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Received: 24 October 2017 | Revised: 23 November 2017 | Accepted: 27 November 2017

Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 4–17
doi: 10.1002/app5.216

Original Article

Governance and Finance: Availability of Community and Social

Development Infrastructures in Rural China

Jing Wang and Bingqin Li *

Abstract 1. Introduction

This article studies the causes for unequal ac- Access to community infrastructures, for
cess to rural community and social develop- example, water and sanitation, sports and
ment infrastructures in China. We use a entertainment facilities, and social develop-
dataset in the China Health and Retirement ment infrastructures, for example, education,
Longitudinal Study (2011–2012), the National or health care facilities, affects people’s liveli-
Baseline Survey of Communities, to examine hoods and their potential to development
the availability of four types of infrastructures: (Srinivasu & Rao, 2013). Planning regulations
public transportation, sanitation, health care in China provide guidelines on infrastructure
and aged care. Three hundred and seven vil- coverage according to population size and den-
lages are included in this study. The findings sity. If the regulations are fully implemented,
suggest that the primary funder of infrastruc- we would expect to see equal access to services
tures and the status of village governance have and facilities across different communities. In
impacts on the unequal availability of rural in- practice, it is far from being equal (Wang
frastructures. The effects vary by the type of in- et al. 2014). In the 13th Five-Year Plan, the
frastructures under discussion. This is the first Chinese Central Government urged local gov-
attempt to combine planning, finance and gov- ernments to deliver their promises made in
ernance factors in explaining rural infrastruc- the past 5 years (Van Aken, 2015). This shows
ture availability. It has strong policy the concerns of the Central Government that,
implications and shed important light on without proper enforcement, plans may only
state–society relations and the urbanisation remain on paper. However, what are the causes
trends in China. of unequal access to infrastructures?
In the following sections of this article, we
Key words: community infrastructure, social
examine the availability of four types of infra-
development infrastructure, governance,
structures in 307 villages in China and analyse
finance, rural China
the causes of the variation. We argue that in ru-
ral China, it is not only the basic planning fac-
*Li: Social Policy Research Centre, University of tors (such as population, scale of the economy
New South Wales of Sydney, High Street,
and land area) that determine the availability of
Kensington, New South Wales 2052, Australia;
Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian
community infrastructures. Financial arrange-
National University, 132 Lennox, Crossing, ACT ment and the state of governance also play sig-
2601, Australia; Wang: Social Policy Research Cen- nificant parts. The roles of governance and
tre, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of So- finance can vary by types of infrastructures.
cial Sciences, No. 5, Jianguomennei Dajie, Beijing, This research helps to explain why unequal ac-
1000372, China. Corresponding Author: Li, email: cess to community and social development in-
<bingqin.li@unsw.edu.au> frastructures in rural areas persist even with the

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License,
which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial
and no modifications or adaptations are made.
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 5

improvement of planning regulations. This is social development infrastructures do not di-

the first research that combines planning, eco- rectly contribute to the economic production
nomic and governance factors in understand- of a village. However, they help to improve
ing rural infrastructure and thus has important the life quality of its residents. These infrastruc-
policy implications. tures may not be high on the agenda of the local
governments at the county or city levels, where
2. Different Types of Rural Infrastructures gross domestic product growth is the priority
(West & Wong, 1995; Hannum, 2003).
According to the Development and Reform
Commission of the PRC (2013), rural infra- 3. Unequal Access to Public
structures in China are divided into four Infrastructures—Existing Studies
categories:
Existing studies offer some explanations of the
1 agricultural production infrastructures (农业
availability of public infrastructure and varia-
生产性基础设施, Nóngyè shēngchǎnxìng
tion in investment in time and in space. The
jīchǔ shèshī), including infrastructures to
literature suggests that the outcomes of infra-
support modern agricultural production and
structure availability can be affected by the
water conservation;
overall economic, social and political
2 rural community infrastructures (农村生活
environment (Hulten & Schwab, 1991;
基础设施, Nóngcūn shēnghuó jīchǔ
Lambrinidis et al. 2005; Zhang & Kanbur
shèshī, or ‘rural life-related infrastructures’),
2005; Henisz, 2002). However, this line of re-
such as infrastructures for safe drinking wa-
search cannot explain spatial variation when
ter, natural gas, rural roads, local public
different places share similar overall economic,
transport and rural electricity;
social and political environment.
3 rural social development infrastructures (农
The utility gain of decision-makers on infra-
村社会发展基础设施, Nóngcūn shèhuì
structure construction is another explanation.
fāzhǎn jīchǔ shèshī, hereinafter referred to
O’Brien and Li (1999) argue that in China, lo-
as ‘social development infrastructures’),
cal officials implement policies selectively. Lo-
such as infrastructures for delivering com-
cal officials maximise their personal utility by
pulsory education (for example, nurseries
meeting the measurable targets set by the
and schools), health (health centres, clinics
higher authorities to get promoted faster. They
and hospitals and aged care centres) and cul-
favour projects that would give them the oppor-
tural activities(for example, activity centres
tunities to gain more financially, for example,
for sports, entertainment and learning and
through corruption. This thesis explains why
socialising spaces); and
local officials are not interested in investing so-
4 ecological and environmental infrastruc-
cial service infrastructures, as they personally
tures (生态环境建设基础设施, shēngtài
cannot gain as much from these smaller scale
huánjìng jiànshè jīchǔ shèshī), such as the
projects as from building bigger projects. How-
infrastructures for natural resource protec-
ever, this explanation has to satisfy two
tion, ecological protection and the construc-
assumptions. First, there is a sole decision-
tion of nature reserves.
maker, and he or she can single-handedly de-
In this article, we focus on community and cide what types of infrastructures to invest in.
social development infrastructures, that is, (2) Second, he or she can obtain the financial re-
and (3) in the aforementioned list, because sources to invest in the desired infrastructures.
these two categories of infrastructures are es- In the 1980s, 1990s or even the early 2000s,
sential for the daily life and basic services of these assumptions might hold in China, as a vil-
community members; poor availability of lage was very likely to have such a decision-
which has resulted in sustained rural poverty maker. However, local public finance and the
and loss of population due to emigration governing structure of rural villages have since
(Dollar 2007; Li et al. 2016). Community and been reformed, and the two assumptions may

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
6 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies January 2018

no longer hold nowadays. Thus, it is necessary Zhuānxiàng Fúpín Zījīn Guǎnlǐ Bànfǎ’, 财政
to study the determining factors of rural infra- 专项扶贫资金管理办法) was published in
structure now and whether the reformed May 2000 by the Ministry of Finance (2000).
funding practices and the state of village gover- According to this policy, government poverty
nance may have impact on the availability of reduction funds would be used to help poorer
certain infrastructures in rural villages. rural areas to fund community and social devel-
opment infrastructures, such as roads, health
4. Reforms of the Finance and Governance care, schooling and cultural infrastructure. In
of Infrastructure in Rural China 2004, a set of new policies was introduced to
encourage diversification of the finance of rural
In the past, rural infrastructure was primarily infrastructure. The purpose was to introduce al-
funded by the government. Overall, govern- ternative sources of investment into rural infra-
ment investment in infrastructure was heavily structure. Funding for rural infrastructure may
biased towards cities (Fan et al., 2002). Rural now come from (i) the local government; (ii) ru-
areas in poorer provinces relied on the redistri- ral collective businesses; (iii) urban enterprises;
bution by the higher level governments, includ- and (iv) members of rural communities. In prin-
ing the Central Government. Investment in ciple, the government provides a minimal level
rural economic infrastructure, for example, of service infrastructure, and other fund holders
roads and irrigation, has benefited from provide add-on services.
multiple sources of funding since the 1980s. In practice, to this day, except for the
‘Nonproductive’ infrastructures such as com- state-funded rural health care services and
munity and social development infrastructures school education, the local government and
have remained the responsibility of the state. other fund holders both invest in social ser-
However, the state funding to communities vice infrastructure. Therefore, the structure
only included the salaries of their formally of investment by investors is variable in dif-
appointed staff members. This was the so- ferent villages.
called payroll finance (chifancaizheng, 吃饭 Reforms in the governance of rural villages
财政) (Zhan, 2009), which means that there in China started in the 1980s. At the beginning,
was little money for building infrastructure. some villages, such as in Yishan and Luocheng
Funding for the construction costs and mainte- counties in Guangxi Province, formed a semi-
nance of nonproductive infrastructure has often autonomous self-governing body: the Vil-
been in shortage. This is particularly the case in lagers’ Committees. These committees were
poor rural areas. In the 1980s, the pursuit of ef- different from the People’s Communes set up
ficiency in rural social service delivery led to in the 1950s and also different from the admin-
greater concentration of schools in towns and istratively appointed leadership of townships
nearby cities, resulting in the closure of many and production teams introduced in the other
village schools (West and Wong, 1995). This parts of the country in 1984. The role of these
was followed by shrinking rural health care de- Villagers’ Committees was to assist the gov-
livery in the 1990s for the sake of efficiency im- ernment in maintaining law and order after
provement (Zhang & Kanpur, 2005). The the collapse of the Communes (O’Brien & Li
decision to merge or reduce services was made 2000). Later, in Hebei and Sichuan provinces,
because of reduction in population in rural vil- similar governing bodies were set up. Their
lages, partly a result of the one-child policy roles were also extended to economic, political
and partly migration (Li & Piachaud, 2006). It and cultural activities (Wang et al. 2014). In
was no longer considered efficient to provide 1982, the Village Committees were recognised
services in villages with fewer people. The year in the Constitution as legal self-governing bod-
2000 saw the start of a major reform of the pub- ies (Shi, 1999). In June 1988, a trial version of
lic finance system. ‘The Regulation of the ‘The Law of Organising Villagers’ Commit-
Administration of Tax-Funded Special tees of the PRC’ (also translated as the ‘The
Poverty Reduction Funds’ (Trial, ‘Cáizhèng Organic Law of Village Committees’,

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 7

‘Zhōnghuárénmíngònghéguócūnmínwěiyuán- As discussed earlier, our research will test

huìzǔzhīfǎ’, 中华人民共和国村民委员会组 whether variations in governance and sources
织法) was introduced. In November 1998, of funding have affected the availability of a
the Law was finalised and rolled out to the given rural infrastructure. Therefore, in the fol-
whole country (Guo et al. 2009). This means lowing sections, we test two hypotheses:
that research on public infrastructure provision
using data collected prior to the end of 1998 Hypothesis A: The availability of a rural infra-
and soon after cannot reflect the new governing structure can be determined by the state of gov-
structure. To this day, most rural villages have ernance.
experienced at least three village committee Hypothesis B: The funding arrangement of ru-
elections. This means that the members in- ral infrastructure of a village may determine the
volved in village governance should now be fa- availability of an infrastructure.
miliar with the institutional set-up. As villages
increasingly rely on self-governance, the state 5.1. Dependent Variables—Infrastructure
of governance of each village may vary. Availability Indices
The possible variations in the financing of
infrastructure and the state of governance mean Access to infrastructure can be measured in a
that the two assumptions needed for public variety of ways: for example, availability,
provision of infrastructure no longer hold. Var- quantity, quality and sufficiency. In this article,
iations in these two factors can potentially af- we only study the availability of the infrastruc-
fect the outcomes of infrastructure availability. tures. This choice is suitable for the current sit-
uation of infrastructure coverage in rural
5. Methodology China. Some villages only have part of the in-
frastructures, others all types and some none
The key question to be answered in this re- at all. Measuring the other accessibility indica-
search is what are the determinants of the tors may mean that villages without the infra-
availability of the four types of rural infrastruc- structures are excluded from the analyses.
tures in China. To answer this question, we Given the small sample size, the analyses
use a dataset of China Health and Retirement would, therefore, become difficult.
Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) (2011). The The analysis includes four types of infra-
National Baseline Survey of Communities of structures: public transport, sanitation, health
CHARLS (2011) contains community (vil- care and aged care. According to the Chinese
lage) level information. It covers communities Government’s categorisation mentioned ear-
in different counties and different regions in lier, public transport and sanitation belong to
China. Four hundred fifty villages and urban community infrastructure, while the other two
communities in 150 counties (or districts) in types are part of social development infrastruc-
28 provinces were surveyed. For this research, ture. To calculate the availability index for each
we excluded urban neighbourhoods, resulting type of infrastructure, we initially included four
in a total of 251 villages for the analyses. indicators for each type of infrastructure. Ex-
The survey questionnaires were completed by cept for public transportation, each indicator re-
village cadres, who were asked to provide in- ceives one point in the calculation.
formation on, for example, infrastructure The level of availability is measured by the
availability, local governance features and pri- confirmatory factor analysis that allows multi-
mary sources of funding for local infrastruc- ple measures to be associated with a single la-
ture. More detailed information on the tent construct. Table 1 shows the relationship
sampling procedure can be obtained via the of- between the latent constructs and the individual
ficial web page of CHARLS. measures. Table 1 also lists the corresponding
Detailed information on sampling can be questions, values and the coefficient of reliabil-
found in the survey information document ity. The coefficients of reliability for the trans-
(Zhao et al. 2013). portation facility index, sanitation facility

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
8 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies January 2018

Table 1 Indicators of Community Service Infrastructure

% of villages
Latent variable Indicators Value having this item Alpha‡
Transportation index • Paved roads Yes = 1; No = 0 59.93 0.62
• Days in which the roads [0–30] = 1† —
are not passable [30–60] = 0.9†
[60–90] = 0.8†
[90–120] = 0.7†
[120–150] = 0.6†
[150–180] = 0.5†
[180–210] = 0.4†
[210–240] = 0.3†
[240–270] = 0.2†
[270–365] = 0.1†
• Distance from bus stop [0–0.4 km] = 1† —
[0.4–0.8 km] = 0.9†
[0.8–1.6 km] = 0.75†
[1.6–3 km] = 0.5†
[3–5 km] = 0.25†
[≥5 km] = 0†
• No. of bus lines [≥1] = 1; else = 0 —
Sanitation index • Sewer system Yes = 1; No = 0 16.29 0.69
• Waste collection Yes = 1; No = 0 28.99
• Public toilets Yes = 1; No = 0 29.64
• Improved public toilets Yes = 1; No = 0 44.95
and sewer system
Health facility index • Community health care centre Yes = 1; No = 0 1.62 0.19
• Community health care Yes = 1; No = 0 4.57
medical clinic
• Township health clinic Yes = 1; No = 0 23.93
(hospital) in village
• Village medical clinic Yes = 1; No = 0 68.30
Old aged care • Outdoor sports facilities Yes = 1; No = 0 21.24 0.66
facility index • Facilities for card games Yes = 1; No = 0 27.78
and board games
• Nursing home or family- Yes = 1; No = 0 11.07
based aged care centre
• Activity centre for the Yes = 1; No = 0 27.12
elderly

†A weighted average is produced for road based on the number of days that the road is usable and the distance to the bus stop.
For example, when a road is not passable for more than 270 days per year, it will only receive 0.1 for the availability index.
The weight is designed by the authors of this article according to the internationally accepted weight used to calculate public
transport accessibility (Litman, 2003).
‡Alpha shows internal consistency. Alpha > 0.6 means ‘valid’.
Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011).

index and aged care facility index are all close concentrated in higher levels of administrative
to 0.7. This means that the availability indices units. For example, all villages are required to
we have constructed are suitable for each of have the basic facilities, but better facilities will
the three types of infrastructure concerned. only be available in townships and larger
However, the coefficient of reliability for the towns. Therefore, it does not make much sense
health facility index is far below 0.7 (0.19). to check whether a village has access to all
This means that the four indicators are not suit- levels of facilities. Therefore, we only use the
able for measuring the availability of health fa- variables generated by one question in the
cilities. One reason may be that the distribution CHARLS (2011) questionnaire, ‘Is there a
of health care facilities in China is more medical clinic in your village?’, to measure

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 9

the availability of the most basic health facili- included in the planning practice in China
ties in further analyses. (State Council, 2012). For example, rural
Before using the indices for the tests, we clinics and older care facilities are set up ac-
need to make sure that they are good proxies cording to the number of long-term residents,
for the availability of the infrastructures. which means the planning regulation has taken
Table 2 shows the fitness statistics of the mea- migration and population ageing into account.
surement models for transportation, sanitation When more people move out of villages, the
and aged care. For transportation, all four fit- rural dependency rate increases, which means
ness statistics have passed the test. that there is a greater need for social services
χ 2(df = 1) = 0.430, and p = 0.512 means that for the dependent population, such as care for
the model is not significantly different to a sat- the elderly (Wang, 2006; Peng, 2011).
urated model. Root mean square error of ap-
proximation = 0, comparative fit index = 1 5.2.2. Economic Factors
and standardised root mean square residual
<0.01 also mean that the model is a good fit Controlling economic factor means is built
for the data. Similarly, the four statistics passed upon the idea that when villagers are better
all the tests for other infrastructures. Given the off, or the village is better off as a whole, the
results of the fitness tests, we are confident in villagers or the village decision-makers (such
using the indices for the regressions. as the village committee) are both more willing
and more able to invest in local infrastructure.
5.2. Control Variables We include ‘income per capita’ and the ‘the
collective investment’ as two control variables.
5.2.1. Planning Factors An individual’s income level shows how well
off the villagers are. The collective investment
Population factors, such as the village popula- means investment made by the ‘collective eco-
tion and population structure, are usually nomic organisations’. These organisations
Table 2 Fit Statistic of Each Measurement Model

Fitness of each
Measurement model Coefficient S.E. p > |z| measurement model
2
Transportation → Paved road 0.278 0.061 0.000 χ (df = 1)† 0.430
Transportation → Days in which the 0.186 0.062 0.003 RMSEA‡ 0.000
roads not passable
Transportation → Distance from bus stop 0.876 0.050 0.000 CFI§ 1.000
Transportation → No. of bus lines 0.773 0.047 0.000 SRMR¶ 0.005
2
Sanitation → Sewer system 0.611 0.045 0.000 χ (df = 2) 4.317
Sanitation → Waste collection 0.708 0.040 0.000 RMSEA 0.061
Sanitation → Public toilet 0.594 0.047 0.000 CFI 0.988
Sanitation → Improved public toilet 0.434 0.055 0.000 SRMR 0.021
and sewer system
2
Aged care → Outdoors exercising 0.714 0.041 0.004 χ (df = 2) 0.258
facilities
Aged care → Facilities for card games 0.606 0.046 0.000 RMSEA 0.000
and board games
Aged care → Nursing home or family- 0.182 0.064 0.000 CFI 1.000
based aged care centre
Aged care → Activity centre 0.720 0.041 0.000 SRMR 0.005

Notes: This is a confirmatory factor analysis of the availability of infrastructure.

2
†χ /df closer to 1 means a higher level of goodness for fit.
‡Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0: Completely fit; RMSEA ≥ 0.10: Poor fit.
§Comparative fit index (CFI) = 1: Good fit.
¶Standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) < 0.1: Good fit
Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011).

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
10 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies January 2018

were introduced in the 1950s as the coopera- 5.3.2. State of Governance in a Village
tive agriculture movement started. After the
Third Planetary Meeting of the 11th People’s Governance of rural villages has gone through
Congress in 1978, the rural collective economy further changes such as introducing the election
was largely replaced by the Household Re- of village head and cadres and introducing par-
sponsibility System. The surviving role of the ticipatory decision-making of older people and
rural collective economy was about managing village elites. These changes, however, are not
the spending on public infrastructure and wel- universal, and different regions have different
fare. As rural land became valuable assets in practices. We therefore hypothesise that varia-
the late 1990s, the rural collective economic or- tions in the governing structure of a village
ganisations became collective businesses, of- may have affected the infrastructure availabil-
ten in the form of sharing holding companies, ity. Several variables are included in this study
to negotiate on behalf of the shareholders, that to reflect the variations in village governance.
is, villagers, for transactions related to rural The first is village elections. To this day,
land (Chen, 2016). The amount of collective most rural villages have experienced at least
investment shows how strong the collective three village committee elections. This means
village economy is; that is, the greater the col- that the members involved in village gover-
lective investment, the stronger is the village nance should now be familiar with the institu-
economy. We may anticipate that a richer vil- tional set-up. The impact of village elections
lage has better infrastructure. on the availability of public goods, in which in-
frastructure for social services is an important
5.3. Key Independent Variables part, has been examined by Luo et al. (2007,
2010) with a sample of 2,400 villages. They ar-
5.3.1. Primary Investor of Village gued that rural elections led to an increase in
Infrastructures public investment. An elected village cadre
who decided to invest more in public goods
This variable represents the variation in the in period T would be more likely to be re-
funding of infrastructures. Before the 1980s, elected in period T + 1. Therefore, village elec-
rural infrastructures were funded by the gov- tions may be a motivating factor for village
ernment. In the 1980s, investment in rural eco- cadres to improve rural infrastructures. As a re-
nomic infrastructures, for example, roads and sult, we may observe longer office period cor-
irrigation, has benefited from the availability relates with better infrastructure availability.
of private funding. ‘Nonproductive’ infrastruc- The second is whether elderly people are
tures such as community and social develop- organised. As of 1982, elderly people were
ment infrastructures remained to be the able to set up associations. In well-organised
responsibility of the state. However, in the villages, Elderly People’s Associations also
1980s, it was considered inefficient to provide function as self-governance organisations that
services in villages with fewer people. Rural may influence the decision of village cadres.
health care and education were cut down Despite that it is difficult for these associations
significantly to improve efficiency (Li & to fully operate without government influence,
Piachaud, 2006; Gong & Li, 2013). In 2000, given the government’s intention to use these
a major reform of the public finance system organisations to assist local governance, the El-
was introduced by the Ministry of Finance derly People’s Associations enjoy significantly
(2000). In practice, to this day, except for the more autonomy compared with other NGOs
state-funded rural health care services and (Deng & Ruan, 2008). By the end of 2005,
school education, the local government and there were more than 317,000 Elderly People’s
other fund holders both invest in social service Associations in China. By 2014, the number
infrastructure. Therefore, the primary investor reached 401,100, and 43.89 million people
of the village infrastructure may potentially ex- were enlisted in these associations. According
plain the variations in the infrastructure. to Deng and Ruan (2008), the Elderly People’s

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 11

Associations have played an important role in Table 3 summarises the dependent and inde-
providing welfare benefits to rural elderly peo- pendent variables for our analyses.
ple. These benefits include cash and in-kind
benefits such as food and products for daily us- 6. Research Findings
age. The associations also organise community
events for members. However, few studies 6.1. An Overview of the Distribution of
have shown the relationship between the Infrastructure
Elderly People’s Associations and availability
of infrastructures. In this research, we As shown in Figure 1, rural villages have better
hypothesise that in a village where there is an availability of health facilities than city fringe
Elderly People’s Association, infrastructures and rural townships. Rural villages have, how-
related to community life is more readily avail- ever, much worse sanitation systems than the
able. This may be particularly relevant when other two types of communities. Aged care fa-
the younger working age population migrates. cilities are the worst in terms of overall cover-
Better organised older villagers mean that they age, and both villages and city fringe fare
also can bargain for better services. poorly, while townships were better in this

Table 3 Descriptive Statistics

No. of
respondents Mean S.D. Min Max
Dependent variables
Score of transportation 300 0.285 0.989 2.162 0.707
Score of sanitation facility 307 0.009 0.842 0.727 1.881
Score of aged care facility 306 0.317 0.757 0.878 1.430
Availability of medical clinics No. %
Yes 209 68.1
No 97 31.6
NA 1 0.3
Total 307 100
No. of Mean
respondents
Control variables
Population 307 2,883 2,956 110 30,000
Out-migrants 303 492 547 0 4,000
In-migrants 302 396 1,993 0 27,800
65+ elders 297 328 294 17 1,800
Per capita income (RMB¥) 290 4,398 4,916 150 50,000
Collective investment (RMB¥) 274 0. 29 million 1.01 million 0 1.3 million
2
Village area (km ) 291 9.55 17.95 0.002 150
Village governance
Cadre service time (years) 300 9 6.88 1 40
Elderly People’s Association No. %
Yes (x = 1) 73 24.01
No (x = 0) 231 75.99
NA (x = .) 3
Total 304 100
Funding
Primary investor No. %
Collective economy 91 29.64
Government 59 19.22
Resident + others 157 51.14
Total 307 100

Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011), calculated by the authors.

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
12 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies January 2018

Figure 1 Availability of Different Types of Infrastructure by Type of Communities (%)

Note: City fringe includes rural communities in the peri-urban area that are semi-urbanised but still counted as villages. Rural
townships are small rural market towns. This chart shows clearly that communities that are closer to cities have better access
to public transportation and better sanitation. However, being closer to cities means that communities at the city fringe may
have worse health care services.
Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011).

perspective. There was no surprise in terms of Western provinces fell behind the other two re-
road availability. Villages at the more central gions in all categories.
locations such as city fringe and rural town-
ships have better outcomes. 6.2. Ordinary Least Squares Regression and
Figure 2 shows the regional variation in the Logit Regression Results and Discussions
availability of the infrastructures. Interestingly,
central provinces on average have better avail- Table 4 shows the regression results for the
ability than eastern provinces in terms of trans- availability of each infrastructure. As the avail-
portation, sanitation and aged care facilities. ability of medical clinics is a binary variable,
Figure 2 Availability of Different Types of Infrastructure by Region (%)

Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011).

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 13

Table 4 OLS Regressions and Logit Regression for Infrastructure Availability (Dependent variables: Types of
Infrastructure)

OLS regression
Logit regression
Transportation Sanitation Old age care Medical clinic
1. Size of the population
Total population 0.130 0.037 0.069 0.553***
(0.085) (0.060) (0.048) (0.207)
2. Population structure
Emigrants as % of total population 0.536 0.130 0.090 0.608
(0.383) (0.271) (0.218) (0.861)
Immigrants as % of total population 0.337 0.670** 0.149 1.209
(0.393) (0.279) (0.225) (0.823)
% of 65+ 0.357 0.188 0.252 2.431**
(0.859) (0.606) (0.489) (1.237)
3. How rich is the village?
Per capita income (Ln X) 0.184*** 0.115** 0.046 0.327*
(0.064) (0.045) (0.036) (0.168)
Collective investment (Ln X) 0.011 0.017* 0.011 0.018
(0.012) (0.008) (0.006) (0.029)
4. Primary investor of village infrastructure (Reference group: Collective economy)
a. Government 0.172 0.070 0.242** 0.194
(0.180) (0.127) (0.102) (0.426)
b. Residents + others 0.241 0.342*** 0.516*** 0.215
(0.160) (0.113) (0.091) (0.387)
5. Governance
Cadre service time (years) 0.015 0.001 0.003 0.012
(0.009) (0.006) (0.005) (0.022)
Elderly People’s Association (dummy) 0.307* 0.609*** 0.747*** 0.405
(0.163) (0.116) (0.093) (0.380)
6.Village area
2
Village land size (km ) 0.006* 0.003 0.001 0.0007
(0.003) (0.002) (0.002) (0.008)
Constant 2.560*** 1.158** 1.101** 0.405
(0.791) (0.561) (0.453) (1.939)
Observations 245 249 249 250
2
R 0.159 0.419 0.522 0.073
2
(pseudo R )

Notes: Numbers in bracket showing standard errors.

*p < 0.10;
**p < 0.05;
***p < 0.01.
Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011).

we use a logit regression for the analyses. The people all have a positive effect, but the re-
findings are as follows: sults are not statistically significant. This
means that we can only be certain that
1 Transportation. In theory, larger villages ei- wealthier villages that have higher incomes
ther in population or land size need better will benefit from better road conditions.
transportation facilities. However, the re- 2 Sanitation. The regression shows that when
gression results do not support this. The av- a larger percentage of migrants live in the
erage income level is positively related to village, the sanitation infrastructure is also
the availability of road and bus services. significantly better (a = 0.670, p < 0.05).
The years that village cadres are in office, This can be explained by the fact that sanita-
immigration ratio and proportion of elderly tion is usually one of the promises that local

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
14 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies January 2018

governments offer when they try to attract infrastructure is not at the same stage in all vil-
investors. Villages attracting a large number lages. Improved sanitation and aged care ser-
of migrants from other areas either have suc- vices are on average less available. The
cessfully attracted private investors to set up overall poorer availability of these two types
factories or have villagers who are quite of infrastructure contrasts with the very active
well-off and can hire migrants to work on development in business-related infrastructures
the farm. In both cases, the villages are able (the transportation facilities) and the more con-
to secure investment in sanitation either sistently available infrastructure provided by
from the state or from the wealthy villagers. the state (health care).
The Older People’s Association also played This research provides some important in-
a significant role, which can be explained by sights on the relationship between the state,
a variety of reasons: (i) when elderly people the community and the villagers in the provi-
are better organised, they are able to argue sion of rural community and social develop-
for better sanitation in the village, or (ii) they ment infrastructures in China.
are able to work collectively to construct or In term of funding, despite that the state con-
monitor the construction of the sanitation. tinues to play its part in the provision of rural
The regressions also show that relative to infrastructures, rural collectives also play a
villages in which collective economy are growing role. In villages where rural collec-
the primary investor, the villages that solely tives are the primary providers, infrastructure
relied on individuals fared much worse. availability is also significantly better. In con-
3 Aged care. Relatively speaking, when the trast, when villages do not have thriving busi-
community is the primary investor, the vil- nesses that can fund infrastructure and the
lages would do better than those who rely state is not the primary provider, the villages
on government or private investment. This suffer from poor access to infrastructure. This
means that when villages do well as a can be one important if not the most important
whole, they also spend more money on pro- aspect in identifying poor villages that need
viding services to old people. The Elderly support. The experience in these Chinese vil-
People’s Association also has a positive ef- lages suggests that if the state and the collective
fect on the availability of aged care. businesses are not able to provide funding, vil-
4 Medical clinics. Apart from population size, lager participation and contribution can solve
the percentage of the population who is over the problems to a certain extent. Where indi-
65 and income levels, other variables are in- viduals are the main investors in local infra-
significant. This is probably related to the structures, availability is on average worse
fact that rural clinics are mostly considered than where the state or the collectives are the
to be local governments’ responsibilities. primary investors.
Planning decisions are rarely made within In terms of governance, better organised vil-
the communities. Local government invest- lagers may enjoy stronger bargaining power. It
ments are largely based on the local eco- has been established in many existing studies
nomic situation and population estimation. that collective investments in community pub-
lic goods also depend on higher levels of trust
and sense of belonging. Community participa-
7. Conclusions tion to some extent helps to build the sense of
trust and belonging (Ostrom, 2003; Marshall,
This article examines the availability of com- 2004; Tsai, 2007; Njoh, 2011). Our research
munity and social development infrastructures also confirms this in the sense that in the con-
in rural China and the possible contribution to text of urbanisation, organisation of elderly
the outcomes by the ways infrastructure people can function as an important driver for
funding is organised and the state of gover- improving the service infrastructures in rural
nance of the villages. Our research finds that communities. This can be explained by the fact
the development of the four types of that they are the ones left behind in rural areas,

© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies

published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 15

and they have an interest in improving their as in the past when funding was allocated to
own life quality. Their active participation in ‘Poverty Counties’. The village level data
village decision-making may have the potential show variations in infrastructure availability
to improve the life quality of people living in that can be used to identify the villages in
villages. greater need more effectively. This research is
Our research highlights the impact of urban- a reminder to the policy-makers that rural vil-
isation on the traditional rural communities. lages do not necessarily have the same capacity
Urbanisation leads to population structure to finance nor have the political will to invest in
change. In western and central provinces, the social services. The state’s responsibility can-
aging speed is faster than in the eastern prov- not be removed simply because some of the
inces. This is related to the increased emigra- wealthier villages can manage on their own.
tion of the working age population. However, This is particularly crucial in addressing the
our data do not establish a strong correlation problems faced by the most disadvantaged
between the proportion of elderly people and villages.
the infrastructures for the services they need. Lastly, we acknowledge that this research is
As the government is now pushing for greater seriously constrained by the limited sample
levels of urbanisation, that is, encouraging size. A larger sample would provide a much
rural–urban migrants to settle in cities, the lack greater confidence in our conclusion. What is
of basic social services for the elderly may po- more, examining the availability of rural social
tentially lead to crises in social protection and service infrastructures is far from sufficient.
services in rural societies. For the services to be functioning effectively,
However, this does not mean that all rural there need to be further studies of the quality
communities would face the same problems. and operation of the facilities.
Some of these communities may have a better
future. As cities expand, more rural communi-
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