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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
This article studies the causes for unequal ac-
cess to rural community and social develop-
ment infrastructures in China. We use a
dataset in the China Health and Retirement
Longitudinal Study (2011–2012), the National
Baseline Survey of Communities, to examine
the availability of four types of infrastructures:
public transportation, sanitation, health care
and aged care. Three hundred and seven vil-
lages are included in this study. The findings
suggest that the primary funder of infrastruc-
tures and the status of village governance have
impacts on the unequal availability of rural in-
frastructures. The effects vary by the type of in-
frastructures under discussion. This is the first
attempt to combine planning, finance and gov-
ernance factors in explaining rural infrastruc-
ture availability. It has strong policy
implications and shed important light on
state–society relations and the urbanisation
trends in China.
Key words: community infrastructure, social
development infrastructure, governance,
finance, rural China
*Li: Social Policy Research Centre, University of
New South Wales of Sydney, High Street,
Kensington, New South Wales 2052, Australia;
Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian
National University, 132 Lennox, Crossing, ACT
2601, Australia; Wang: Social Policy Research Cen-
tre, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of So-
cial Sciences, No. 5, Jianguomennei Dajie, Beijing,
1000372, China. Corresponding Author: Li, email:
<bingqin.li@unsw.edu.au>
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.
1. Introduction
Access to community infrastructures, for
example, water and sanitation, sports and
entertainment facilities, and social develop-
ment infrastructures, for example, education,
or health care facilities, affects people’s liveli-
hoods and their potential to development
(Srinivasu & Rao, 2013). Planning regulations
in China provide guidelines on infrastructure
coverage according to population size and den-
sity. If the regulations are fully implemented,
we would expect to see equal access to services
and facilities across different communities. In
practice, it is far from being equal (Wang
et al. 2014). In the 13th Five-Year Plan, the
Chinese Central Government urged local gov-
ernments to deliver their promises made in
the past 5 years (Van Aken, 2015). This shows
the concerns of the Central Government that,
without proper enforcement, plans may only
remain on paper. However, what are the causes
of unequal access to infrastructures?
In the following sections of this article, we
examine the availability of four types of infra-
structures in 307 villages in China and analyse
the causes of the variation. We argue that in ru-
ral China, it is not only the basic planning fac-
tors (such as population, scale of the economy
and land area) that determine the availability of
community infrastructures. Financial arrange-
ment and the state of governance also play sig-
nificant parts. The roles of governance and
finance can vary by types of infrastructures.
This research helps to explain why unequal ac-
cess to community and social development in-
frastructures in rural areas persist even with the
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China
improvement of planning regulations. This is
the first research that combines planning, eco-
nomic and governance factors in understand-
ing rural infrastructure and thus has important
policy implications.
2. Different Types of Rural Infrastructures
According to the Development and Reform
Commission of the PRC (2013), rural infra-
structures in China are divided into four
categories:
1 agricultural production infrastructures (农业
生产性基础设施, Nóngyè shēngchǎnxìng
jīchǔ shèshī), including infrastructures to
support modern agricultural production and
water conservation;
2 rural community infrastructures (农村生活
基础设施, Nóngcūn shēnghuó jīchǔ
shèshī, or ‘rural life-related infrastructures’),
such as infrastructures for safe drinking wa-
ter, natural gas, rural roads, local public
transport and rural electricity;
3 rural social development infrastructures (农
村社会发展基础设施, Nóngcūn shèhuì
fāzhǎn jīchǔ shèshī, hereinafter referred to
as ‘social development infrastructures’),
such as infrastructures for delivering com-
pulsory education (for example, nurseries
and schools), health (health centres, clinics
and hospitals and aged care centres) and cul-
tural activities(for example, activity centres
for sports, entertainment and learning and
socialising spaces); and
4 ecological and environmental infrastruc-
tures (生态环境建设基础设施, shēngtài
huánjìng jiànshè jīchǔ shèshī), such as the
infrastructures for natural resource protec-
tion, ecological protection and the construc-
tion of nature reserves.
In this article, we focus on community and
social development infrastructures, that is, (2)
and (3) in the aforementioned list, because
these two categories of infrastructures are es-
sential for the daily life and basic services of
community members; poor availability of
which has resulted in sustained rural poverty
and loss of population due to emigration
(Dollar 2007; Li et al. 2016). Community and
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5
social development infrastructures do not di-
rectly contribute to the economic production
of a village. However, they help to improve
the life quality of its residents. These infrastruc-
tures may not be high on the agenda of the local
governments at the county or city levels, where
gross domestic product growth is the priority
(West & Wong, 1995; Hannum, 2003).
3. Unequal Access to Public
Infrastructures—Existing Studies
Existing studies offer some explanations of the
availability of public infrastructure and varia-
tion in investment in time and in space. The
literature suggests that the outcomes of infra-
structure availability can be affected by the
overall economic, social and political
environment (Hulten & Schwab, 1991;
Lambrinidis et al. 2005; Zhang & Kanbur
2005; Henisz, 2002). However, this line of re-
search cannot explain spatial variation when
different places share similar overall economic,
social and political environment.
The utility gain of decision-makers on infra-
structure construction is another explanation.
O’Brien and Li (1999) argue that in China, lo-
cal officials implement policies selectively. Lo-
cal officials maximise their personal utility by
meeting the measurable targets set by the
higher authorities to get promoted faster. They
favour projects that would give them the oppor-
tunities to gain more financially, for example,
through corruption. This thesis explains why
local officials are not interested in investing so-
cial service infrastructures, as they personally
cannot gain as much from these smaller scale
projects as from building bigger projects. How-
ever, this explanation has to satisfy two
assumptions. First, there is a sole decision-
maker, and he or she can single-handedly de-
cide what types of infrastructures to invest in.
Second, he or she can obtain the financial re-
sources to invest in the desired infrastructures.
In the 1980s, 1990s or even the early 2000s,
these assumptions might hold in China, as a vil-
lage was very likely to have such a decision-
maker. However, local public finance and the
governing structure of rural villages have since
been reformed, and the two assumptions may
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
6 Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies
no longer hold nowadays. Thus, it is necessary
to study the determining factors of rural infra-
structure now and whether the reformed
funding practices and the state of village gover-
nance may have impact on the availability of
certain infrastructures in rural villages.
4. Reforms of the Finance and Governance
of Infrastructure in Rural China
In the past, rural infrastructure was primarily
funded by the government. Overall, govern-
ment investment in infrastructure was heavily
biased towards cities (Fan et al., 2002). Rural
areas in poorer provinces relied on the redistri-
bution by the higher level governments, includ-
ing the Central Government. Investment in
rural economic infrastructure, for example,
roads and irrigation, has benefited from
multiple sources of funding since the 1980s.
‘Nonproductive’ infrastructures such as com-
munity and social development infrastructures
have remained the responsibility of the state.
However, the state funding to communities
only included the salaries of their formally
appointed staff members. This was the so-
called payroll finance (chifancaizheng, 吃饭
财政) (Zhan, 2009), which means that there
was little money for building infrastructure.
Funding for the construction costs and mainte-
nance of nonproductive infrastructure has often
been in shortage. This is particularly the case in
poor rural areas. In the 1980s, the pursuit of ef-
ficiency in rural social service delivery led to
greater concentration of schools in towns and
nearby cities, resulting in the closure of many
village schools (West and Wong, 1995). This
was followed by shrinking rural health care de-
livery in the 1990s for the sake of efficiency im-
provement (Zhang & Kanpur, 2005). The
decision to merge or reduce services was made
because of reduction in population in rural vil-
lages, partly a result of the one-child policy
and partly migration (Li & Piachaud, 2006). It
was no longer considered efficient to provide
services in villages with fewer people. The year
2000 saw the start of a major reform of the pub-
lic finance system. ‘The Regulation of the
Administration of Tax-Funded Special
Poverty Reduction Funds’ (Trial, ‘Cáizhèng
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January 2018
Zhuānxiàng Fúpín Zījīn Guǎnlǐ Bànfǎ’, 财政
专项扶贫资金管理办法) was published in
May 2000 by the Ministry of Finance (2000).
According to this policy, government poverty
reduction funds would be used to help poorer
rural areas to fund community and social devel-
opment infrastructures, such as roads, health
care, schooling and cultural infrastructure. In
2004, a set of new policies was introduced to
encourage diversification of the finance of rural
infrastructure. The purpose was to introduce al-
ternative sources of investment into rural infra-
structure. Funding for rural infrastructure may
now come from (i) the local government; (ii) ru-
ral collective businesses; (iii) urban enterprises;
and (iv) members of rural communities. In prin-
ciple, the government provides a minimal level
of service infrastructure, and other fund holders
provide add-on services.
In practice, to this day, except for the
state-funded rural health care services and
school education, the local government and
other fund holders both invest in social ser-
vice infrastructure. Therefore, the structure
of investment by investors is variable in dif-
ferent villages.
Reforms in the governance of rural villages
in China started in the 1980s. At the beginning,
some villages, such as in Yishan and Luocheng
counties in Guangxi Province, formed a semi-
autonomous self-governing body: the Vil-
lagers’ Committees. These committees were
different from the People’s Communes set up
in the 1950s and also different from the admin-
istratively appointed leadership of townships
and production teams introduced in the other
parts of the country in 1984. The role of these
Villagers’ Committees was to assist the gov-
ernment in maintaining law and order after
the collapse of the Communes (O’Brien & Li
2000). Later, in Hebei and Sichuan provinces,
similar governing bodies were set up. Their
roles were also extended to economic, political
and cultural activities (Wang et al. 2014). In
1982, the Village Committees were recognised
in the Constitution as legal self-governing bod-
ies (Shi, 1999). In June 1988, a trial version of
‘The Law of Organising Villagers’ Commit-
tees of the PRC’ (also translated as the ‘The
Organic Law of Village Committees’,
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China
‘Zhōnghuárénmíngònghéguócūnmínwěiyuán-
huìzǔzhīfǎ’, 中华人民共和国村民委员会组
织法) was introduced. In November 1998,
the Law was finalised and rolled out to the
whole country (Guo et al. 2009). This means
that research on public infrastructure provision
using data collected prior to the end of 1998
and soon after cannot reflect the new governing
structure. To this day, most rural villages have
experienced at least three village committee
elections. This means that the members in-
volved in village governance should now be fa-
miliar with the institutional set-up. As villages
increasingly rely on self-governance, the state
of governance of each village may vary.
The possible variations in the financing of
infrastructure and the state of governance mean
that the two assumptions needed for public
provision of infrastructure no longer hold. Var-
iations in these two factors can potentially af-
fect the outcomes of infrastructure availability.
5. Methodology
The key question to be answered in this re-
search is what are the determinants of the
availability of the four types of rural infrastruc-
tures in China. To answer this question, we
use a dataset of China Health and Retirement
Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) (2011). The
National Baseline Survey of Communities of
CHARLS (2011) contains community (vil-
lage) level information. It covers communities
in different counties and different regions in
China. Four hundred fifty villages and urban
communities in 150 counties (or districts) in
28 provinces were surveyed. For this research,
we excluded urban neighbourhoods, resulting
in a total of 251 villages for the analyses.
The survey questionnaires were completed by
village cadres, who were asked to provide in-
formation on, for example, infrastructure
availability, local governance features and pri-
mary sources of funding for local infrastruc-
ture. More detailed information on the
sampling procedure can be obtained via the of-
ficial web page of CHARLS.
Detailed information on sampling can be
found in the survey information document
(Zhao et al. 2013).
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7
As discussed earlier, our research will test
whether variations in governance and sources
of funding have affected the availability of a
given rural infrastructure. Therefore, in the fol-
lowing sections, we test two hypotheses:
Hypothesis A: The availability of a rural infra-
structure can be determined by the state of gov-
ernance.
Hypothesis B: The funding arrangement of ru-
ral infrastructure of a village may determine the
availability of an infrastructure.
5.1. Dependent Variables—Infrastructure
Availability Indices
Access to infrastructure can be measured in a
variety of ways: for example, availability,
quantity, quality and sufficiency. In this article,
we only study the availability of the infrastruc-
tures. This choice is suitable for the current sit-
uation of infrastructure coverage in rural
China. Some villages only have part of the in-
frastructures, others all types and some none
at all. Measuring the other accessibility indica-
tors may mean that villages without the infra-
structures are excluded from the analyses.
Given the small sample size, the analyses
would, therefore, become difficult.
The analysis includes four types of infra-
structures: public transport, sanitation, health
care and aged care. According to the Chinese
Government’s categorisation mentioned ear-
lier, public transport and sanitation belong to
community infrastructure, while the other two
types are part of social development infrastruc-
ture. To calculate the availability index for each
type of infrastructure, we initially included four
indicators for each type of infrastructure. Ex-
cept for public transportation, each indicator re-
ceives one point in the calculation.
The level of availability is measured by the
confirmatory factor analysis that allows multi-
ple measures to be associated with a single la-
tent construct. Table 1 shows the relationship
between the latent constructs and the individual
measures. Table 1 also lists the corresponding
questions, values and the coefficient of reliabil-
ity. The coefficients of reliability for the trans-
portation facility index, sanitation facility
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
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
to 0.7. This means that the availability indices
we have constructed are suitable for each of
the three types of infrastructure concerned.
However, the coefficient of reliability for the
health facility index is far below 0.7 (0.19).
This means that the four indicators are not suit-
able for measuring the availability of health fa-
cilities. One reason may be that the distribution
of health care facilities in China is more
concentrated in higher levels of administrative
units. For example, all villages are required to
have the basic facilities, but better facilities will
only be available in townships and larger
towns. Therefore, it does not make much sense
to check whether a village has access to all
levels of facilities. Therefore, we only use the
variables generated by one question in the
CHARLS (2011) questionnaire, ‘Is there a
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-
ties in further analyses.
Before using the indices for the tests, we
need to make sure that they are good proxies
for the availability of the infrastructures.
Table 2 shows the fitness statistics of the mea-
surement models for transportation, sanitation
and aged care. For transportation, all four fit-
ness statistics have passed the test.
χ 2(df = 1) = 0.430, and p = 0.512 means that
the model is not significantly different to a sat-
urated model. Root mean square error of ap-
proximation = 0, comparative fit index = 1
and standardised root mean square residual
<0.01 also mean that the model is a good fit
for the data. Similarly, the four statistics passed
all the tests for other infrastructures. Given the
results of the fitness tests, we are confident in
using the indices for the regressions.
5.2. Control Variables
5.2.1. Planning Factors
Population factors, such as the village popula-
tion and population structure, are usually
Table 2 Fit Statistic of Each Measurement Model
included in the planning practice in China
(State Council, 2012). For example, rural
clinics and older care facilities are set up ac-
cording to the number of long-term residents,
which means the planning regulation has taken
migration and population ageing into account.
When more people move out of villages, the
rural dependency rate increases, which means
that there is a greater need for social services
for the dependent population, such as care for
the elderly (Wang, 2006; Peng, 2011).
5.2.2. Economic Factors
Controlling economic factor means is built
upon the idea that when villagers are better
off, or the village is better off as a whole, the
villagers or the village decision-makers (such
as the village committee) are both more willing
and more able to invest in local infrastructure.
We include ‘income per capita’ and the ‘the
collective investment’ as two control variables.
An individual’s income level shows how well
off the villagers are. The collective investment
means investment made by the ‘collective eco-
nomic organisations’. These organisations

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
were introduced in the 1950s as the coopera-
tive agriculture movement started. After the
Third Planetary Meeting of the 11th People’s
Congress in 1978, the rural collective economy
was largely replaced by the Household Re-
sponsibility System. The surviving role of the
rural collective economy was about managing
the spending on public infrastructure and wel-
fare. As rural land became valuable assets in
the late 1990s, the rural collective economic or-
ganisations became collective businesses, of-
ten in the form of sharing holding companies,
to negotiate on behalf of the shareholders, that
is, villagers, for transactions related to rural
land (Chen, 2016). The amount of collective
investment shows how strong the collective
village economy is; that is, the greater the col-
lective investment, the stronger is the village
economy. We may anticipate that a richer vil-
lage has better infrastructure.
5.3. Key Independent Variables
5.3.1. Primary Investor of Village
Infrastructures
This variable represents the variation in the
funding of infrastructures. Before the 1980s,
rural infrastructures were funded by the gov-
ernment. In the 1980s, investment in rural eco-
nomic infrastructures, for example, roads and
irrigation, has benefited from the availability
of private funding. ‘Nonproductive’ infrastruc-
tures such as community and social develop-
ment infrastructures remained to be the
responsibility of the state. However, in the
1980s, it was considered inefficient to provide
services in villages with fewer people. Rural
health care and education were cut down
significantly to improve efficiency (Li &
Piachaud, 2006; Gong & Li, 2013). In 2000,
a major reform of the public finance system
was introduced by the Ministry of Finance
(2000). In practice, to this day, except for the
state-funded rural health care services and
school education, the local government and
other fund holders both invest in social service
infrastructure. Therefore, the primary investor
of the village infrastructure may potentially ex-
plain the variations in the infrastructure.
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January 2018
5.3.2. State of Governance in a Village
Governance of rural villages has gone through
further changes such as introducing the election
of village head and cadres and introducing par-
ticipatory decision-making of older people and
village elites. These changes, however, are not
universal, and different regions have different
practices. We therefore hypothesise that varia-
tions in the governing structure of a village
may have affected the infrastructure availabil-
ity. Several variables are included in this study
to reflect the variations in village governance.
The first is village elections. To this day,
most rural villages have experienced at least
three village committee elections. This means
that the members involved in village gover-
nance should now be familiar with the institu-
tional set-up. The impact of village elections
on the availability of public goods, in which in-
frastructure for social services is an important
part, has been examined by Luo et al. (2007,
2010) with a sample of 2,400 villages. They ar-
gued that rural elections led to an increase in
public investment. An elected village cadre
who decided to invest more in public goods
in period T would be more likely to be re-
elected in period T + 1. Therefore, village elec-
tions may be a motivating factor for village
cadres to improve rural infrastructures. As a re-
sult, we may observe longer office period cor-
relates with better infrastructure availability.
The second is whether elderly people are
organised. As of 1982, elderly people were
able to set up associations. In well-organised
villages, Elderly People’s Associations also
function as self-governance organisations that
may influence the decision of village cadres.
Despite that it is difficult for these associations
to fully operate without government influence,
given the government’s intention to use these
organisations to assist local governance, the El-
derly People’s Associations enjoy significantly
more autonomy compared with other NGOs
(Deng & Ruan, 2008). By the end of 2005,
there were more than 317,000 Elderly People’s
Associations in China. By 2014, the number
reached 401,100, and 43.89 million people
were enlisted in these associations. According
to Deng and Ruan (2008), the Elderly People’s
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China 11

Associations have played an important role in
providing welfare benefits to rural elderly peo-
ple. These benefits include cash and in-kind
benefits such as food and products for daily us-
age. The associations also organise community
events for members. However, few studies
have shown the relationship between the
Elderly People’s Associations and availability
of infrastructures. In this research, we
hypothesise that in a village where there is an
Elderly People’s Association, infrastructures
related to community life is more readily avail-
able. This may be particularly relevant when
the younger working age population migrates.
Better organised older villagers mean that they
also can bargain for better services.
Table 3 summarises the dependent and inde-
pendent variables for our analyses.
6. Research Findings
6.1. An Overview of the Distribution of
Infrastructure
As shown in Figure 1, rural villages have better
availability of health facilities than city fringe
and rural townships. Rural villages have, how-
ever, much worse sanitation systems than the
other two types of communities. Aged care fa-
cilities are the worst in terms of overall cover-
age, and both villages and city fringe fare
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
road availability. Villages at the more central
locations such as city fringe and rural town-
ships have better outcomes.
Figure 2 shows the regional variation in the
availability of the infrastructures. Interestingly,
central provinces on average have better avail-
ability than eastern provinces in terms of trans-
portation, sanitation and aged care facilities.
Figure 2 Availability of Different Types of Infrastructure by Region (%)
Western provinces fell behind the other two re-
gions in all categories.
6.2. Ordinary Least Squares Regression and
Logit Regression Results and Discussions
Table 4 shows the regression results for the
availability of each infrastructure. As the avail-
ability of medical clinics is a binary variable,

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
findings are as follows:
1 Transportation. In theory, larger villages ei-
ther in population or land size need better
transportation facilities. However, the re-
gression results do not support this. The av-
erage income level is positively related to
the availability of road and bus services.
The years that village cadres are in office,
immigration ratio and proportion of elderly
people all have a positive effect, but the re-
sults are not statistically significant. This
means that we can only be certain that
wealthier villages that have higher incomes
will benefit from better road conditions.
2 Sanitation. The regression shows that when
a larger percentage of migrants live in the
village, the sanitation infrastructure is also
significantly better (a = 0.670, p < 0.05).
This can be explained by the fact that sanita-
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
governments offer when they try to attract
investors. Villages attracting a large number
of migrants from other areas either have suc-
cessfully attracted private investors to set up
factories or have villagers who are quite
well-off and can hire migrants to work on
the farm. In both cases, the villages are able
to secure investment in sanitation either
from the state or from the wealthy villagers.
The Older People’s Association also played
a significant role, which can be explained by
a variety of reasons: (i) when elderly people
are better organised, they are able to argue
for better sanitation in the village, or (ii) they
are able to work collectively to construct or
monitor the construction of the sanitation.
The regressions also show that relative to
villages in which collective economy are
the primary investor, the villages that solely
relied on individuals fared much worse.
3 Aged care. Relatively speaking, when the
community is the primary investor, the vil-
lages would do better than those who rely
on government or private investment. This
means that when villages do well as a
whole, they also spend more money on pro-
viding services to old people. The Elderly
People’s Association also has a positive ef-
fect on the availability of aged care.
4 Medical clinics. Apart from population size,
the percentage of the population who is over
65 and income levels, other variables are in-
significant. This is probably related to the
fact that rural clinics are mostly considered
to be local governments’ responsibilities.
Planning decisions are rarely made within
the communities. Local government invest-
ments are largely based on the local eco-
nomic situation and population estimation.
7. Conclusions
This article examines the availability of com-
munity and social development infrastructures
in rural China and the possible contribution to
the outcomes by the ways infrastructure
funding is organised and the state of gover-
nance of the villages. Our research finds that
the development of the four types of
published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
January 2018
infrastructure is not at the same stage in all vil-
lages. Improved sanitation and aged care ser-
vices are on average less available. The
overall poorer availability of these two types
of infrastructure contrasts with the very active
development in business-related infrastructures
(the transportation facilities) and the more con-
sistently available infrastructure provided by
the state (health care).
This research provides some important in-
sights on the relationship between the state,
the community and the villagers in the provi-
sion of rural community and social develop-
ment infrastructures in China.
In term of funding, despite that the state con-
tinues to play its part in the provision of rural
infrastructures, rural collectives also play a
growing role. In villages where rural collec-
tives are the primary providers, infrastructure
availability is also significantly better. In con-
trast, when villages do not have thriving busi-
nesses that can fund infrastructure and the
state is not the primary provider, the villages
suffer from poor access to infrastructure. This
can be one important if not the most important
aspect in identifying poor villages that need
support. The experience in these Chinese vil-
lages suggests that if the state and the collective
businesses are not able to provide funding, vil-
lager participation and contribution can solve
the problems to a certain extent. Where indi-
viduals are the main investors in local infra-
structures, availability is on average worse
than where the state or the collectives are the
primary investors.
In terms of governance, better organised vil-
lagers may enjoy stronger bargaining power. It
has been established in many existing studies
that collective investments in community pub-
lic goods also depend on higher levels of trust
and sense of belonging. Community participa-
tion to some extent helps to build the sense of
trust and belonging (Ostrom, 2003; Marshall,
2004; Tsai, 2007; Njoh, 2011). Our research
also confirms this in the sense that in the con-
text of urbanisation, organisation of elderly
people can function as an important driver for
improving the service infrastructures in rural
communities. This can be explained by the fact
that they are the ones left behind in rural areas,
© 2018 The Authors. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies
 Li & Wang: Community and Social Development Infrastructures in China
and they have an interest in improving their
own life quality. Their active participation in
village decision-making may have the potential
to improve the life quality of people living in
villages.
Our research highlights the impact of urban-
isation on the traditional rural communities.
Urbanisation leads to population structure
change. In western and central provinces, the
aging speed is faster than in the eastern prov-
inces. This is related to the increased emigra-
tion of the working age population. However,
our data do not establish a strong correlation
between the proportion of elderly people and
the infrastructures for the services they need.
As the government is now pushing for greater
levels of urbanisation, that is, encouraging
rural–urban migrants to settle in cities, the lack
of basic social services for the elderly may po-
tentially lead to crises in social protection and
services in rural societies.
However, this does not mean that all rural
communities would face the same problems.
Some of these communities may have a better
future. As cities expand, more rural communi-
ties are turned into peri-urban communities or
become a mixture of rural and urban communi-
ties. They may further develop into urban com-
munities in the future. A growing population
density might have a positive impact on rural
infrastructures development, and it may also
motivate local governments to invest more in
these communities in the future. In terms of
the finance of community-based infrastruc-
tures, comparing the availability of infrastruc-
ture funded by the state, rural collectives and
rural residents, collective businesses have
played the most important role in aged care ser-
vice facilities. This shows that the rural collec-
tive economy is crucial in the improvement of
rural community infrastructures. However, re-
lying on collective economy means that vil-
lages can only depend on their own financial
capacity. Poorer villages that are equally in
need of social services may not be able to af-
ford them.
In the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2015–
2020), the Chinese Government is trying to
carry out ‘targeted poverty reduction’, which
means poverty reduction will not be as generic
published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University
15
as in the past when funding was allocated to
‘Poverty Counties’. The village level data
show variations in infrastructure availability
that can be used to identify the villages in
greater need more effectively. This research is
a reminder to the policy-makers that rural vil-
lages do not necessarily have the same capacity
to finance nor have the political will to invest in
social services. The state’s responsibility can-
not be removed simply because some of the
wealthier villages can manage on their own.
This is particularly crucial in addressing the
problems faced by the most disadvantaged
villages.
Lastly, we acknowledge that this research is
seriously constrained by the limited sample
size. A larger sample would provide a much
greater confidence in our conclusion. What is
more, examining the availability of rural social
service infrastructures is far from sufficient.
For the services to be functioning effectively,
there need to be further studies of the quality
and operation of the facilities.
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