THE CHINA PRODUCTIVITY PROJECT - RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Experiments were conducted to determine what factors cause variation i n individual work output (economic productivity). Forty-five young mal e Chinese cycle haulers from Beijing were assessed for physiological w ork capacity, size and body composition, health, nutritional status, c old resistance, household social environment, and motivation. Experime nts were conducted in the laboratory as well as under actual working c onditions; ethnographic observations were made in the household and on the job during the Beijing winter of 1992. Overall work motivation co rrelated to actual monthly distance/load measures of productivity the most strongly(r = 0.518), followed by physiological capacity estimated by heart rate:speed ratio during field experiments (r = -0.473), Alco hol consumption (a negative factor), household health, and carbohydrat e intake were all moderate predictors. Maximum oxygen uptake showed lo wer correlation (r = 0.261), and among anthropometric values only rela tively long lower legs were predictive (r = 0.298), Since many of thes e variable categories were relatively independent of each other, multi ple regression analysis showed that together they explained 61.6% of t he work output variance. Simultaneous prediction by FASEM (LISREL) is also very strong, (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.