Abstract
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, located in wester n China, faces the problems of rural surplus made effor ts to resolve these problems by promoting the growth of secondary and tertiary industries in the region.
The purpose of this is to confirm whether this promotion by the government has helped rectify problems relating to excess labor and agricultural productivity in Xinjiang; it does so by estimating changes in the share of labor in agriculture in 1980–2010. The estimation results show that agriculture’s share of the overall labor force increased from 11.9% in 1980–1999 to 19.2% in 2000–2010 and it was found that the government’s promotion helped increase farmers’ incomes after 2000.
