Table of Contents

Foreword
From a Moderately Prosperous Society to China Dream
From Substances to a Moderately Prosperous Society
Comprehensive Prosperity
The China Dream
New Circumstances and Challenges for Populous China
Fertility Policies and Population Increase
Downsizing of Families and Aging of Population
Large-scale Population Flow and Migration
Imbalance in Gender Ratio at Birth
Polarization and Transformation of Social Structure
Employment Structure, Urbanization Rate and Industrial Structure
Occupational Structure and Social Stratification
Income Distribution and Social Polarization
Social Organization Structure and Social Governance System
The World's Largest Social Security Scheme
Basic Situation of the Development of Social Security
Before this Century
Social Security System-building Accelerated in an All-round Way
Establishment and Improvement of the Housing Guarantee System
Main Issues and Prospects in the 12th Five-Year Plan Period
Education, Health and Human Resources
Reform and Development in Education
Reform of the Medical System and Development of the Medical and Health Cause
China's Population Quality and Development of Human Resources
Conclusion

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Following several years' harvests, since 1985, the comparative profit of grainproduction began to decline. Under such circumstance, many farmers chose toplant commercial crops with higher economic effectiveness or deal in animalbreeding, transportation or small business. Some people chose to work in urbanareas outside their hometowns. Since there are more people and less land, whichis divided into small pieces, and there is not an integrated social security systemin rural areas, rural families engaged in by-business began to make less effort infarming, only expecting to have enough grain for the daily life of their families.With enough funds earned from by-business, farmers may buy and use machines,chemical fertilizers and pesticides or hire others to do farming, or even lease theircontracted farmland to others while buying grain from the market. With increasedemployment opportunities from the industrial sector and the service industry, formany rural families with by-business, farming has become a sideline.
From an overall perspective, the phenomenon mentioned above does notmean that all the labor in a rural family is focused on by-business. For familieswith enough land and few opportunities for seeking outside employment, all themembers of the family may be engaged in farming, and they may even need tohire others to help them during busy seasons. However, for most rural families,which have less farmland (about 1.3 mu per capita) that the elderly and womencan manage to till, young laborers may seek job opportunities in cities or engagein transportation or small businesses to earn extra money for their families. Atthe very beginning, the non-agricultural activities were just intermittent activitiesduring slack seasons. However, later, young laborers become rural migrantworkers, who do not come back to farm even in the busy seasons. In that case,farming becomes the responsibility of the elderly, women and kids. Sometimes,other people are hired to help them, or the farmland is leased to others. Somefarmland may even be abandoned.