IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v51y2019i4p553-561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Semi-Proletarianization in a Dual Economy: The Case of China

Author

Listed:
  • Hao Qi

Abstract

This paper proposes a model to explain the wage increase for migrant workers in China since the mid-2000s. First, the model consists of a capitalist sector and a non-capitalist sector. Second, households are semi-proletarianized because they participate in both family farming and wage production. Third, capitalist firms determine the wage level in order to extract labor. The paper demonstrates that semi-proletarianization is one of the three stages of the long-term dynamics of a dual economy like China. In so doing, it provides an alternative to the Lewis turning point literature. JEL Classification : B51, O53, E24

Suggested Citation

  • Hao Qi, 2019. "Semi-Proletarianization in a Dual Economy: The Case of China," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 553-561, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:51:y:2019:i:4:p:553-561
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613419853876
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0486613419853876
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0486613419853876?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knight, John & Deng, Quheng & Li, Shi, 2011. "The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 585-600.
    2. Ryoshin Minami, 1968. "The Turning Point in the Japanese Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 380-402.
    3. Zhang, Xiaobo & Yang, Jin & Wang, Shenglin, 2011. "China has reached the Lewis turning point," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 542-554.
    4. Minami, Ryoshin, 1968. "The Turning Point in the Japanese Economy," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 19(3), pages 220-229, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ge, Suqin & Yang, Dennis Tao, 2011. "Labor market developments in China: A neoclassical view," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 611-625.
    2. Kwan, Fung & Wu, Yanrui & Zhuo, Shuaihe, 2018. "Surplus agricultural labour and China's Lewis turning point," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 244-257.
    3. Elena Bárcena-Martin & Elena Jacques Silber & Yuan Zhang, 2019. "On the measurement of population weighted relative indices of mobility and convergence, with an illustration based on Chinese data," Working Papers 505, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Iris Claus & Les Oxley & Yang Du & Cuifen Yang, 2014. "Demographic Transition And Labour Market Changes: Implications For Economic Development In China," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 617-635, September.
    5. Andrea Fracasso, 2015. "Economic Rebalancing and Growth: the Japanese experience and China’s prospects," DEM Discussion Papers 2015/07, Department of Economics and Management.
    6. Yuan Zhang & Ting Shao & Qi Dong, 2018. "Reassessing the Lewis Turning Point in China: Evidence from 70,000 Rural Households," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 26(1), pages 4-17, January.
    7. Golley, Jane & Meng, Xin, 2011. "Has China run out of surplus labour?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 555-572.
    8. Scott Rozelle & Yiran Xia & Dimitris Friesen & Bronson Vanderjack & Nourya Cohen, 2020. "Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High- and Low-Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 555-589, December.
    9. Yinhua Mai & Xiujian Peng & Peter Dixon & Maureen Rimmer, 2014. "The economic effects of facilitating the flow of rural workers to urban employment in China," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(3), pages 619-642, August.
    10. Sakib Bin Amin & Farhan Khan & Mashiyat Rafa Khan & Jaahin Azam Oyishi, 2023. "The dual economy paradox: the case of Bangladesh and India," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(9), pages 1-22, September.
    11. Shang-Jin Wei & Zhuan Xie & Xiaobo Zhang, 2017. "From "Made in China" to "Innovated in China": Necessity, Prospect, and Challenges," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 49-70, Winter.
    12. Minami, Ryoshin, 1970. "Further Considerations on the Turning Point in the Japanese Economy (I)," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 10(2), pages 18-60, February.
    13. Pi, Jiancai & Zhang, Pengqing, 2016. "Hukou system reforms and skilled-unskilled wage inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 90-103.
    14. Bonatti, Luigi & Fracasso, Andrea, 2013. "Regime switches in the Sino-American co-dependency: Growth and structural change in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-32.
    15. Yanan Li & Chunbing Xing, 2020. "Structural transformation, inequality, and inclusive growth in China," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-33, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. A. Ford Ramsey & Tadashi Sonoda & Minkyong Ko, 2023. "Intersectoral labor migration and agriculture in the United States and Japan," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(3), pages 364-381, May.
    17. Tomoko Hashino & Keijiro Otsuka, 2013. "Hand looms, power looms, and changing production organizations: the case of the Kiryū weaving district in early twentieth-century Japan," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(3), pages 785-804, August.
    18. Stephan Hoffmann & Dirk Jaeger & Wu Shuirong, 2018. "Adapting Chinese Forest Operations to Socio-Economic Developments: What is the Potential of Plantations for Strengthening Domestic Wood Supply?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-19, April.
    19. Nazrul Islam & Kazuhiko Yokota, 2008. "Lewis Growth Model and China's Industrialization," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 359-396, December.
    20. Esteban-Pretel, Julen & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2014. "On the role of policy interventions in structural change and economic development: The case of postwar Japan," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-83.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    semi-proletarianization; dual economy; China’s economy; migrant workers; labor extraction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:51:y:2019:i:4:p:553-561. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.