rural development, breaking through the urban and rural binary system, and further reducing the disparity between cities and countrysides, so as to realize the urban-rural integration. It was necessary to clarify and understand the key mechanism and intrinsic logic of the rural comprehensive reform, which was helpful to establish the foundation constituted by scientific methodology to implement the reform and evaluation criterion to judge the reform performance.

Chinese Rural Comprehensive Reform:Theoretical Innovation,Key Contradictions and Countermeasures

As a systematic project, Chinese rural comprehensive reform （hereinafter referred to as ＂the reform＂） involved multiple dimensions such as rural governance, economy, culture, society and ecology, which laid a solid foundation for the overall reform in China. Western rural development theory had been proved to be insufficient to support Chinese rural reform. Therefore, theoretical innovation became urgent in the fields of rural governance, government functions, public finance and rural-urban integration etc. In recent years, Chinese rural comprehensive reform had been adjusting itself to the requirements of the ＂new normal＂. And during the process of agricultural modernization, the bottlenecks included the contradictory relationships between reform, development and overall stability, agricultural simplification and industrial diversification, economic development and environmental protection, rapid development of urban areas and slow progress of rural areas, grassroots governance and democratic supervision etc. Proper countermeasures would help to settle the above contradictions.

Reform of Rural Land System from the Perspective of New Urbanization

In view of artificially high urbanization rate of China and possible causes,survey and data analysis methods were used to discuss reform of household registration system,and path for promoting rural land system reform. Results show that it is required to eliminate bottlenecks of land system in the advance of new urbanization process. In line with land system bottlenecks of new urbanization,it is recommended to take following measures.( i) Promoting land right confirmation centered land system reform.( ii) Weakening rural land ownership and stressing land use right.( iii) Establishing urban and rural integrated land market and putting an end to low cost urbanization road.( iv) Realizing asset value of rural construction land and tackling the problem of insufficient construction land.( v) Reforming the land expropriation system and increasing the share of gain in land value to farmers.( vi) Implementing different land policies to promote coordinated development of regional social economy.( vii) Establishing land circulation access system to ensure unchanged land use purpose and high efficient use.

On Rural Medical Care and Health Undertaking Development during New Medical Reform

Based on in-depth survey of township hospitals in Lushan County of Henan Province, this paper studies the development situations of rural medical care and health undertaking in the course of new medical reform. Results show that both rural medical institution and public health undertaking have considerable development in this course. Working capital situation gradually turns better. However, there are still problems and challenge of shortage of high quality medical care personnel, lack of employment mechanism, poor medical environment, and imperfect bidding and purchasing system of medicines. To further develop rural medical situation, it should improve medical environment, speed up informationization construction, and give prominence to functional orientation.