Consumption and Income Poverty in Rural China: 1995-2018

This paper studies consumption and income poverty in rural China during the period from 1995 to 2018 using Chinese Household Income Project(CHIP)data.It finds that the wellbeing of Chinese rural residents has improved significantly during this period as part of China s rapid industrialization and economic growth.The incidence of poverty has fallen substantially,either measured in terms of income or consumption.However,consumption poverty is not consistent with income poverty.It was the substantial growth of consumption or income that brought about the sharp fall in poverty,whereas the redistribution of consumption or income in particular during the period from 2002 to 2018 was unfavorable for poverty reduction.A large number of rural household workers moved away from household farming to participate in local or urban non-farming activities,resulting in a fall in poverty in the households that engaged purely in farming,and economic growth led to a sharp fall in poverty within different rural household groups.

Targeted Poverty Alleviation Lies in Precisely Identifying the Poverty–Stricken Population: An Analysis of the Targeting Effect of the Rural Subsistence Allowance Policy

Poverty–stricken populations must be identified precisely in the fight against poverty to implement the strategy of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. The analysis based on the household survey in 2013 shows that the targeting accuracy is not high based on the standard of income and the accuracy is higher based on the standard of multidimensional poverty index. But the latter still has a low coverage rate. To gradually achieve integration of the rural poverty line and the rural subsistence allowance line, standards applied to identifying households entitled to subsistence allowances should be changed from the standard of income to multidimensional poverty indexes. A unified standard of subsistence allowances and a unified method for identifying related households should be developed. At the same time, coverage and funding of subsistence allowances should be extended and increased to better meet people's basic needs.

Eliminating poverty through development:The dynamic evolution of multidimensional poverty in rural China

This paper measures intertemporal multidimensional poverty in rural China from 1988 to 2018 based on the China Household Income Project(CHIP)data and for that time period has the following findings.First,multidimensional poverty in rural China declines steadily when measured through the income poverty approach.Second,multidimensional poverty in rural areas presents demographic and regional heterogeneity,among which elderly poverty,child poverty,and poverty in the western Chinese region are the most prominent ones.Third,income poverty and multidimensional poverty have a low overlap ratio and show intertemporal synchronisation over time.Although increases in income can alleviate multidimensional poverty,this effect is very limited.This paper suggests that a suitable multidimensional poverty identification framework should be developed in the era of poverty alleviation after 2020 and that in the new poverty alleviation governance system of China,targeted development strategies should be formulated with an increased focus on the poverty of special groups such as children and the elderly.

The Key to Precise Poverty Alleviation Rests in the Precise Indentifi cation of Impoverished Populations——An Analysis of the Targeting Effectiveness of China’s Rural Dibao Program

The success of the poverty elimination program,as an important element in the strategy of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020,depends on the accurate identification of the population living in poverty.An analysis of 2013 data from the China Household Income Project(CHIP 2013)shows that in terms of the income-based poverty line,the targeting of the current rural minimum living standard guarantee or subsistence allowance program(dibao)program is very imprecise;it improves with the use of multidimensional poverty criteria,but coverage remains poor.In order to unify the criteria for the rural poverty alleviation(fupin)criteria and the dibao criteria,a uniform set of national criteria should be established.This should shift from income as the sole criterion to multidimensional criteria,so that a uniform scheme can be developed to identify those in need.At the same time,the coverage of the dibao program should be extended and the transfer amounts increased,so that the scheme genuinely covers all of the target population in rural China.