Household responsibility system

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (January 2021)

The household responsibility system (simplified Chinese: 家庭联产承包责任制; traditional Chinese: 家庭聯產承包責任制; pinyin: jiātíng liánchǎn chéngbāo zérènzhì), or contract responsibility system, was a practice in China, first adopted in agriculture in 1979 and officially established in 1982, by which households are held responsible for the profits and losses of an enterprise. In agricultural production, farmers as a relatively independent economic entity contract the collective land and other large-scale means of production and carry out production and management independently according to the contract. Except for a small part of its operating income, which is paid to the collective and state taxes following the contract, all income is attributed to farmers.

According to a 2021 study, the household responsibility system improved individuals’ later-life health, education, and labor market outcomes, but it reduced human capital investment in children, making them less likely to receive education and more likely to remain in agriculture.^[1]

History[]

1977–1978: Preparation period[]

By the late 1970s, China's collectivization and centralization of agricultural production faced several challenges, of which the shortage of agricultural products was the most urgent and serious. Droughts in rural areas resulted in serious food supply crises in urban regions. Many farmers and members of the People's Commune began thinking about new ways of agricultural production. In 1978, 18 households in Xiaogang, Anhui came up with a new arrangement where each household was responsible for their profit and losses of production, which was known as the first trial of the household responsibility system.

In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. During the meeting, the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Accelerating Agricultural Development was passed, which proposed "devolving production responsibility to production units" (包产到组). However, the policy still prohibited delegating production responsibility to households (包产到户).

1979–1981: Struggling back and forth[]

In early 1979, the National Agriculture Council was founded, which started a heated debate over whether China should adopt the household responsibility system within the Chinese central government. In March 1979, the National Agriculture Council held the Seven Provinces and Three Counties Meeting on Agriculture Development, during which the majority of representatives displayed a supportive attitude towards this proposal. However, the opposing voices were also strong. Wang Renchong, the Head of the National Agriculture Council, kept emphasizing the advantages of the collective economy and opposing the idea. In the end, Hua Guofeng, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China at the time, concluded that collective production did work, yet a certain amount of flexibility was also needed. Also, Hua Guofeng agreed that "for the impoverished households in remote regions, it is appropriate to delegate to them the responsibility and rights for their production." Hua Guofeng's words were written into the official documents of the Central Committee of the CPC and it was the first time that the idea of household responsibility system appeared in the official document of the Central Committee of the CPC.

In January 1980, the People's Communes Management Meeting was held in Beijing. In the meeting, , the Director of the Agricultural Committee of Anhui Province, introduced the system of agriculture development in Anhui. Zhou reported that by the end of 1979, 51% of production teams had adopted the production unit responsibility system, and 10% had adopted the household responsibility system; there was a significant production growth and 25% of the underdeveloped regions asked to adopt the household responsibility system. However, Zhou's idea received severe criticism from many representatives from other regions and provoked a huge debate over whether the household responsibility system was the right approach to take. In the end, Deng Xiaoping concluded the debate with the observation that household responsibility was a highly complicated and critical issue, and that it was unlikely to reach a simple conclusion.

While the central government was still struggling with the idea, going back and forth, more and more villages went ahead and started adopting the household responsibility system. In 1979 the system was only adopted as a trial in a few regions, but in 1980, more and more places learned from these regions and developed their own household responsibility system. The growing trend caught the attention of the central leadership of China and also led the decision-makers to a reconsideration of what agricultural production system should be adopted.

In April 1980, at the Long-term Planning Meeting of the Central Committee of CPC, Deng Xiaoping argued: "In underdeveloped and impoverished regions such as Northwestern China, Guizhou, and Yunnan province, approaches such as household responsibility system should be adopted".^[2] During another speech in May, Deng Xiaoping supported the practice of Fengyang County and Feixi County of Anhui province and said that "[s]ome colleagues worried that to practice this kind of system might hamper the development of the collective economy. I think these worries are unnecessary. Our overall direction is developing a collective economy. As long as the productivity increases and the division of labor and commodity economy develop, our collective economy will grow from a low level to a high level."^[3]

Besides the positive attitude towards the household responsibility system of Deng Xiaoping, the National Agriculture Council also conducted intense field research in Henan, Hebei, and other provinces to better understand the effectiveness and challenges of adopting the system. From 1980 to 1981, more and more collective agricultural production systems were transformed into household responsibility systems. By 1981, 51% of the households in Southeast provinces and Shandong province had already adopted the household responsibility system.

1982: Official establishment[]

In December 1981, the National Agricultural Work Meeting was held in Beijing, which emphasized the idea of letting people choose by themselves which systems to use. Soon later in 1982, the Central Committee of the CPC announced its "No. 1 document" for the year, Minutes of The National Agricultural Work Meeting, which officially established the household responsibility system for China's agricultural production.

The system was rapidly adopted nationwide and significant agricultural growth was witnessed. During the 20 years of collective agricultural production, the annual agricultural output was 30-50 billion kilograms, yet by the time of 1984, the number increased to 400 billion kilograms. At the same time, the overall agricultural GDP increased by 68% and the average income of farmers increased by 166%. The success of the household responsibility system signified a significant transition in China's economic model and opened a new era of China's agricultural economy and rural development.^[4]

See also[]

• Township and Village Enterprises (TVE)
• Economy of China

References[]

《杜润生自述:中国农村体制改革重大决策纪实》(Accounts from Du Runsheng: Record of Major Decisions on China's Rural System Reform) 《邓小平文选》第二卷  This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/. [1] Yan, Yunxiang. The Chinese path to individualization. The British journal of sociology, v. 61, n. 3, p. 489–512, 2010. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01323.x