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Education plays an important role in improving Chinese rural laborers’ non-farm incomes. However, in Chinese western rural area, the level of return to education is very low due to the underdeveloped economy and the condition of the education system. For improving the schooling returns level, Chinese central government is paying great attention to the condition of education in the rural western area. To date, no research has examined what educational style is more favorable for improving western rural laborers’ non-farm incomes. To answer this question, the purpose of this paper is to compare the treatment effect of high school education and secondary vocational education on their non-farm incomes. That will provide significant evidence for the government to carry out educational policy.

Base on the Mincer model, several methods is used to estimate the average return to a year education on western rural labors’ non-farm income, including OLS, IV and Heckman tow-steps method, to accounting for the ability endogenous and self-selection bias. And the propensity score matching method is used in estimate the treatment effects of high school education and secondary vocational education.

The results from Mincer model showed that the schooling returns in Chinese western rural area were estimated to range from 2.7 to 3.9 percent, that were lower than the average levels in Chinese whole rural area that are estimated in the other recent studies. By using propensity score matching to roll out the heterogeneous bias, show that the treatment effect from high school education was higher than that from secondary vocational education, indicating that the secondary vocational education is better.

Studies concerning the causal relationship between schooling (high school education and secondary vocational education) and non-farm earnings in the western region of China remain very limited, even empty. This paper will make an update contribution to the literature in the area of education earnings in China.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of the rural revitalization strategy, from the perspective of the fundamental functions that should be served by China’s rural areas in the implementation of this strategy.

Theoretical and comparative analyses of the functional relationship between China’s rural development and urban development, between China’s agricultural development and industrialization and that between China’s traditional culture and rural development today are conducted to identify the fundamental functions that should be performed well by China’s rural areas in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Three fundamental functions of China’s rural areas are identified: first, the function of ensuring national food security and the supply of important agricultural products; second, the function of providing effective ecological barriers, a good eco-environment and high-quality ecological products; third, the function of inheriting the extraordinary traditional Chinese culture.

This paper is the first to systematically summarize the fundamental functions China’s rural areas should perform during the process of rural revitalization.

This paper aims to review the institutional evolution of China's rural social security system in the past 35 years, focusing on major policy transformations of the rural social security system in a large country, and extract the Chinese experience on developing rural social security.

This paper systematically reviews the evolution of rural social security system via organizing policy documents, key events and research literature on the construction of rural social security since the Reform and Opening-up.

First, institutional transformation is a profound change in China's rural social security system; second, policy transformation has taken place in the main areas of China's rural social security system, including rural endowment insurance, medical insurance and social assistance; third, the policy evolution of China's rural social security system has a unique experience in a large country.

China is the country with the largest rural population in the world. The process and experience of transforming the social security system in the vast rural areas of China have important value and reference significance for other developing countries.

Based on the data from “Thousand village surveys” project of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, we employ the ordered logistic method to do the empirical analysis on consumption, life and satisfaction (subjective well-being) of Chinese rural elderly. First, the result shows that the consumption (exclude medical expenses) has positive effect on the satisfaction of Chinese rural elderly, while the rural elderly are not preferred to compare with others. Good participation in social life and medical care condition could enhance the satisfaction of rural elderly. Second, the authors divided the sample into two groups as high-consumption group and low-consumption group. The result shows that the low-consumption group more tend to rely on their family members than high-consumption group. The authors suggest that in order to improve the rural elderly life satisfaction, the government needs to improve medical care system.

Bottlenecked by rural underdevelopment, China’s overall development is bound to be inadequate and unbalanced. Through a brief retrospect of the reform directed against the “equalitarianism (egalitarianism)” in China’s rural areas, as well as the Chinese Government’s conceptual transformation and systemic construction and improvement thereof, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the panoramic significance of rural reform; the necessity, priority, and long-term nature of the current rural development; and the important role of public policy in doing so. It also looks ahead to consider the prospects for future rural reform.

This paper first reviews the rural reforms that were carried out in 1978. Second, it introduces the government’s conceptual change regarding rural reform and the establishment and improvement of the system that underlies it. Finally, the future of rural reform is envisaged.

The initial rural reforms brought extensive and profound changes to China’s rural areas. The experience of rural reform has been referred to and escalated by other fields of study. Hence, rural reforms have become something of global significance. Moreover, since the government can undertake reforms well beyond the reach of farmers, its views must be modified in a timely manner, and only then may it reasonably construct and improve the system pertaining to the “three rural issues (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers).”

This paper reviews the rural reforms carried out in 1978. It introduces the government’s change of concept with respect to rural reforms and the establishment and improvement of the system based on the “three rural issues,” thus looking forward to the future of rural reforms. The findings of this paper are of significance to the formulation of future agricultural policies.

During the early 1970s, faced with the serious demographic situation, China began to fully implement the policy of family planning in urban and rural regions. Nowadays, the problems of pension and medical care for aged parents confronted by the first generation of the one‐child family have begun to gradually appear. Meanwhile, China's population and the family planning are also faced with some problems that are difficult to solve, including unbalanced fertility rate of urban and rural population, the gender imbalance, the difficulty of the risk diversification in a one‐child family, as well as the profound contradiction between the stability of the family planning policy and the drive of administrative measures. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the integrated‐scheduled life security system of the one‐child family in urban and rural areas, in order to overcome the problems and to promote the transformation of the family planning policy. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the life security system for China's one‐child families.

The life security system for the one‐child family proposed by this paper consists of three issues: the basic security based on the level of social security, the additional security of the policy insurance and the supplementary security of the commercial insurance. The paper begins with the history of the family planning policy in the first section and then go through some relevant articles regarding complementary measures such as maternity insurance, rural endowment insurance that only focused on one aspect of issues associated with the family planning. In section three, four typical problems are listed for the purpose of following discussion of corresponding solutions which are full of deficiency in section four. In part five, the integrated planning of the life security system for Chinese one‐child family is elaborated with risk and fund management. In the last part, we conclude that the family planning policy maintains stable, whereas measures to be taken are adjusted along with changeable new problems.

The policy insurance plays an increasingly important role in dealing with the life security of older people in one‐child families. It may be better to promote the kind of insurance.

The paper comprehensively discusses the life security system for Chinese families in compliance with the family planning policy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the discharge volume of domestic solid waste in rural China and to explore the potential impact of various factors that contribute to it.

The data used in this study come from a large-scale field survey conducted in six Chinese provinces. Based on the collected survey data, econometric model on the determinants of domestic solid waste discharge was constructed and used for analysis.

Results from the study show that the per capita daily discharge of rural domestic solid waste was close to 1 kg in 2010, slightly less than the urban level of 1.2 kg. Results from descriptive statistical analysis and econometric estimation indicate that by implementing selected policy measures, the discharge of solid waste can be significantly reduced. In addition, the discharge of domestic solid waste is also closely related with local socio-economic development. In particular, the results show an obvious inverted U-shaped curve between discharge volume and income. The increase of off-farm labor opportunities would also reduce solid waste discharge in rural China.

This paper focuses on domestic solid waste discharge and its determinants in rural China, a research area very important but seldom reported.

Due to social transformation in China, more than 100,000,000 people are migrating within the country. Many parents are forced to leave their children behind when they migrate. In 2008, 58,000,000 children were living as left‐behind children, mainly in the rural parts of China (Zhang, 2009).Migration and its accompanying stressors may affect the mental health of the left‐behind children. This unique literature review of Chinese literature summarises the present state of knowledge and reviews the influential factors. Possible approaches to intervention and system reforms are discussed.A literature review was performed of published studies between 2001 and 2008. Databases used were Fujian Medical University Library Interface, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and VIP Information. The Chinese word for ‘left‐behind’ was used as a key word. Books, book chapters, monographs and studies on caring were searched electronically and by hand. Altogether, 53 items were found, discussed and grouped together. Migration affected the mental health of the left‐behind children in a passive way, especially their emotions and social behaviour.There is still controversy over how serious mental health problems are among children who have been left behind. Life events, personality, coping strategies and social suppor t can be regarded as four main factors that are predictive of mental health, which provides theoretical guidance for intervention. Suppor t and prevention of mental health problems in schools, in families and in primary care should be developed and studied.

Faced with the challenges of rural population decline, combined with the widespread expansion of homesteads in rural areas, local Chinese governments hope to strictly control and minimize rural housing land. Accurately decomposing the process of rural housing expansion and revealing its driving factors will be helpful for land-use regulation by the government.

In this study, an unusually rich dataset of rural housing registration from Pudong New Area in Shanghai is employed. The study aimed to decompose the fragmented accumulation process and its expansion determinants on rural housing assets. The dataset covers all samples of rural households and housing plots at 72 surveyed villages in six towns.

Housing offers profitable capital and earning assets to villagers at the urban fringe, so they have a powerful incentive to build and expand more. The results of this analysis showed that the expansion of rural housing is largely due to the haphazard construction of auxiliary rooms by villagers, especially on plots of arable land that are adjacent to their houses that have been stealthily converted into auxiliary rooms and sheds. Low costs and weak penalties have led to an increase in rent-seeking expansions to rural houses. Houses with the smaller initial areas, families with more laborers and household heads, and the proximity of villages to downtown with convenient living services were the main driving factors for expanding houses. A concerted effort is needed to control the disorganized and unlicensed expansion of housing. This effort should include formulating areas for free use by villagers, high taxes on overused areas, serious penalties for unlicensed housing expansion and effective land-use planning.

An understanding of the expansion status and control measures related to rural houses in Shanghai provides an important reference that can help to guide the formulation of rural housing policies, and the sustainable development of cities worldwide. Of course, this study cannot generalize about housing distribution and expansion status worldwide based on the study area in China, because China's land tenure policies are unique. But land registry data exists that makes research like this feasible. There is a need to carefully examine the detailed housing distribution in each country before it can be decided on how best to address the disorderly increase in rural housing stock, and promote the reduction of rural residential expansion.

First, the process of rural housing expansion by using an unique dataset which covers ten thousands of samples is revealed. Second, the results have policy implications for reducing the amount of idle and inefficiently rural homestead. The focus is on rural housing growth and its driving factors in Shanghai, and the villagers' motivations for housing expansion are explored.