Since 1949, China's progress in mortality reduction has far exceeded that experienced by
other developing countries with comparable levels of national income. This achievement
has taken place irn the context of a development strategy oriented, in part, to the
elimination of the worst aspects of poverty. Using recent cross-section data, this paper
provides a statistical assessment of the extent to which health resources are evenly
distributed in contemporary China, and the degree to which improvements in health
resource availability may account for the observed variation in mortality levels. Contrary
to expectation, the analysis finds that substantial inequalities do remain in the distribution
of health resources, and that these differentials are principally associated with levels of
urban income and urbanization. However, these differen.zes in health resource availability
do not appear to explain the significant variation which also persists in mortality levels,
a finding consistent with the results of similar analyses for developed countries.