HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION AND HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF CHINA ECONOMIC-REFORMS

China's recent economic reforms have reinstituted the household as the basic unit of production. This article investigates the relationship between household production activities and household size and extensi on in rural and urban areas in eight Chinese provinces. Drawing upon d ata from two waves (1989 and 1991) of the China Health and Nutrition S urvey, we see households with more working aged members in 1989 are mo re likely to be engaged in household production activities in 1991. Th ere is no evidence that the inverse is true; household production acti vities do not appear to impact the number of working aged household me mbers. There is some indication that these results hold whether produc tion activities are agricultural or nonagricultural.