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The purpose of this paper is to make a general comparison between urban‐rural relationship in China and that in the developed countries, aiming to draw some experiences based on which future tendencies of urban‐rural relationship in China could be predicted.

The core analysis of this paper examines how the urban‐rural relationship develops especially when urbanization rate reaches a very high level. Through literature review, this paper explores the evolution of urban‐rural relationship in developed nations by referring to some international cities in different industrial stages. In parallel, it goes through this relationship in China from 1949 until now.

This paper shows that future urbanization development in China will be generated largely by rural‐urban migration especially the eastern‐inclined migration while rural industrialization‐lead urbanization would develop at the provincial level. It also points that education and training to the labor force is the crucial issue to future urbanization development in China.

The obvious value of this paper is to predict, through a historical review and comparison, urban‐rural relationship in China when it is approaching to high urbanization level. Literature review finds some experiences in developed countries that will somehow take place in China. It also analyzes the eastern‐oriented rural‐urban migration, rural industrialization and their influence on urban‐rural relationship in China.

Urban‐rural interaction in China has evolved over time and presented features in different periods since 1949. The aim of this paper is to measure urban‐rural interaction in China in a 50‐year period from 1958 to 2007, and to see if it bears resemblance to the historical evolution.

The paper historically reviews urban‐rural interaction in four periods after 1949. Then, it uses principal component analysis (PCA) and assesses this interaction in the study period.

The quantification of urban‐rural interaction bears resemblances to its historical evolution. Reform and opening‐up as well as the rural‐favored policies contribute a lot to the increase of urban‐rural interaction.

The paper systematically reviews the evolution of urban‐rural interaction in China, and analyzes the features of this interaction in different periods since 1949. It introduces PCA and measures urban‐rural interaction.

In the 69 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, especially the 40 years since the reform and opening-up, the relationship between urban and rural areas has undergone profound change. When the deepening reform of the urban-rural relationship is entering a critical period, it is necessary to reassess the evolution of the urban-rural relationship in China and draw a picture for that relationship in the future. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper combs the policies on the urban and rural development since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and analyzes macro data on the industries, population, personal income, and other aspects.

The study found that this urbanism affects individuals’ lives and the choices of society through the will of the state, and then provides feedback at the whole level of social values.

This paper divides the evolution of China’s urban-rural relationship into two major stages – nurturing cities with rural areas and leading rural areas with cities, which are then subdivided into five periods. The features of the relationship between the urban and rural areas in different periods are analyzed, and the future development of urban-rural relations is also considered.

Taking 30 provincial samples from 2001 to 2017 in mainland China as the research objects, this paper aims to evaluate the impact and effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the urban–rural income gap and reveals heterogeneity across regions.

Firstly, the Theil index is used to measure the income gap between 30 provinces in mainland China from 2001 to 2017, then the spatial econometric model is used to empirically test the impact of foreign direct investment on China’s urban–rural income gap and its heterogeneity across regions. Finally, a robustness test is performed.

The results show that there is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between FDI and the urban–rural income gap in China. That is, FDI expands the urban–rural income gap in the short term and helps to converge it in the long term. In the eastern region, FDI has a convergence effect on the urban–rural income gap in the short term, which increases the long term. However, in the central and western regions, the relationship between FDI and urban–rural income gap has a weak inverted U shape.

By assessing the impact of FDI on the urban–rural income gap, this work provides decision-making support for China and other developing countries to improve investment policies and income distribution policies.

Since 1978, China has made tremendous economic achievements through industrial upgrading. However, these achievements are accompanied by an expanding income gap between rural and urban areas. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between industrial structure and urban–rural income inequality in China.

Using the fixed-effects model and provincial data for the period 1985–2019, this paper estimates a linear relationship between industrial structure and urban–rural income inequality. By decomposing total income inequality into four components, the paper then analyzes how industrial structure affects each component.

The results show that industrial structure imbalance and industrial upgrading are positively associated with urban–rural income inequality. The positive effect of industrial imbalance mainly comes from widening the wage gap, while that of industrial upgrading mainly comes from aggravating business income inequality and property income inequality. Moreover, industrial balance and upgrading are conducive to increasing the share of wage income at the cost of property income.

By progressively examining the total inequality and the inequality of income components, this paper provides a better understanding of how industrial structure affects urban and rural income inequality. The findings of this study highlight the “inequality cost” associated with industrial structure adjustment, which provide policy-related insights on the balance development of urban and rural areas.

Development of urban-rural integration is essential to fulfill sustainable development goals worldwide, and comprehension about urban-rural integration types has been highlighted as increasingly relevant for an efficient policy design. This paper aims to utilize an unsupervised machine learning approach to identify urban-rural integration typologies based on multidimensional metrics regarding economic, population and social integration in China.

The study introduces partitioning around medoids (PAM) for the identification of urban-rural integration typologies. PAM is a powerful tool for clustering multidimensional data. It identifies clusters by the representative objects called medoids and can be used with arbitrary distance, which help make clustering results more stable and less susceptible to outliers.

The study identifies four clusters: high-level urban-rural integration, urban-rural integration in transition, low-level urban-rural integration and early urban-rural integration in backward stage, showing different characteristics. Based on the clustering results, the study finds continuous improvement in urban-rural integration development in China which is reflected by the changes in the predominate type. However, the development still presents significant regional disparities which is characterized by leading in the east regions and lagging in the western and central regions. Besides, achievement in urban-rural integration varies significantly across provinces.

The machine learning techniques could identify urban-rural integration typologies in a multidimensional and objective way, and help formulate and implement targeted strategies and regionally adapted policies to boost urban-rural integration.

This is the first paper to use an unsupervised machine learning approach with PAM for the identification of urban-rural integration typologies from a multidimensional perspective. The authors confirm the advantages of this machine learning techniques in identifying urban-rural integration types, compared to a single indicator.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on urban-rural income inequality in China.

This study uses the provincial-level panel data and employs the fixed-effects instrumental variable regression technique to investigate empirically the impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality in China.

The study finds that while FDI has directly contributed to reducing urban-rural income inequality through employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, FDI has also contributed to increasing urban-rural income inequality through international trade.

The study has some policy implications. First, as the study finds that FDI not only contributes to reducing urban-rural income inequality through employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, but also contributes to increasing urban-rural income inequality through international trade, therefore, apart from improving local economic and technological conditions to attract more FDI inflows, China should re-design FDI policies by shifting away from encouraging export-oriented FDI to encouraging FDI flows into the industries and sectors in line with China’s overall economic structural adjustments and industrial upgrading. Second, policies should focus on increasing investment in infrastructure development and in public education, which not only can reduce urban-rural income inequality but also can attract more FDI inflows. And finally policies should be designed to accelerate urbanisation development by focusing on urban-rural integrated development, household registration system reform and proper settlement of rural migrants in urban areas, thus reducing urban-rural income inequality.

The paper makes two major contributions to the literature. First, the paper adopts the fixed-effects instrumental variable regression technique to deal with the endogeneity issues in estimating the impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality, producing more consistent estimates. Second, the paper investigates not only the direct impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality through the effects of employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, but also the indirect impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality through its activities in international trade, adding new empirical evidence to the sparse literature on the impact of FDI on income inequality in China.

Based on the theoretical definition of the quality of economic growth as well as the availability and reliability of the given data, the purpose of this paper is to build an evaluation system of a regional economic growth quality on three levels: conditions, processes and results.

From the perspective of economic quality, this paper offers a theoretical interpretation on how the urban–rural income gap affects the quality of economic growth and takes an empirical test on the sample panel data from 30 provinces and regions through difference GMM and system GMM models.

The results show that the excessively large income gap will influence economic growth in terms of the foundation, operation and the outcome, thereby, restricting the quality of economic growth. In addition, investments in human and physical capital and improvements in terms of transport infrastructure, industrial structure and economic openness play an active role in economic growth quality, whereas government expenditure scale, financial development and the deviation of industrial structure have a negative effect.

There has been a substantial amount of experience and evidence on the research about the issue of China’s income distribution and the quantity of economic growth, whereas there are relatively fewer discussions about the income distribution and the quality of economic growth. This paper, based on what has been mentioned above, tries to give a theoretical interpretation and an empirical test to describe the relationship between urban–rural income gap and the quality of economic growth from the quality point of view.

There is a body of evidence that indicates mental illnesses are more prevalent in urban settings. However, to date no research has been carried out on the urban/rural incidence of mental illness in Ireland. This paper seeks to examine the micro level determinants of admissions to psychiatric hospitals between urban and rural areas.

Data from the National Psychiatric In‐patient Reporting System (NPIRS) and multivariate regression models are used.

Results from this analysis found that, in Ireland, rural residents had a higher probability of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital for schizophrenia and depression compared to urban residents.

The results presented here are only applicable to individuals that have been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Findings cannot be extrapolated to the general population. Future research will involve the simulation of mental health characteristics for the entire Irish population.

The analysis presented in the paper contributes to the current understanding of the social and spatial profile of psychiatric admissions in Ireland, whilst providing additional research to the international debate regarding urban/rural differentials in acute psychiatric hospital admissions.

Poverty alleviation has been a major theme of China's modernization process since the founding of New China. This paper points out that China's poverty alleviation process presents three stylized facts: “Miraculous” achievements of poverty alleviation have been made on a global scale; the poverty alleviation achievements mainly occurred in the high growth stage after reform and opening up; the poverty alleviation process is accompanied by the structural transformation of the urban–rural dual economy.

Therefore, a logically consistent analytical framework should form among the structural transformation of the dual economy, economic growth and the achievements in poverty alleviation. In logical deduction, the structural transformation of the dual economy affects rural poverty alleviation through the effects of labor reallocation, agricultural productivity improvement, demographic change and fiscal resource allocation.

The first two refer to economic growth, and the latter two are alleviation policies. The combination of economic growth and poverty alleviation policies is the main cause for poverty alleviation performance. China's empirical evidence can support the four effects by which the structural transformation of the dual economy affects poverty alleviation.

China's socialist system and its economic system transformation after reform and opening up provide an institutional basis for the effects to come into play. After 2020, China's poverty alleviation strategies will enter the “second-half” phase, namely, the phase of solving the problems of relative poverty in urban and rural areas by adopting conventional methods and establishing long-term mechanisms. This requires the facilitation of the reconnection between poverty alleviation strategies and the structural transformation of the dual economy in terms of development ideas and policy directions.