Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Dose Higher Socioeconomic Status Associate With Better Mental Health Outcomes Among Primary Caregivers In Rural China?, Wenwen Zhang

Master's Theses

This study explores the intricate relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and the mental health outcomes of primary caregivers in rural China, focusing on the Early Childhood Development (ECD) context in Ya'an. Anchored in a major intervention project launched in 2023, the study critically examines the hypothesis that higher socioeconomic status correlates with lower levels of negative emotions among caregivers.

Utilizing cross-sectional data, the research investigates how educational attainment and household income influence caregivers' mental health, measured through the DASS-21 score in three dimensions: stress, anxiety, and depression. The findings reveal that higher household income and educational levels are significantly associated …

Emerging Giants And Lessons For Development: China, India, And Their Different Paths To Progress, Eskander Alvi Editor, Wei-Chiao Huang Editor

Upjohn Press

This book explores the differences and commonalities in growth experiences of two looming economic giants, China and India—countries that follow often-contrasting economic, social, and political paths as they struggle to achieve long-term prosperity for their billion-plus populations. The papers included within show that the economic and political realities in the two countries are quite different, and that these realities are deeply embedded in each country’s social framework. China and India are at markedly different stages of economic development but the challenges facing the two countries, unsurprisingly, diverge—not only because of the different stage of development each has reached, but also …

The Past And The Present: Two Paradigms Of The Sino-African Investment, Emma Weirich

International Political Economy Theses

Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has obvious economic and political connections between the recipient and donor countries. Such investment can benefit both sides and carry certain costs to both, whether through global scrutiny or domestic struggles. This these seeks to add to the ongoing discussion of China's OFDI to Africa by comparing China's investment during its socialist period (1949-1976) and its post-socialist era (1977 – present). This comparison reveals that China's foreign policy has transitioned from a socialist paradigm to a capitalist one in the last seven decades, which brought significant changes in its OFDI policies and practice. In the …

Minimum Wages In China: Evolution, Legislation, And Effects, Shi Li, Carl Lin

Faculty Books

This book considers the positive and negative impacts of the minimum wage policy in China. Since China enacted its first minimum wage law in 1994, the magnitude and frequency of changes in the minimum wage have been substantial, both over time and across jurisdictions. The results from China’s experience show that rapidly increasing minimum wages have helped increase average wages and reduce the gender wage gap, income inequality, and poverty. However, the fast-rising minimum wage has also resulted in the loss of employment for young adults, women, low-skilled workers, and migrant workers. Additionally, higher minimum wages have a negative impact …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Education Expansion, Xiaozhou Ding

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the unintended consequences of education policies. The first two essays examine the impact of higher education expansion in China on household saving rate and individual migration rate. The third essay looks into the impact of a school redistricting plan and the construction a new school on housing prices in Fayette County, Kentucky.

In the first essay, I utilize the large national expansion on higher education in China which exogenously increase the enrollment of college students, to estimate the induced change in the expected college probability and how it affects saving rates for …

Three Essays On College Earnings Premium And China’S Higher Education Expansion, Chenxu Hu

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the college premium in China and how it has been affected by China’s higher education expansion.

In the first essay, I utilize the high education expansion as exogenous source to estimate the college premium. The rapidly changing access to college provides a rare opportunity to estimate a local treatment effect (LATE) of college education on earnings by utilizing the drastic increase in college admission rate in 1999. I also utilize the yearly admission rate as an instrumental variable for the endogenous college education. Using China Household Income Project 2013, the two IV …

The Impacts Of China's Rise On The Pacific And The World, Wei-Chiao Huang Editor, Huizhong Zhou Editor

Upjohn Press

This book provides the perspectives of a group of noted China experts on how China’s economic expansion and internal reforms are impacting its neighbors in the Pacific region as well as the United States and the rest of the world.

The Political Impact Of Rising Trade Exposure: Evidence From 2000 - 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, Xiaoyang Qian

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper we analyze the impact of global imports on regional labor markets, and how such impact translates to changes in voting patterns in the U.S. Presidential elections from 2000 to 2016. We find that imports from different U.S. trading partners influence voting patterns in different ways. In particular, we observe an anti-incumbent effect caused by import competition from OECD countries. Such an effect cannot be observed for imports from low-income countries. There is also evidence that suggests high exposure to import competition tends to drive voters toward the Democratic candidate, who typically proposes better social welfare programs and …

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Sarosh Kuruvilla

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Eli D Friedman

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …

Getting Through The Hard Times Together? Chinese Workers And Unions Respond To The Economic Crisis, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

How do post-socialist unions respond to market crisis? And what are the implications of this response for labor representation? Drawing on literature on post-socialist labor and union democracy, I argue that economic crisis affects not just labor – capital and labor – state relations, but also the relationship between union representatives and workers. Such a dynamic is highlighted by an empirical account of the divergent activities of workers and All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) unions in China following the economic crisis of 2008. While the union responded to mass unemployment with an administrative and policy-oriented strategy, workers took to …

Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Is there a labour movement in China? This contribution argues that China does not have a labour movement, but that contestation between workers, state and capital is best characterized as a form of ‘alienated politics’. Widespread worker resistance is highly effective at the level of the firm be-cause of its ability to inflict losses on capital and disrupt public order. But authoritarian politics in China prevent workers from formulating political demands. Despite the spectacular repressive capacity of the state, the central government has in fact responded to highly localized resistance by passing generally pro-labour legislation over the past decade. The …

Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi's theory of the countermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined "moments": the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus …

Evaluating Job Training In Two Chinese Cities, Benu Bidani, Chor-Ching Goh, Niels-Hugo Blunch, Christopher J. O'Leary

Christopher J. O'Leary

Recent years have seen a surge in the evidence on the impacts of active labor market programs for numerous countries. However, little evidence has been presented on the effectiveness of such programs in China. Recent economic reforms, associated massive lay-offs, and accompanying public retraining programs make China fertile ground for rigorous impact evaluations. This study evaluates retraining programs for laid-off workers in the cities of Shenyang and Wuhan using a comparison group design. To our knowledge, this is the first evaluation of its kind in China. The evidence suggests that retraining helped workers find jobs in Wuhan, but had little …

Guild-Ridden Labor Markets: The Curious Case Of Occupational Licensing, Morris M. Kleiner

Upjohn Press

In his third Upjohn Press book on occupational licensing, Morris M. Kleiner examines why the institution of occupational licensing has had such a curious evolution and influence in the United States, the European Union, and China. He also discusses the many similarities it has to guilds.

Allowing For Low-Cost Labor In Underdeveloped And Developing Countries As A Method For Initiating Economic Industrialization, Jordon A. Wolfram

Selected Honors Theses

The topic presented here closely examines the link between low-cost labor and the affect that it has on initiating industrialization in underdeveloped and developed countries. It can ultimately create a better standard of living for a country’s general population in the future, but the initial conditions for the laborers can be harsh. The low wage labor force achieves this goal by creating a competitive labor market which has the ability to stimulate economic growth. Once the initial steps of creating manufacturing and industry are achieved, then the general standard of living has robust potential to increase in the country as …

Mexico's Quest In The North American Markets, Antonio Diaz Gonzalez Salas

Senior Theses and Projects

Since the 1980s Mexico has implemented various economic policies that have improved its financial system at times. All the policies have ultimately failed. Since the 1990s both Mexico and China have made progress in foreign trade with their respective trade organizations. Mexico entered the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. In spite of being a part of two different trade organizations, both countries had a significant increase on their GDP and consequently a change of focus and direction towards their internal investments to enhance their production of exports. …

From Peasants To Farmers: Peasant Differentiation, Labor Regimes And Land-Rights Institutions In China’S Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang, John Andrew Donaldson

Qian Forrest ZHANG

The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights institution in shaping these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: (1) Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate …

Economic Transition, Higher Education And Worker Productivity In China, Belton Fleisher, Yifan Yu, Haizheng Li, Seonghoon Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the role of education on worker productivity and firms' total factor productivity using a panel of firm-level data from China. We estimate the returns to education by calculating the marginal productivity of workers of different education levels based on estimates of the firm-level production function. We also estimate how the education level of workers and CEO contributes to firms' total factor productivity. Estimated marginal products are much higher than wages, and the gap is larger for highly educated workers. Our estimate shows that an additional year of schooling raises marginal product by 30.1%, and that CEO's education increases …

Intra-Provincial Inequalities And Economic Growth In China, Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna Tyrowicz, Jacek Kochanowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the problem of inequalities in China. It is specifically focused on analyzing the effects of intra-provincial disparities on the development of the 28 mainland provinces in China. Intra-provincial inequalities, as measured by Theil index, seem positively related to growth, albeit the results are only convincing for the coastal provinces. A case by case analysis, however, suggests highly diversified patterns, including linear or an inverted u-shape for fastest growing coastal provinces and virtually no relationship for the majority of regions. The results corroborate some earlier raised questions about actual policy-making standards in China.

Chinese Women And Economic Human Rights, Lisa Fry

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Women’s human rights in China have an intriguing history and a challenging present. In ancient China, Confucianism espoused the virtues of silent women who stayed at home. During the Maoist period, on the other hand, gender equality was prioritized by the state, and women were equally appointed to leadership positions and agricultural collectives with men. After Mao’s death, the country transitioned to a social market economic system that resulted in a loss of state support for gender equity. Today, the rights of women in China are not clearly defined, protected, or promoted. China’s patriarchal traditions have reasserted themselves, obstructing women’s …

Evaluating Job Training In Two Chinese Cities, Benu Bidani, Chor-Ching Goh, Niels-Hugo Blunch, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Recent years have seen a surge in the evidence on the impacts of active labor market programs for numerous countries. However, little evidence has been presented on the effectiveness of such programs in China. Recent economic reforms, associated massive lay-offs, and accompanying public retraining programs make China fertile ground for rigorous impact evaluations. This study evaluates retraining programs for laid-off workers in the cities of Shenyang and Wuhan using a comparison group design. To our knowledge, this is the first evaluation of its kind in China. The evidence suggests that retraining helped workers find jobs in Wuhan, but had little …

Has Training Helped Employ Xiagang In China? A Tale From Two Cities, Benu Bidani, Chor-Ching Goh, Christopher J. O'Leary

Reports

This study evaluates the effectiveness of training programs for workers retrenched from Chinese state-owned enterprises in the cities of Shenyang and Wuhan. A variety of impact estimators were applied, however ordinary least squares (OLS) controlling for observable characteristic s was robust. We find that training dampens reemployment prospects in Shenyang but improves them in Wuhan. Training impact estimates computed by propensity score and log odds ratio matching imposing various support condition rules, yielded estimates very similar to those from the OLS. The estimates suggest that participation in training reduces the probability of being employed one year after participation by about …

Design For A Net Impact Evaluation Of Retraining In China, Christopher J. O'Leary

Reports

The main aim of the national reemployment project in China is to redeploy workers identified as redundant within urban state owned enterprises (SOEs) to new jobs.1 As part of a larger effort to document the success of the reemployment project in China, a net impact analysis of retraining will be performed using a sample drawn from three cities which span the range of economic conditions in China: Shanghai, Wuhan and Shenyang. 2 This paper presents a practical design for the sampling necessary to undertake the evaluation.