中国相对贫困测度与城乡差异

Measurement of China’s relative poverty and analysis of its rural-urban disparities

中国在2020年完成现行贫困标准下农村绝对贫困人口全部脱贫,全面建成小康社会。然而,以发展差距为特征的相对贫困问题依然存在,通过降低不平等、缩小城乡发展差距来治理相对贫困问题,对推动中国城乡融合、实现共同富裕具有重大的理论与现实意义。因此,该研究研究地区发展差异和不平等对中国弱相对贫困标准构建的影响,并对不同地区层次和不同贫困标准下的中国相对贫困分布状况进行测算和比较分析,选择适合中国国情的相对贫困标准构建框架,最终使用Shapley分解和Fairlie分解两种方法对中国城乡相对贫困差异形成的原因进行实证分析。研究发现,相对贫困与不平等密切相关,但最终决定于各地区具体的收入分布形态。地区间的发展不平衡问题对相对贫困线的设定和相对贫困的分布都具有显著影响。中国农村地区相对贫困和不平等程度均高于城镇地区,不论是使用全国统一的还是城乡分设的相对贫困线,农村地区将依然是中国未来扶贫的主战场。收入、工作、生活质量、户主教育和省份是城乡相对贫困差异形成的主要原因。其中,收入和工作解释了2018年城乡相对贫困差异的49.88%,生活质量和户主教育分别解释了10.41%和9.28%。但是不平等和生活成本是城市相对贫困高于农村的主要因素。因此,在加速城乡融合和推进共同富裕的背景下,以制定相对统一的相对贫困标准为中国未来贫困识别的主要策略,以解决地区和个人两个层次的发展不平衡问题为目标制定相关扶持政策,进行相对贫困的治理。

In 2020,China announced that it had lifted all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty and built a moderately prosperous society in all respects.However,relative poverty characterized by a development gap still exists,and tackling relative poverty by reducing inequality and narrowing rural-urban disparities has great theoretical and practical significance for pushing integrated urban-rural development and achieving common prosperity in China.This study explored how regional differences and inequality affected the construction of the weakly relative poverty line,measured and compared relative poverty conditions with different poverty standards in different regional levels in China,chose a framework to construct a relative poverty standard suitable for China’s national condition,and finally carried out the Shapley decomposition and Fairlie decomposition on the formation of rural-urban disparities of relative poverty.The study found that relative poverty was highly related to inequality but was eventually determined by the specific pattern of regional income distribution.The problem of unbalanced development among regions had a significant impact on the specification of the poverty line and the distribution of relative poverty.The occurrence of relative poverty and the degree of inequality in rural areas were much higher than those in urban areas,whatever relative poverty line was used,and rural areas would still be the center of poverty reduction.Income,types of work,quality of life,education,and differences between provinces were the main reasons for the formation of rural-urban disparities in relative poverty,among which income and work together accounted for 49.88% of the reasons and quality of life and education accounted for 10.41% and 9.28%,respectively.However,compared with relative poverty in rural areas,income distribution and living costs were the disadvantages of relative poverty in urban areas.Therefore,in the context of accelerating integrated urban-rural development and promoting common prosperity,the formulation of a relatively uniform relative poverty standard should be considered the main strategy for poverty identification in China in the future.In addition,relevant policies need to be formulated to address the development imbalance at both individual and regional levels in order to carry out the governance of relative poverty issues.