Agricultural adjustment in China: problems and prospects

摘要

Over the next several decades China faces major and difficult adjustments in employment in agriculture and in rural areas more generally. The adjustment problems arise from the need to reduce substantially the level of employment in agriculture while finding efficient substitutes for labor so that agricultural output will grow at approximately the same rate as demand. China faces much larger adjustment problems than most other developing countries at roughly the same per capita income level because the returns to rural labor are far lower relative to urban labor than in such countries as India and Thailand.