Rural household income mobility in the people’s commune period

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-term differences in household income and their causes in the people’s commune through a panel of micro-data. Design/methodology/approach - The income mobility method (including static Gini mobility and dynamic income transition matrix) as well as the multinomial logit model) are employed in this paper. Findings - Empirical results indicate that differences in household income were relatively low during the people’s commune period. In addition, both Gini mobility and income transition matrix analyses show that income mobility in the long term was faster than that in the short term, suggesting income mobility was beneficial for low-income earners in the long term, i.e., there was an pro-poorness. The major factor influencing household income was the structure of family population, not the quantity of labor input. Originality/value - This paper is the first using income mobility method to study farmers’ income disparity and conducting factor decomposition on it in the people’s commune period. The micro-data on production team level applied in the paper is of high value, and the paper is helpful to understand the low efficiency of the people’s commune.