The book looks into how and why “China’s economy is transitioning to a ‘new normal’ of slower but more balanced and sustainable growth.” It reviews the reallocation of labor from agriculture to industry and notes that it has been a major driving force of China’s economic growth, but the surplus of rural laborers has declined considerably and will continue to decline. China needs “productivity and innovation as new driver of growth” and structural and institutional reform. One of the strategies to achieve reform is to build China’s human capital and make it "the cornerstone of its economy”.

Several REAP publications are cited in chapter 6: Building Human Capital. The chapter talks about education attainment in the labor force, quality disparities across rural and urban residents, school dropout problems, and the importance of early childhood development – all pillars of REAP’s research.

 

Read Excerpts from the Chapter Here