The politically divisive income gap between China's affluent citydwellers and its huge farm population expanded to its widest level ever last year as the economy slowed, putting millions of rural migrants out of work.
Agriculture Ministry statistics show the gap between urban and rural incomes expanded to 11,100 yuan (about $1,600) in 2008, with the ratio between the richer city residents to those in the countryside rising to 3.36 to 1, the state-run newspaper China Business News reported Friday.
The ratio was 3.33 to 1 in 2007, with the gap then at 9,646 yuan (about $1,400).
While the statistical difference seems small, the trend suggests the economic slowdown is foiling efforts by China's communist leaders to close the long-standing, sensitive wealth gap between the cities that have prospered since economic reforms began 30 years ago, and the villages that have lagged behind.
Deteriorating purchasing power in the rural areas could also hinder efforts to boost domestic consumer spending to help compensate for declining exports _ a crucial part of the government's anti-recession strategy.
Members of a top-level government advisory group who were given the statistics proposed that the government raise its basic purchasing price for rice, on which many farmers rely, to help close the gap.
Citydwellers earned an average annual income of 15,800 yuan ($2,300) a year in 2008, Chen Xiwen, a top rural planning official, reported at a recent conference in Beijing. The average rural income was 4,700 yuan (about $690).
That gap is what brings farmers like Gan Qiang, a courier from a village outside Beijing, to a city like Shanghai.
"It's much tougher to make a living in my hometown," Gan said as he stood outside a subway station on a busy downtown shopping street. "You can't just rely on planting crops."
Incomes in Shanghai and some other big cities are about a third higher than the national average.
With a population of 1.3 billion, China has far more people than jobs to be filled. But the country's stunning economic boom enabled many millions of farmers and their children to find work in factories and construction sites, as peddlers of noodles, computer parts and clothing, and as vegetable and livestock farmers in city suburbs.
Plunging global demand for Chinese exports has forced thousands of Chinese factories to close and freshly unemployed migrants to stream from coastal manufacturing regions back to their rural hometowns.
While millions usually return to their villages at this time of the year for the Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday, a large share will have no jobs to return to once the Jan. 25-31 festival finishes.
Layoffs and sudden factory closures have provoked protests in some regions, accentuating worries over the threat to social stability and prompting government calls for companies to avoid job cuts.
"Social stability is clearly an issue," James McCormack, head of sovereign ratings in Asia for Fitch Ratings, said in a conference call Friday.
The extent of the layoffs and unemployment in rural areas is hard to judge because there are no reliable statistics, he noted.
China is due for a "hard landing," said McCormack, adding that the government might not reach its economic growth target of about 8 percent.
The huge divide in Chinese living standards is apparent in the armies of men and women in humble clothing hauling carts piled with boxes, discarded appliances and other scrap for recycling through city streets.
It is also seen in the beggars prowling city subway lines and street corners, and in the rundown ghettos and shantytowns in and around city suburbs.
Among other measures, leaders have promised subsidies for purchases of appliances and cars by farmers, slashed fuel prices and pledged to improve social services such as health insurance and schooling.
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