A new report is urging the Chinese Government to focus on giving migrant workers and farmers a fair chance since the gap between the haves and have-nots has already become a threat toward the country's social harmony.

A set of policy suggestions to close the gap between them and other social groups in China was found in the China National Human Development Report 2005 released on Friday, which was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The government should take actions to ensure the punctual payment of salaries, provision of shelter, access to education for children, social security entitlements and union membership, the report said.

"Achieving development with greater equity and ensuring that all people, including the disadvantaged groups, have equal opportunities and a decent life free from poverty should be the future focus of China's future development plans," said Khalid Malik, UN Resident Co-ordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in China, in an interview with China Daily.

UNDP China expected the report, with the theme of "Towards Development with Equity," to become a major reference for the policy makers of the Chinese Government, which has been busy drafting its 11th Five-year (2006-10) Economic and Social Development Plan.

China has been trying to find a balance between efficiency and equality in income distribution. As the country's economy took off, however, priority was given to efficiency, and a huge number of farmers, migrants and even some urban labourers at the lower rungs of the social ladder have been economically affected, according to the report.

Even in the relatively developed Pearl River Delta in South China's Guangdong Province, a migrant worker earns only around 700 yuan (US$85) per month. In Chinese rural areas, about 30 million people still live in poverty and 60 million live close to the national poverty line with an annual income of 637 yuan (US$79).

The report said that it's of great importance to promote fairness in income distribution as a way to curb unstable factors that could endanger social stability and public security.

China's Gini coefficient an internationally accepted measurement of income equality was estimated by some research organizations at 0.45 this year. The "alarm boundary" stands at 0.4. The coefficient was 0.30 in 1982 and 0.45 in 2002. Among the 131 countries in the UNDP's updated survey, only 31 countries are in a worse situation than China in terms of equality in income distribution.

"We need to look at the problems and come up with constructive suggestions," said Lu Mai, secretary-general of the China Development Research Foundation. "It is high time for the government to target balanced social development as a major policy target as China is trying to quadruple its economy by 2020."

Lu worked as a co-ordinator of the writing team of the report since last June.

The report, commissioned by UNDP China and nationally co-ordinated by the China Development Research Foundation, results from nine background reports on different topics, which were hammered out by a team of 13 think-tank researchers since last June. The writing team was supervised by a high-ranking advisory group co-chaired by Malik and Wang Mengkui, president of the Development Research Centre of the State Council.

"Inequity is evident and concrete help should be immediately granted to those in the lower level of the social ladder," said the report's lead author Li Shi, professor from Beijing Normal University.

Landless farmers need help

The report has paid great attention to farmers who had lost land to real estate development, industrial zones and other uses.

Official statistics indicated that at least 40 million farmers have lost their land upon which their basic living depends. "The country should start from law-making and the legal system to ensure basic living necessities, social security benefits and ample compensation for those farmers," the report said.

The report urges the local governments to speed up the establishment of systems used to work out land values when requisitioning farmers' land. It said the compensation for farmland requisitioned by the State for major construction projects should also be increased.

The types and quality of arable land, farmers' input, as well as the prices of primary products are to be taken into account when deciding the value of average annual output. The compensation sum should also give consideration to the local economic situation, people's living standards and other social security demands, according to the report.

The central government also made public compensation standards, which were promised to pay farmers at most 30 times the value of the average annual output of the arable land over the previous three years.

"China should make a larger attempt to solve the lingering problems of farmers whose land was inadequately or randomly compensated in the past, and I am sure it will," Malik said.

Social security network essential

To achieve equality for the have-nots, China should also set up a social security network for all of its people, no matter where they live and what their social status is, the report recommended.

In cities, the government has been trying to bring urban residents under social security umbrellas including the unemployed, work-related, medical and pension insurances. However, most farmers-turned-workers have been excluded from the benefits. The poorly functioning medical care system and the insufficient social security system are the first things to be blamed.

Consequently, migrant workers and farmers use the shabby clinics, although risking their health, because they cannot afford medical treatment at big hospitals. With less money in their pockets, low-income groups cannot choose decent medical services.

"The government should subsidize part of the insurances of the migrants, and a national account should be granted to individual migrants so that their insurances can be sustained when they move from city to city," the report said.

The report suggested that the central government should increase its educational subsidies in these large or medium-sized cities, which receive the most migrants.

"Without a good education, they will find it almost impossible to get decent jobs in the future, and their disadvantaged social status will be passed on from generation to generation," the report said. "The reform's direction is that local governments should get central government education subsidies in line with how much compulsory education service they deliver."

The central government adopted a policy in 2002 requiring the local finance departments to provide funds for the education of migrant workers' children and give financial support to schools with a big proportion of such students.

China spends 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on education, which is a far cry from the internationally recommended 6 per cent. The country now has 19.8 million migrant workers' children under the age of 18. Nearly half of them cannot go to school and 9.3 per cent of them drop out.

Source: China Daily