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Continuing to occupy well over half of China's population, Rural life in the People's Republic of China has a varied range in terms of standard of living and life patterns. In southern and coastal China, rural areas have seen increased development and are, in some areas, beginning to catch up statistically to urban economies. In northwest and western regions, rural life is continue to be seen as low-standard and primitive. Basic needs such as running water and accessible transportation are still very much a problem in these areas.

Contents 1 History 2 Great Leap Forward 3 Deng's reforms 4 Healthcare 5 See also 6 External links

One of the major avowed objects of the Communist Party of China (CPC) during its rise to prominence between 1921 and 1949 was the improvement of the standard of living of the average Chinese citizen, the vast majority of whom were rural dwellers. During the pre-1949 period, the CPC played a major role in transforming rural life in areas it influenced or controlled. After 1949, wholesale transformation was effected. A major area was land reform, where control was taken from traditional land owners and wealthy peasants, and appropriated to the state, that is, collectivized. China in the early post-1949 period saw increases in mechanization of agriculture, the spread of electricity, running water, and modern technology to rural areas. However, by the late 1950s, much remained to be done.

Mao noted that most benefits were accruing not to the rural areas, where the vast majority of Chinese still lived, and who were the ostensible focus of the revolution, but to urban centers. Identity card systems channeled unequal degrees of resources, including food rations, to urbanites and rural dwellers. The "rustication" of the Cultural Revolution was intended to focus China's energy on agriculture and improving rural life rather than unbalanced development in intellectual and urban pursuits.

With the death of Mao in 1976 and the rise of the rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping, new policies in China's economy shifted the approach from collective farming to household-based production quotas, in many ways reversing decades of collectivization efforts. In many areas of China, especially southern and coastal China, the standard of living improved dramatically after Deng's reforms. Township and Village Enterprises brought industrial production to rural areas--predominantly along the souther coasts--helping open these rural communities to greater economic prosperity. (The idea of industrial production in rural areas had been attempted under Mao but with much more limited success; for instance, industrial plants in highly remote areas found their ultimate production efforts hampered.) Soon, however, an imbalance appeared where northern, interior, and western China remained at a far lower degree of economic development, a situation which persists to the 21st century. However, there are multiple, complex factors contributing to this state of affairs. For instance, distances are much farther, and geography often more challenging, in western and interior regions. Population is more spread out; social structures may also play a role, in that the demographics and social structures of these regions often differ significantly from those of coastal China.

Development remains uneven, with many highly prosperous areas far outpacing deeply impoverished regions where parents have great difficulty attaining enough income to ensure their children can be sent to school, despite the already-low education fees. Indeed, educational and social imbalances are a salient feature of this uneven development.

One emerging trend since at least the 1990s is the "floating population" or "black (e.g. black market) people", rural migrants (民工 min gong) entering urban areas in search of work. Until recent developments, rural residents lacked the legal permission to resettle in urban areas without approval, yet between tens and hundred of millions did resettle in search of jobs. Many have found work, in the form of construction and other sectors with relatively low wages and benefits, and high workplace hazards. Numerous social issues have developed as a result, namely discrimination of ruralites in cities, psychological isolation of rural migrants, some of which has led to crime. In this sense, then, rural life has "entered" the cities.

Lack of employment opportunities has increasingly made life in many rural regions difficult, hence the apparent enticement to resettle in urban areas. Of course, jobs are still limited, so many do relocate in cities only to find prospects much more meager than they had expected. Statistics suggest a very high proportion of residents of rural areas are unemployed or underemployed.

During the Great Leap Forward campaign of 1958 to 1960, China's leaders attempted to accelerate collectivization and dramatically increase the pace of industrial production through the country, particularly in rural areas. This most involved small-scale production, such as the smelting of "backyard" steel.

It was thought that through collectivization and mass labour, China's steel production would surpass that of the United Kingdom within only 15 years after the start of the "leap."

An experimental commune was established in Henan early in 1958, and soon spread throughout the country. Tens of millions were mobilised to produce one commodity, symbolic of industrialisation—steel. Approximately 25,000 communes were set-up, each with around 5,000 households.

The hope was to industrialize by making use of the massive supply of cheap labor and avoid having to import heavy machinery. Small backyard steel furnaces were built in every commune while peasants produced small nuggets of cast iron made out of scrap. Simultaneously, peasants communities were collectivised.

The Great Leap Forward is now widely seen both within China and outside as a major economic disaster. Peasants often abandoned farming to produce steel or work in other industrial production. The three years between 1959 and 1962 were known as the "Three Bitter Years," the Three Years of Natural Disasters (although this name is now rarely used in China), and the Great Leap Famine, as the Chinese people suffered from extreme shortages of food. The period had a profound impact on the history of rural life in China.

Deng's reforms included the introduction of planned, centralized management of the macro-economy by technically proficient bureaucrats, abandoning Mao's mass campaign style of economic construction.

Deng sustained Mao's legacy to the extent that he stressed the primacy of agricultural output and encouraged a significant decentralization of decision making in the rural economy teams and individual peasant households. At the local level, material incentives, rather than political appeals, were to be used to motivate the labor force, including allowing peasants to earn extra income by selling the produce of their private plots at free market.

Rural markets selling peasants' homegrown products and the surplus products of communes were revived under the more free-market economic approach of Deng. Not only did rural markets increase agricultural output, they stimulated industrial development as well. With peasants able to sell surplus agricultural yields on the open market, domestic consumption stimulated industrialization as well and also created political support for more difficult economic reforms.

The development of Special Economic Zones also spurred rural growth in some parts of China.

After 1949, the Chinese healthcare system, in rural areas the first tier was made up of "barefoot doctors" working out of village medical centers. They provided preventive and primary-care services, with an average of two doctors per 1,000 people. At the next level were the township health centers, which functioned primarily as out-patient clinics for about 10,000 to 30,000 people each. These centers had about ten to thirty beds each, and the most qualified members of the staff were assistant doctors. The two lower-level tiers made up the "rural collective health system" that provided most of the country's medical care. Only the most seriously ill patients were referred to the third and final tier, the county hospitals, which served 200,000 to 600,000 people each and were staffed by senior doctors who held degrees from 5-year medical schools.

In the late 20th and early 21st century, the availability and quality of health care varied widely from city to countryside. According to 1982 census data, in rural areas the crude death rate was 1.6 per 1,000 higher than in urban areas, and life expectancy was about 4 years lower. The number of senior physicians per 1,000 population was about 10 times greater in urban areas than in rural ones; state expenditure on medical care was more than -Y26 per capita in urban areas and less than -Y3 per capita in rural areas. There were also about twice as many hospital beds in urban areas as in rural areas. These are aggregate figures, however, and certain rural areas had much better medical care and nutritional levels than others.

• Women's healthcare in 20th century China
• Public health in mainland China

• Article on rural migrants - Shanghai Star (English). accessed November 2005.
• News article on wealth gap in China - Reuters. 1 December 2005. (accessed 1 Dec 2005)