ABSTRACT
Even if one can hesitate to qualify such a development as a decisive move towards a real urbanization, it is above debate that such a change has thoroughly modified the rural situation, creating almost 50 million new non-agricultural jobs within six years, thereby relieving the prevalent underemployment in Chinese villages (which has not completely disappeared). It is intimately connected with the development of labour productivity in agriculture, rural incomes and the development of interregional markets.
