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Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise: (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020), 248p. The logic behind this argument is the following: transition of the economy from middle-income to high-income status requires completely different set of skills from the national labor force. But this is the road that China should definitely follow in its quest for reaching the ultimate goal of high-income economy. [Extracted from the article]

In I Invisible China i , Scott Rozelle and coauthor Natalie Hell leverage decades of rural-based research to pen a crystal-clear argument: China's tried-and-true model of development founded on promoting basic manufacturing has run out of steam. To substantiate this argument, Rozelle and Hell turn to the understudied canary in a coal mine that is rural China. [Extracted from the article]

Three structural barriers largely unique to China, the authors argue, make China particularly susceptible to this human capital crisis. In I Invisible China i , Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell argue that a human capital crisis in China's rural population threatens the continued development of the Chinese economy and is likely to cause China to stumble into the "middle-income trap". Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise: By Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020, 248 pp., $27.50 (cloth), ISBN: 9780226739526. [Extracted from the article]

For example, the percentage of China's labour force with secondary and further education provides evidence of China's low level of human capital. The root causes behind China's human capital crisis are elaborated in Chapter 4, which explains fundamental but long-overlooked rural problems. The similarities between Mexico and China in terms of economic development paths and human capital crisis are well elaborated. [Extracted from the article]

Nevertheless, Rozelle and Hell contend that China could well become "trapped" like countries such as Mexico, Thailand, Turkey and South Africa. Rozelle and Hell explain that in 2015 approximately 30 per cent of China's labour force aged 25 to 64 years had completed high school (p. 5). Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise. [Extracted from the article]

Invisible China: How the urban-rural divide threatens China's rise Second, on several occasions, the authors say things like "the entire world will be much better off with a thriving China" (p. 154) and "a growing, thriving China is good for the world" (p. 178). This status is very difficult to change, it detrimentally affects citizens with rural I hukou i status, and, most importantly, one's I hukou i status affects virtually every aspect of one's life. [Extracted from the article]

A review of the book "City Versus Countryside in Mao's China: Negotiating the Divide," by Jeremy Brown is presented.

A review of the book "One Country, Two Societies: Rural-Urban Inequality in Contemporary China," edited by Martin King Whyte is presented.