L’altra Cina

People’s Republic of China has recorded an impressive economic growth since the beginning of the 1980’s. There is no doubt about these outstanding economic results. However, we argue that this outstanding economic growth is not translated into human development as it could. Indeed, since 1990s, large part of the rural population is marginalized and the temporary workers (the 140 million of floating population), that ‘nourish’ the high rates of GDP growth, are clearly not taking advantage from it. These are central issues for the future of Chinese people well-being and, considering the ‘size’ of the country and its challenges in the globalised competition, for the rest of the world. The aims of this paper are threefold. The first aim is to discuss some problematic aspects of the impressive Chinese economic growth in terms of increasing inequality and marginalisation of part of the population, looking in particular at the floating population phenomenon. The second aim is to present a model that examines the economic and institutional mechanisms related to the outstanding Chinese economic growth on one side and the scarce human development of large part of its population on the other. The last objective is to draw some policy implications accordingly.