Multidimensional Poverty and Poverty Reduction Policies in Rural China during 1995-2013

Using the multidimensional poverty index(MPI), this paper measures the intertemporal change in poverty in China's rural areas during 1995-2013, decomposes major poverty reduction factors, and creates a correlation between poverty reduction factors and national pro-farmer and poverty reduction policies. Our findings suggest that multidimensional poverty has been greatly alleviated in rural China on all fronts beyond the income dimension. Specifically, the burden of out-of-pocket medical expenses contributed the most to the overall poverty of farmers in the 1990s; this gap was subsequently mitigated by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance System. Lack of economic empowerment-the second most prominent manifestation of poverty two decades ago-has been alleviated with public welfare improvements. In the present stage, health and healthcare are the primary difficulties facing poor farmers multidimensionally. Sub-groups such as elders,those less educated and those living in western China or in poor counties suffer from a high degree of poverty. This implies that multidimensional poverty is concentrated among the underprivileged groups and in less developed regions, whom should be policy priorities.Robustness tests suggest that the paper's conclusion still holds after changing the proxy variables of the subdimensions, revising weights or removing some dimensions.