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As an increasingly urbanized country, China faces significant disaster risks. Social vulnerability influences the ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Quantifying social vulnerability is a worthwhile study because it can provide information vital to understanding the interactions among individuals, communities, and society and can further help us improve disaster risk mitigation. Therefore, this paper presents a case study on the social vulnerability assessment of the inner area of Jiaxing, China. With household questionnaire data, we calculated the social vulnerability index (SoVI) through categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA). We also presented a holistic and detailed profile of social vulnerability that links three different levels (e.g., households, apartment blocks, and communities) and contains four aspects of SoVI, such as statistical information, spatial pattern, dimension attributes, and risk state combinations of variables. This profile also responded to criticisms about the index method's reductionist nature. Our results retained as much valuable information as we could, enabling a more holistic understanding of demographic, environmental, and social conditions that influence social vulnerability to disasters in the inner city of Jiaxing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household food waste (HFW) accounted for about 66% of global food waste's total carbon footprints (CF). Based on China's macro-panel food consumption data, this paper measures the urban–rural and provincial differences in the HFW CF from scale, structure, and temporal-spatial evolution perspectives. The results indicate that HFW and CF continue to grow, and the total CF and per capita HFW in urban households are higher than in rural households. The structural differences between urban and rural HFW CF vary significantly over time and spaces, which reflected that rural households in the southeastern coastal areas have higher per capita HFW CF than urban in 2019. The research results help to clarify the distribution and evolution pattern of HFW CF in China and offer new ideas for the differentiated governance of CF reduction in the food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the pollution characteristics of metals in household dust in China and their exposure to children, this study searched peer‐reviewed papers published during 1980–2020 and analyzed 30 eligible papers screened under the per‐decided strategy. We evaluated the sample‐weighted concentration (SWC) of each metal, explored the sources of metals, and presented the quantitative description of spatial‐temporary characteristics and children exposure to 13 metals with multi‐route under a general living scenario. The results showed the concentrations of 13 metals with a range of 0.89–29 090.19 mg/kg. The SWC of Cd in household dust from rural areas was 3.29 times of that from urban areas, while the SWC of Ni from urban areas was 3.71 times of that from rural areas. The results showed that four principal components were extracted, and the cumulative contribution rate reached 79.127%. The exposure dose of 13 metals to children aged 2–3 years was presented with the highest by ingestion. Metals such as Fe, Zn, and Mn posed inevitable health risk to children with high exposure. Countermeasures should be carried out to minimize the children exposure to metals in household dust urgently, such as the establishment of environmental health standard for household dust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of mobile payment (m-payment) adoption on household savings decline in China. Using data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey, we employ an instrumental variable approach with multiple robustness checks to evaluate the impact of m-payment adoption on household savings rate. Our study discovers that m-payment usage decreases the household savings rate by about 20% points. We also find that, relative to that of rural and older households, the savings of urban and younger households are more significantly influenced by m-payment adoption. The main channels through which m-payment usage affects the household saving rate likely include improved risk sharing, alleviated credit constraint, and enhanced risk tolerance. This paper provides important insights about m-payment adoption and the ongoing household savings decline in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the vulnerability of households to disasters, using an asset vulnerability framework to represent livelihoods. Such frameworks are widely employed to analyse household poverty and focus on living conditions and well‐being rather than money‐metric measures of consumption and income. The conceptualisation of household vulnerability is a challenge in current studies on coping with disasters. The paper considers whether a capital assets framework is useful in identifying and assessing household vulnerability in the context of the Wenchuan earthquake in China in 2008. The framework has five categories of assets (financial, human, natural, physical, and social capital) and attempts to measure the resilience and vulnerability of households. When applied to a major disaster, asset‐based methods face the problem of heterogeneity of the population, such as with regard to livelihood type or residence. Moreover, the effect of external interventions, such as the provision of relief assistance, must be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates whether the devolution reform of forestland to household management improves allocative efficiency and household welfare through participation in forestland rental markets. Using a household panel dataset from three Chinese provinces, we find positive effects of the emerging forestland rental markets: with the reform, forestland was transferred to forestland-constrained and labour-rich households and households with higher levels of productivity in forestry. Participation in forestland rental markets increases household per-capita income and decreases the likelihood of income falling below the poverty line. We do not find any support for forestland captured by land-richer, wealthier, larger or powerful households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impacts of storage losses and market development on the maize-selling behaviours of rural households in China. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the survey data of 543 households from nine major maize production provinces in China, the authors introduce storage losses to a household's maize-selling decision-making model and use fractional logit model and ordered probit model to empirically analyse the impact of maize storage losses and market development on household maize-selling decisions in China. To overcome potential endogeneity problems, the authors select the weather at drying (whether bad weather occurs during the drying process) and harvest loss as instrumental variables and re-estimate the model. Findings: The results show that increased storage losses prompt farmers to increase the proportion of maize sold within three months after harvest and sell maize in advance. Meanwhile, the degree of market development has a significant impact on farmers' maize-selling decisions. Other factors, such as the maize output, non-agricultural employment and awareness of loss control, also affect farmers' maize-selling behaviours. Research limitations/implications: The government should promote advanced storage facilities, reduce household storage losses, decrease the phenomenon of centralised sales after harvest and help farmers freely choose the suitable time for sales. The government also needs to strengthen market information releases and publicity, reduce transaction costs and help farmers make reasonable sales decisions. Originality/value: The authors introduce storage losses as a separate variable in a farmer's grain-selling decision model to empirically analyse the impact of storage losses on farmers' grain-selling behaviours. Moreover, the authors analyse the impact of market development on household grain-selling behaviours in China. These findings can help avoid oversupply in the market during the harvest season and alleviate the pressure on the market from the supply and demand imbalance. These results are also beneficial for farmers waiting for a higher price and increasing their income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine impacts of the poverty alleviation relocation (PAR) program on diet quality of low-income households in China. We explore the impact mechanism of relocation on diet quality and the heterogeneous effects of different relocation modes. Design/methodology/approach: A fixed effects model is constructed using panel data of 1126 low-income households collected over three years in eight provinces of China. The PAR program provides a natural experiment which dramatically changes the living conditions surrounding farmers. We are able to identify the causal effects of relocation on diet quality free from selection bias. Findings: The empirical results show that the PAR program improves diet quality of low-income households and that better market access and increasing incomes induced by relocation play an important role in this improvement. Improved market access significantly reduces the over-consumption of staple foods, whereas higher income significantly reduces the intake divergences of non-staple foods. The impacts of different relocation modes on diet quality are highly heterogeneous. Practical implications: Our findings indicate that the PAR program benefits diet quality of low-income households through greater market access and increases in total household income. Market improvements and food subsidies are conducive to improving the diet quality of the low income. Originality/value: Despite widespread evidences of healthy diets being associated with household environments and income, selection bias remains. This paper utilizes an exogenous program to explore the causal impacts of market access and family income on diet quality and to separate their different effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rural areas, social and economic differentiation profoundly impact rural development patterns, which, in return, impacts rural village social and economic structures and the land transfer decisions of rural households residing within the village. Research on agricultural land transfer has rarely been discussed under the lens of the differentiated socioeconomic structure of rural villages, as well as rural governance capacities. This paper contributes to the existing body of research on the determinants of rural land transfer by examining the role of village socioeconomic differentiation and rural governance based on a quantitative analysis of factors at different scales. The results show that: (1) compared with clan‐based unity structure, kinship‐based split structure and dispersed structure have a positive effect on household land out‐transfer and a negative effect on land in‐transfer. (2) The homogeneity of residents had a negative impact on out‐transfer, while the financial revenue of the village had significant positive influences on households' out‐transfer. (3) The higher the trust in cadres and the evaluation of the local government, the greater the tendency of households to transfer land in, but none of this effect is significant. (4) The socialized agricultural services and the share of non‐farm have significant effects on land transfer. Moreover, households with better geographical conditions, such as those near the county capital and towns, are more likely to transfer their land out. These findings offer significant insights for the management of agricultural scale and the revitalization of rural areas in China, while also offering valuable ideas for the implementation of differentiated agricultural control and rural governance policies in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data from the China Family Panel Survey, this paper explores the impact of agricultural commercialization on household multidimensional poverty and its mechanism. The results show that agricultural commercialization has significantly reduced household multidimensional poverty, especially poverty in health and living standard. However, it may be that the income from commercialization has not all been converted into household multidimensional welfare, making the multidimensional poverty reduction effect of commercialization smaller than the income poverty reduction effect. Further research shows that a possible channel for agricultural commercialization to reduce multidimensional poverty is to improve farmers' ability to convert their endowments into earnings and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraging rural residents to adopt biogas is of great practical significance in tackling environmental degradation in China. Based on the survey data of 540 rural households in Sichuan Province, China, this paper studies the peer effects of biogas adoption in rural households, focusing on the influence of relatives and friends on the biogas adoption behavior of rural households. According to whether there is a Chinese New Year visit, the relatives and friends of rural households are divided into strong ties and weak ties. The peer effects are further discussed from the perspective of strong and weak ties, and the probability score matching (PSM) method is used to correct the estimation errors that may be caused by selection bias. In addition, the study further revealed the internal mechanism of peer effects through heterogeneity analysis. The results found that (1) the adoption of biogas by relatives and friends significantly promotes the adoption of biogas in rural households. (2) Compared with relatives and friends who did not visit during the Chinese New Year (weak ties), relatives and friends who visited (strong ties) had a more significant impact on the biogas adoption behavior of rural families. (3) Farmer groups with lower education levels and farther from the market are more affected by the peer effects and are more likely to adopt biogas. The driving effect of biogas behavior choice of relatives and friends on biogas behavior decision of rural households can provide a reference for decision-makers to make relevant measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Douglass C. North's 'puzzle' concerning China's household responsibility system (HRS) and offers a possible solution. China's HRS, which has evolved over the past four decades to become its dominant form of rural land ownership, has stimulated spectacular economic growth and poverty reduction; however, it is based on a type of ownership which is far removed from the property rights regime which North regarded as essential. Two features of the HRS merit attention. The first is 'split ownership': this refers to the allocation of different aspects of ownership, including rights of access, use, management, exclusion and alienation, to a range of individual and collective actors with interests in the land in question. The second is polycentric governance: rules governing land use are derived in part from community-level action and in part from state intervention. We argue that in explaining the functioning of the HRS we need to move beyond the narrow conception of legally enforced private property rights on which North relied. We should instead embrace understandings of ownership as an emergent, diverse and complex institution, of the kind emphasized by A.M. Honoré's legal theory of ownership and Elinor Ostrom's theories of the common-pool resource and polycentric governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its significant implications for the economy and society, this paper investigates the impact of housing supply regulation on household wealth inequality. Utilizing data from the China Household Finance Survey and land transaction records spanning from 2013 to 2019, we employ recentered influence function regression and two-way fixed effects models to analyze the effect of unexpected housing supply shocks on the wealth gap among households. Our findings reveal that positive unexpected housing supply shocks are crucial in reducing household wealth inequality. This reduction is attributed to the heterogeneous impacts of housing supply regulation on different wealth groups. By deregulating the housing supply, the upward trend in housing prices has slowed, which in turn makes homeownership more accessible and facilitates wealth accumulation for households that fall within the 20 % and 80 % wealth quantiles. Conversely, deregulation has a negative impact on property values for households in the 80–100 % wealth quantile, thus mitigating their overall wealth growth. Overall, this study emphasizes the significant role of housing supply regulation in shaping wealth inequality in China. • This paper examines the housing supply regulation's impact on wealth inequality in China. • Positive housing supply shocks play a vital role in decreasing household wealth inequality. • Deregulation boosts homeownership for 20 %–80 % wealth quantile households. • Wealthiest households face property value drops with deregulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the new rural social pension program's effect on household consumption in rural China. Design/methodology/approach - The paper employs field data in Hebei Province and comprehensively applies the ordinary least squares regression model and the difference-in-difference matching method. Findings - The findings show that participation in the Program may not obviously increase household consumption, rather it significantly inhibits the marginal propensity of young families' consumption temporarily without an apparent impact on participating households' consumption. Practical implications - In addition to maintain the stability of the basic system framework of the new rural social pension program and preserve or increase the value of the fund under the Program, dynamic adjustments to pension levels should be made as and when appropriate. Originality/value - The study provides a new empirical evidence for the relationship between the new rural social pension program and consumption and gives insight into potential modifications and improvements to the Program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key ecological function areas are not only recognized as the critical subject for national and global ecosystem protection, but also the crucial hinterland for maintaining the livelihood of local residents. Studies on livelihood resilience contribute to better understand the adaptation strategies and development needs of poor and highly vulnerable groups in key ecological function zones, which is crucial to promoting the long run sustainability. Based on the survey data of 575 households, this paper constructs the livelihood resilience evaluation index system from three dimensions of buffer capacity, self-organization ability and learning ability. The method of weighted sum is used to evaluate the livelihood resilience of farmers, and the influencing factors are analyzed by multiple regression model. The results show that the overall level of livelihood resilience of farmers is weak, and the self-organization ability of farmers is significantly higher than their buffering ability and learning ability. We found that ecological policy, age of head of household, diversity of livelihoods, family size, and environmental dependence are the key factors that affect the resilience of farmers' livelihoods. We argued that, new methods such as establishing a technical training system for farmers, promoting livelihood diversity, improving and implementing active ecological policies, and building long-term and effective risk warning, emergency response, and poverty alleviation mechanisms should be considered and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess China’s urban social assistance policy, mainly by examining the findings of in-depth interviews with urban Dibao recipients in Chengdu about their experiences with social assistance, and by comparing what the social assistance offers with the urban poor households’ actual needs and vulnerabilities. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the author interviewed 15 people from urban Dibao Households in Wuhou District and Qingyang District of Chengdu, China. The interviews were conducted from April to August in 2013, usually in their homes. The small sample naturally limits generalizations, however it can point to directions for future research. Findings – It is found out that urban Dibao which is the core of social assistance policy provides insufficient cash support and other special assistance programs are more of tokenistic which do not offer much help. Besides, due to lack of psychological aid, many recipients show negative and pessimistic attitudes toward life. Originality/value – Regarding the assessment of social assistance policy in China, the international literature has shown little interest. Several Chinese scholars have analyzed urban social assistance system, but they tend to examine or assess from the perspective of policy makers and focus on making policy suggestions. Thus, there is not much information about whether what the social assistance offers could meet the urban poor households’ actual needs and vulnerabilities. An interesting endeavor would be to explore and assess the urban social assistance policy from the perspective of the recipients, and this is exactly what this paper aims to do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to investigate the opposing trends in Chinese urban and rural household savings rates observed in the micro data during the period 1995-2013. Using the Chinese Household Income Project Survey (CHIPS) data, we find that the average urban household savings rate has consistently risen while the average rural household savings rate has gone the opposite direction during the same period. Using a variant of Deaton-Paxson decomposition analysis, we find that urban and rural households displayed vastly different life-cycle savings rate profiles. Results from the median regression and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition suggest that the increasing urban savings rate can be explained by the continuously rising household income and increased precautionary savings for health shocks, whereas the shifts in household characteristics examined were not able to account for the decrease in rural household savings rate. The urban-rural savings disparities can be fully explained by the urban-rural income gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well-functioning factor markets play an important role in improving the performance of the agricultural sector. Our paper examines both technical and allocative efficiencies at the household level, with an application to a cross-section sample of rural households in three provinces of China in 2009. In a first step, we use nonparametric methods to estimate household efficiency. In a second step, we examine econometrically the role of land rental market and its linkages with household-level efficiencies. We find that participation in the land rental market does not affect technical efficiency but has large positive effects on allocative efficiency. This stresses the need to distinguish between technical efficiency and allocative efficiency in the analysis of land tenure issues. The improvements in allocative efficiency from land-leasing contribute to significant increases in household income in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life course researchers have made important advances in understanding the Western transition to adulthood but have paid less attention to global variations and gender differences. This paper draws on Risman's (2004, 2018) theory of gender as a social structure to examine the gendered meanings of establishing an independent household, a relatively new marker of adulthood in China that has evolved to focus on home ownership. Drawing on 100 interviews with men and women in two cities in southwest China, we find that men's ability to buy a house was typically seen as an indicator of competence, potential, and independence. By contrast, for women a house was often described as something men or parents provided to spare them from having to attain this marker of adulthood on their own. This depiction of women as vulnerable and fragile was at odds with interviewees' expectations for women's actual financial contributions toward a house. This rhetoric made home ownership a "male marker" of adulthood that undermined women's relationship to property, a key component of wealth in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution greatly impacts residents' health. To explore the current national situation of household PM2.5 pollution in China, a study was conducted based on literature published from 1998 to 2018. After extracting data from the literature in conformity with the requirements, the nationwide household‐weighted mean concentration of household PM2.5 (HPL) was calculated. Subgroup analyses of spatial, geographic, and temporal differences were also done. The estimated overall HPL in China was 132.2 ± 117.7 μg/m3. HPL in the rural area (164.3 ± 104.5 μg/m3) was higher than that in the urban area (123.9 ± 122.3 μg/m3). For HPLs of indoor sampling sites, the kitchen was the highest, followed by the bedroom and living room. There were significant differences of geographic distributions. The HPLs in the South were higher than the North in four seasons. The inhaled dose of household PM2.5 among school‐age children differed from provinces with the highest dose up to 5.9 μg/(kg·d). Countermeasures should be carried out to reduce indoor pollution and safeguard health urgently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to investigate dynamic food demand in urban China, with use of a complete dynamic demand system -- dynamic linear expenditure system-linear approximate dynamic almost ideal demand system (DLES-LA/DAIDS), which pushes forward the techniques of demand analysis. Design/methodology/approach -- The authors employ a transitionary demand process and develop a new approach of complete demand system with a two-stage dynamic budgeting: a strongly separable DLES in the first stage and a LA/DAIDS in the second stage. Employing provincial aggregate data (1995-2010) from the China urban household surveys, The authors estimated the demand elasticities for primary food products in urban China. Findings -- The results indicate that most primary food products are necessities and price inelastic for urban households in China. The authors also found that the dynamic model tends to yield relatively smaller expenditure elasticities in magnitude than the static models do due to the friction effect of dynamic adjusting costs, such as habit formation, switching costs, and learning process. However, the dynamic effects on own price elasticities are inconclusive due to the add-up restriction. Practical implications -- The research contributes to the demand analysis methodologically, and can be used for better projections in policy simulation models. Originality/value -- This paper methodologically relaxes the restrictive assumption of instant adjustment in static models and allows consumers to make a dynamic decision in food consumption. Empirically, the authors introduce a new complete dynamic demand model and carry out a case study with the use of urban household data in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The household expired drugs disposal has been a huge public issue in many countries, including China, which may affect various side and toxic effects on human health and environment, water resources, and soil too. This paper explores the knowledge, attitude, and practice of Guangzhou city residents regarding household expired drugs and their effect on human health and provided the scientific pieces of evidence to carry out the long-term recovery mechanism for expired medicines. Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted using a self-structured questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, including univariate and unconditional logistic regression models, was carried out to analyze the data. Results: A total of 613 community residents with a 99.4% response rate enrolled for the study. More than half 60.2% of residents stated that expired drugs pollute the environment, soil, and water resources, where 81.2% of respondents knew that it would produce side effects or toxic effects. However, still, 71.6% of respondents disposed of directly into the trash bin or sink, and, only 24.8% had good practice that they use a designed recycling bin. Likewise, only 8.3% of respondents placed expired drugs into collection points nearly 3– 5 times in a year, while 65.1% of participants never disposed of in the collection point, which found a worse practice. Conclusion: Overall, the knowledge, attitude, and practice of Guangzhou residents regarding household expired drugs disposal were not ideal. To improve the resident's awareness about family expired drugs disposal, ensure the financial support for the recycling process, establish an accessible and acceptable recycling point, and introduce relevant laws and regulations for the long-term mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Wholesale clearance and eviction that typify China's urban development have often resulted in discontents among urban residents, giving rise to what critics refer to as property rights activism. This paper is an attempt to critically revisit the existing debates on the property rights activism in China. The paper refers to the perspective of the 'right to the city' to examine whose rights count in China's urban development contexts and proposes a cross-class alliance that engages both migrants and local citizens. The alliance itself will have substantial political implications, overcoming the limited level of rights awareness that mainly rests on distributional justice in China. The discussions are supported by an analysis of empirical data from the author's field research in Guangzhou, which examines how local and non-local (migrant) residents view nail-households resisting demolition and forced eviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ethnic differences in fuelwood consumption in rural households, using an original survey dataset from two western Chinese provinces with large ethnic minority populations. We use a Heckman two-stage selection model to explain the quantity of fuelwood consumed conditional on a decision to use fuelwood. We find that ethnic minority families are more likely than majority Han Chinese families to use fuelwood. We also find that a household's off-farm income has a stronger negative effect on the quantity of fuelwood consumed for the ethnic minority families than for the Han Chinese families. In addition, families owning a larger area of forestland are more likely to use fuelwood. Yet the quantity of fuelwood consumed, especially in ethnic minority families, does not increase with owned forestland. Finally, we find that coal, rather than electricity, is a substitute for fuelwood for residential cooking and heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of the household registration threshold on peasant worker decision-making over acquiring urban hukou using 2258 peasant workers' data in China. The results demonstrate that the household registration threshold will significantly increase the peasant workers' willingness to obtain urban hukou, and increase the peasant workers' probability of acquiring the urban hukou of home province cities. In addition, China's household registration threshold plays a more significant role in metropolitan cities and eastern cities than in small and medium-sized cities and midwestern cities in terms of its impact on peasant workers' willingness to acquire urban hukou, and their urban hukou location intention. The degree of social integration's mediating effect is significant. Firstly, the degree of social integration reduces the positive effect of the household registration threshold for peasant workers acquiring urban hukou. Next, the degree of social integration influences peasant workers choosing urban hukou in the work city. To achieve improvement in the new urbanisation level of the household registration population, it is necessary to promote the integration of peasant workers and residents and decrease the household registration threshold for peasant workers' work cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of large income and expenditure shocks on household food expenditures and determines whether the impacts of large shocks differ among households, especially low-income households.Design/methodology/approach The study’s data are drawn from a household survey conducted in rural China. Multivariate analysis examines the impacts of large income and expenditure shocks on food expenditures.Findings The impacts of large positive income shocks on food expenditure are moderate. However, households reduce their per capita food expenditures within a range of about 25-30 percent after suffering large negative shocks. The greatest impact is found for shocks where expenditures more than double, followed by the impact of shocks where income declines by more than half. Moreover, food expenditures among low-income households are much more sensitive to large negative income and expenditure shocks. The paper concludes with policy implications.Originality/value This is the first Chinese study to empirically examine the impacts of different income and expenditure shocks on household food expenditures. The results have important implications for smoothing households’ food consumption after they suffer from shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the unintended effects of the water regulation on household livelihood in China, from the perspective of Engel coefficient. Applying county-level water regulation dataset and CFPS household dataset in a difference-in-difference-difference (DDD) specification, the research finds that the regulation increases the Engel coefficient by an additional 2.6%. Mechanism analyses show that water regulation influences the Engel coefficient through increasing household food expenditure, as it also causes local market fluctuations in meat products. Overall, this study sheds new light on the economic costs of environmental regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The living and production of large populations in flood storage areas (FSAs) is a common phenomenon in China. Such a situation inevitably produces a contradiction between flood potential and development, which may be solved by resettlement. Resettlement in FSAs with Chinese characteristics is an important means of flood risk management by the government. Based on a questionnaire survey, this paper analyses the factors influencing the resettlement decision‐making process of farmer households' in FSAs using a logistic regression. The findings suggest that the location of the resettlement, resettlement subsidies, and rationality of the subsidy policy have the most significant positive effect. The government should take measures to encourage farmers to resettle, so as to accelerate resettlement progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a society where financial market and insurance market are under-developed, social networks play an important role in risk sharing. Using data from the 2011 China Household Finance Survey, this paper examines the effect of siblings, which form strong ties in a social network, on household equity investment. We find that having one more sibling increases the probability of participation in stock market by 15–17% points and increases the fraction of total assets in stock investment by 2–3% points. We also find that sisters have a larger effect on equity investment than brothers. With the examination of the effects of siblings on social interaction, risk tolerance, saving, and borrowing behaviors, we argue that the main channel through which siblings affect household investment is risk sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is 40 years since China started to abandon collective farming, with initial rural reforms in 1978 that culminated in adoption of the household responsibility system (HRS). Existing studies of impacts of these reforms do not consider nonrandom spread of the HRS, spillovers from early adopters, or distributional effects. In this paper, the synthetic control method and spatial autoregressive panel models with autoregressive errors are used to estimate impacts of the HRS that account for these features. The HRS had a significant positive effect on grain output and food supply in China, while also helping to reduce regional inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using three waves of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we present basic facts about indebtedness and financial fragility of households in China between 2011 and 2015. We show how the total debt and mortgage debt (LTV) are distributed among different income groups, and how they change over time. Our stress tests suggest that Chinese households in higher quintiles, despite the huge increase in household indebtedness, are not vulnerable to declining incomes or falling house prices, while the low‐income households face high vulnerability and struggle to meet their debt commitments. However, the participation rate of low‐income households in the debt market is low, and household debt is mainly held by wealthier and higher‐income households. Our results suggest that the systematic default risk of Chinese household debt is moderate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship about the Chinesehukou(household registration) system has focused on the advantages and entitlements associated with urbanhukou.This paper shifts attention to the key entitlement provided by ruralhukou– village land. While earlyhukoureforms were mainly designed to open up urban labor markets to rural migrants, recent reforms have also begun to open up rural land markets, by replacinghukou-based land rights with market-based rights. These reforms are designed to facilitate land concentration and the transfer of land to outside developers and agribusiness companies, which has been hindered byhukou-based land rights. Underlying the reforms is the government's agenda of promoting large-scale agriculture and urbanization, both of which require the removal of a large portion of the rural population from the land. By focusing on land rights rather than urban benefits, this paper provides a new perspective on the evolution of thehukousystem, and highlights the negative implications of recent reforms for livelihood security in the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Land reallocations have been severely restricted in rural China since 1998. Nevertheless, land continues to be reallocated in some regions. Little is known about the forces behind the persistence of land reallocations. In this paper we argue that village self-governance rules affect the implementation of national laws and regulations, and that the election of village leaders and villagers' knowledge of relevant policies are major forces in the use of village self-governance rules for land reallocations. Estimation results based on primary data collected from 124 villages in four provinces in 2015 and 2016 provide evidence that both village democracy and households' knowledge of the Rural Land Contract Law (RLCL) positively affect the incidence of land reallocations. • We assess the impacts of village democracy and households' knowledge of relevant policies on land reallocations. • Democratic election of village leaders encourages land reallocations. • Households' knowledge of the Rural Land Contract Law (RLCL) positively affects the incidence of land reallocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural household energy consumption is an important component of national energy consumption. This paper explores the rural household energy consumption status and influencing factors on different sources of rural household energy consumption in western China. Using data from a survey of 240 households conducted in 2017, this study finds that rural households' energy consumption structure in the study area is a combination of traditional biomass energy and commercial energy sources. Fuelwood is the most commonly used fuel in the study area, while modern energy sources only occupy a low proportion. Rural household energy consumption is influenced by various factors. Individual perceptions of climate change, social trust and networks, and households' socio-economic and demographic factors (gender, age, education, income per capita, household size, household location, and number of household appliances) are identified as having significant effects on rural households' consumption of biomass and commercial energies. The research results provide implications for policy makers to formulate related rural energy policies to improve the rural energy consumption structure and future energy policy design in China and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Explore the self-selection issue from the perspective of households. • Examine how two partners' attitudes affect residential and car ownership decisions. • Husbands' travel attitudes have more influence in these decisions than wives'. • The travel attitudes of two household heads can affect each other's travel behaviors. Abstract Residential self-selection has been acknowledged as a key issue underlining the link between the built environment and travel behavior. Existing studies often implicitly assume that residential choice is a decision of an individual and the influence of intra-household interactions is not considered. In reality, residential choice is a decision often made at the household-level involving more than one household members. Similarly, car ownership is usually a household-level decision incorporating views of different household members. In both cases, the travel related attitudes of more than one household members may play a role in the decision making. In other words, there is an issue concerning residential self-selection (similarly car ownership self-selection): whose self-selection? This paper makes an attempt to probe into this question by examining the self-selection issues concerning residential location choice and car ownership decision from the perspective of households, by incorporating the travel attitudes and travel behaviors of two household heads into an integrated self-selection framework. Data are derived from a household sample survey involving two-day activity-travel diaries conducted in 2016 in Beijing, China. Multivariate modeling results show that household members play different roles in household decisions with travel implications: in general husbands' travel attitudes have relatively more influence in residential choice and car ownership decision than wives'. Nevertheless, wives' travel attitudes have more power than husbands' in explaining the commuting distances of both husbands and wives. Some distinct features of the residential and car ownership self-selections in the Chinese context are also identified and discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purposes of this paper are to explore how the cluster entrepreneurship of peasant households in the Chinese forest zone develops, and to analyze how the influence of kinship and geopolitical relations can effectively construct a mechanism for the growth of cluster entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – The case study method was chosen to analyze the growth process of this cluster entrepreneurship (e.g. raising chickens in Zhenghe, planting tea in Anxi and cultivating fruit in Taizhou). Findings – The authors found that the trust, learning and driving mechanisms of cluster entrepreneurship were influenced by kinship and geopolitical relationships, and were included in the building of the growth mechanism of such cluster entrepreneurship, as has emerged. Further, in the building of this evolution mechanism, three paths of growth were found: financial support, the introduction of technology and the introduction of management. Originality/value – This paper enriches the understanding of how cluster entrepreneurship develops in the socioeconomic environment of the Chinese forest zone, with particular reference to kinship and geopolitical relations, and how these contribute to the growth mechanism of cluster entrepreneurship, which is important for the management of entrepreneurial activities in that habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of rapid economic growth and massive rural-to-urban migration, rural poverty in China has been largely alleviated. Existing literature has highlighted the crucial role played by non-farm employment in the rural population's escape from poverty. However, despite some engagement in non-farm employment, a huge population in rural China remains poor. Why rural households remain poor in spite of non-farm employment has not been sufficiently explored by scholars. To fill the research gap, this paper explores the underlying mechanisms of poverty among the poor rural population, based on a recent questionnaire survey (n = 2,822) conducted in rural North Jiangsu in China. Our multinomial logistic regression model and OLS regression model show that education is positively associated with the likelihood of engaging in non-farm sectors. Relatively low education attainment of working-age household members (secondary education and below) restricted the earnings from non-farm activities, reducing the likelihood of escaping poverty. Supporting higher education for their children is often a heavy burden for poor non-agricultural rural households, driving them into the poverty trap. The results also show that significant family events, such as severe illness and children's college enrollment, have kept rural households poor, even if some household members have participated in non-farm activities through migration or working in the local non-rural sector. In addition, instead of being looked after, some apparently dependent family members (the elderly) undertake agricultural activities and domestic work to support the out-migration of the labor force in poor rural households to enable household wealth accumulation. The findings suggest that policymakers should implement a series of reforms, especially regarding improvement in health insurance and education and the economic development in the local areas (incl. rural areas and nearby towns) to deal with rural poverty. • Identify features of poor rural households who choose to escape the poverty trap through non-agricultural work. • Education investment may be insufficient for escaping the poverty trap if the education of the household workforce remains low. • Dependent family members at home contribute to improving the discretionary incomes of poor rural households. • Illness and college study prohibite poor rural households from taking non-agricultural work to escape poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper explores the factors that determine a farm household migration decision, particularly the influence of the current land tenure system in China. Land endowment per labour is used to measure farm size. Reallocation times and expectation of future land reallocation are used to measure the land reallocation situation. Data used in this study are from a farm household survey conducted in 2009 in 17 villages in Northeast Henan province. By using a Heckman two-stage model, the empirical findings show that there are some differences in terms of the magnitude and direction of determinants significantly affecting the decision to migrate and its duration. China's land tenure arrangements are based on egalitarian land distribution and frequent reallocation stimulates rather than deters migration in the case of land rental market imperfections. However, it is the main reason for the unique temporary and individual migration patterns. With the development of land rental markets, the importance of land transferability becomes prominent. Policies aimed at improving land security and promoting land transfer will also benefit rural labour emigration. Other factors that also have significant influence on labour migration are household size, number of household dependents, household assets and whether a household has a land-use contract. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China Health and Nutrition Survey ( CHNS) began in 1989 with the goal of creating a multilevel method of data collection from individuals and households and their communities to understand how the wide-ranging social and economic changes in China affect a wide array of nutrition and health-related outcomes. Initiated with a partial sample in 1989, the full survey runs from 1991 to 2011, and this issue documents the CHNS history. The CHNS cohort includes new household formation and replacement communities and households; all household members are studied. Furthermore, in-depth community data are collected. The sample began with eight provinces and added a ninth, Heilongjiang, in 1997 and three autonomous cities, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing, in 2011. The in-depth community contextual measures have allowed us to create a unique measure of urbanicity that captures major dimensions of modernization across all 288 communities currently in the CHNS sample. The standardized, validated urbanicity measure captures the changes in 12 dimensions: population density; economic activity; traditional markets; modern markets; transportation infrastructure; sanitation; communications; housing; education; diversity; health infrastructure; and social services. Each is based on numerous measures applicable to each dimension. They are used jointly and separately in hundreds of studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, there has been a growing divide between the earnings of urban and rural residents. This paper focuses on China’s household registration system, or ‘hukou’, as a potential source of the earnings gap. Using multiple waves of data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey from 1993 to 2011, we take advantage of variation in hukou status generated by individual-level changes. We control for fixed individual-specific characteristics that determine earnings and estimate an urban hukou ‘premium’. Urban hukou holders earn almost 30% more than rural hukou holders, but after we account for individual fixed characteristics, the urban hukou premium drops to 6-8%. We also find important differences between men and women. The empirical evidence indicates the hukou system is a component of the urban-rural earnings differential, but its importance should not be overstated. The elimination of the hukou system alone cannot address long-standing inequities in access to social services between rural and urban populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social geography research on familial spaces and intimate relations has generated valuable literatures on parenting and grand-parenting in modern nuclear families. However, the complex intergenerational relations and geographies of multi-generational households remain under-researched, limiting geographers' understanding of familial spatialities. This paper reports on research exploring intergenerational relationships through the lens of family-based food practices in temporary three-generational households of Guangzhou, the largest city in south China. It draws on five case studies with Xiaokang (middle-level) households. It examines how intergenerational relations are performed through everyday food practices, exploring their geographies in terms of both domestic space and wider family geographies. The key arguments suggest that domestic spaces are significant to cultural transmission and transition and emotional communication across generations, and key sites for intergenerational segregation and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household formation, or the extent to which population is transferred into households, determines housing demand and reflects housing well-being. Young adults, who are new entrants to the housing market and sensitive to changing market conditions, have faced many challenges in China's fledging housing market. This paper examines trends in household formation from 1982 to 2005 using census data. Then, the 2005 One-Percent Population Survey data are used to study macro effects on the household formation patterns of the post-1970 generation (those aged 25–34 in 2005) throughout China. Household formation is measured using both headship and non-family headship rates. In contrast to those in industrialised countries, young adults in China become less likely to form independent households in time of rapid economic growth. When they do, they are more likely to form non-family households than before. Regional variations in household formation can be explained by several macro factors. Marriage rates are positively associated with headship rates, so is gender imbalance. There is a distinct pattern to the formation of non-family households, which reflects increasing mobility, labour migration, delayed marriage, and gender imbalance. Institutional and demographic forces, some of which are unique to China, are important factors in household formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rich body of literature is stressing the crucial importance of migration and market evolution on the underutilization of housing in cities. Rural housing is unique given its less mature market structure. Drawing on an empirical case of Sunan, the work reported in this paper addresses underlying mechanisms of housing land underutilization in rural China. Employing a multi-level modeling approach, results suggest that the likelihood of underutilization relates to household and village features, such as family attributes, housing/parcel characteristics, type of villages, and geographical locations. Additionally, underutilization was also closely associated with regional contexts including local economic development levels and migration patterns. Theoretically, we conceptualized rural housing land underutilization as a land use transition with villagers' awareness of policy change possibilities in the context of both rapid urbanization and rural transformation with nested hybrid results. We argue that urban-rural differences do not induce underutilization. Rather, policy-induced overbuilding of new houses and insistence on retaining uninhabited older houses combined with the tendency for villagers' to view investments as a mechanism to retain ties to their rural hometowns drove underutilizaiton. • We propose a multi-scalar analytical framework on the underutilization of rural housing land. • We identify the nested impacts of factors at different levels on the utility of rural housing land. • The dualistically organized regime is argued as the primary driver of housing land underutilization in rural China. • The transition of rural space from productivism to post-productivism matters as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The domestic saving rate in China is the highest in the world and it surpasses the investment share in GDP, which is also very high by international standards. This excessive saving results in a large current account surplus. Understanding why the Chinese save so much is a central issue in the debate on global imbalances. The goal of our paper is to analyse empirically Chinese household saving behaviour taking into account the disparities within the country, at the provincial level and between rural and urban households. We first show that, notwithstanding the rising contribution of government and firms to national savings the real peculiarity lies with Chinese families. We move from Modigliani and Cao's (2004) attempt to explain rising personal saving in China within the life cycle hypothesis and show how a more careful analysis indicates that life-cycle determinants do not suffice, especially in the most recent period. Once we consider regional differences and distinguish urban and rural households using provincial-level data, it becomes clear that additional explanations are needed and that precautionary motives and liquidity constraints are playing an important role. Our results suggest that in order to reduce the propensity to save of Chinese households it is necessary to improve social services provision and to facilitate the access to credit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the question, "does market work improve women's household status in rural China?" using survey data of men and women working in Township and Village Enterprises in rural Jiangsu and Shandong. This paper measures household status by domestic labor time, responsibility for domestic tasks, and household decision-making control. It finds that women have lower household status than men, using these three indicators. Based upon regression results, this paper concludes that for women market wages reduce domestic work time and responsibility for domestic tasks but market hours do not. The nature of bargaining warrants further research since the evidence that financial resources contribute to increased household decision-making control is mixed. Should employment opportunities for women increase with China's membership in the WTO, improvements in women's household status will depend upon their wages and the gender wage gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household e-wastes have been increasingly generated, which has brought environmental burdens in most countries, especially in rapidly developing countries. With the unprecedented industrialization and urbanization, China has faced more serious problems concerning household e-wastes. Moreover, informal e-waste collecting has brought environmental burden due to improper treatment of invaluable parts of e-wastes. Thus, formal e-waste collecting enterprises have emerged with support from the government. But they are still difficult to survive. This paper contributes to systematically identify barriers for formal channels of household e-waste collection in China considering different stakeholders such as the government, households, collectors, and treatment plants. Using perspectives from experts in e-wastes formal collecting enterprises in Liaoning Province, this paper develops three steps based on the method of grey-based Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to reveal the most serious barriers in both the short and the long term by examining causal and effect relationships among these barriers. The results show that households’ habits of selling e-wastes to peddlers is one key barrier, which should be carefully considered in the short term. Support from the government such as providing subsidy and tax reduction for formal collecting enterprises is elemental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how changes in the structure of household income have affected inequality in urban China during the reform period. We conducted an inequality decomposition analysis by income sources using the household-level data from the Chinese Household Income Project Surveys for 1988, 1995 and 2002. The analysis reveals that the contribution of wages and salaries to inequality has declined over the years. Business income, which served as the inequality enhancing component in 1988, has turned into an inequality reducing force in 1995 and 2002. The marginal analysis reveals that 1% increase in business income neutralises about two-thirds of the increase in inequality caused by an equivalent increase in wages and salaries. Some business issues and policy options are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]