Poverty and Subjective Poverty in Rural China

Abstract

China is undergoing a campaign which is called “The Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy” to eradicate extreme poverty from rural China until 2020. Though poverty in rural China has been studied intensively in different objective dimensions, little attention has been paid to poverty line settings and subjective poverty, which are hinged to the policy effects. In order to fill in the research gap, this study employs a nationally representative survey of rural households in 2016, to measure subjective poverty in rural China, and analyze the determinants as well. Our results indicate that the mean subjective poverty line of the rural households is 8297 yuan per capita, which is far higher than the national poverty line (2800 yuan). Statistically, 29% of the surveyed rural households who are not objectively poor feel subjectively poor. The objective poverty line cannot fully reflect the subjective poverty perception. Thus, how to reduce the subjective poverty perception could be a major policy agenda in rural China after 2020, when extreme poverty is no longer a problem.

Reconciling the Conflicting Narratives on Poverty in China

“…They find that the urban poverty rates are 33-55% higher using the subjective method. This suggests a closer correspondence than found by Wang et al (2020) though the use of more recent data by the latter paper may be playing a role.…”

“…Self-assessed average "satisfaction-with-life" in China has not increased much, if at all, since 1990, despite the substantial economic growth (Easterlin et al 2017). One might conclude that "money does not buy you happiness," but that is inconsistent with the evidence for China (and elsewhere) that self-assessed welfare rises with higher income (Clark et al 2019;Wang et al 2020). The more plausible explanation is that the idea of what it means to be "satisfied" or not with one's life has changed with economic development.…”

Postnatal Mental Health, Breastfeeding Beliefs, and Breastfeeding Practices in Rural China

“…The research team implemented a 3-step sampling protocol to select households for the study. First, from the nine counties within the sample prefecture, the four nationally-designated "poverty counties" (pinkun xian) were included, which are counties that have more than 2% of their population living under the national poverty line of 3,000 RMB (458 US dollars) (36). These counties were selected in order to sample the mental health and breastfeeding outcomes of low-income, rural mothers.…”

How Have the Subjective Poverty Lines and The Perceived Consequences of Poverty Changed During the Pandemic in Minnesota?

“…Another relative poverty threshold can be an income level below which the financial position of a certain part (one tenth or one fifth) of the population falls (Hegedűs & Monostori, 2005). Subjective poverty is less often used in spite of being beneficial to identify poverty and to work out effective and successful strategies towards the eradication of poverty (Wang et al 2020). Besides referring to the individuals' own opinions of whether their material situations are below the level they consider acceptable (Marks, 2007), subjective poverty concept is also a possible way to examine what people consider necessary to avoid poverty in general.…”