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China The Two Major Sectors: Agriculture and Industry
The two most important sectors of the economy were agriculture
and
industry, which together employed 80 percent of the labor force and
in 1985 produced 72 percent of GNP. The two sectors differed in
nearly all respects. Technology, labor productivity, and incomes
advanced much more rapidly in industry than in agriculture.
Agricultural output was vulnerable to the effects of weather, while
industry was more directly influenced by political upheavals. The
organization of industry was based on state and collective
ownership, planning, and wage labor, while that of agriculture was
built around household farming, self-reliance, and market
incentives. The disparities between the two sectors combined to
form an economic-cultural-social gap between the rural and urban
areas--the major division in Chinese society.
Data as of July 1987
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