The Influence of Poverty Alleviation Resettlement on Rural Household Livelihood Vulnerability in the Western Mountainous Areas, China

Abstract

Poverty alleviation resettlement (PAR) is China's largest-ever resettlement program and one of China's flagship poverty alleviation initiatives. Resorting to this state-led conversation and development program, the central and provincial governments aim to lift the poor out of the poverty trap and into sustainable livelihoods, by delivering improvements in housing conditions, infrastructure services, public amenities, and living standards. Taking Ankang as an example, this study examines the PAR from the perspective of vulnerability through a household survey conducted in Ankang prefecture of Shaanxi province, China. A total of six townships in Ankang are covered, with 657 valid questionnaires collected. This study shows that there is a difference in exposure, sensitivity, and the adaptive capacity of rural households with different relocation characteristics, hence generating different livelihood vulnerabilities. The PAR generally achieves the target of livelihood vulnerability reduction. Specifically, the project-induced relocation has a significant positive effect on vulnerability, but there is a significant negative correlation between livelihood vulnerability and relocation region, relocation time, and relocation subsidy. Challenges and problems remain to be addressed for the next phases of the PAR, including diminishing the financial burden on those relocated and providing free public transportation services, carrying out community-building programs and updating the household registration institution, balancing the redistribution and sharing of farmland, furnishing assistance measures for employment searches and training in specific skills, and creating an impartial project to safeguard the non-movers from the significant negative impacts on their physical and spiritual dimensions.

Rural Households’ Poverty and Relocation and Settlement: Evidence from Western China

“…Some argue that the displacement and resettlement of communities should be a last resort [5]; however, China’s central government has relocated millions of households for several reasons, including infrastructure construction (urban demolition, transportation, and hydropower projects). Recent relocation policies have also seen large numbers of people moved to alleviate poverty, address ecological and disaster-related concerns, and make way for major infrastructure construction projects [6,7,8,9]. Many of those being relocated are moving for the first time in their lives away from their rural ancestral homelands and into newly constructed villages, generally located in the same regions [10].…”

“…One such policy, the Relocation and Settlement Program of Southern Shaanxi Province (RSP, or Program) cannot be conceptualized as primarily a function of resettlers’ decisions, because it reflects the actions of the state and aims of local governmental development planning [15]. Being different from the project-induced relocation, the RSP aims to achieve sustainable levels of development, restore critical ecosystem services locally, regionally, and globally, alleviate poverty and improve rural households’ livelihood security, enhance social welfare, as well as foster rapid economic growth [7,8,9,15,16].…”

“…Previous studies contributed significantly to understanding the social-ecological impacts of displacement and resettlement across the globe [3,6,7,8,9,10,13,15,16,21,22,23], especially development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) [11,12,18,19,24,25]. However, most of the studies mentioned above are limited and restricted to environmental issues (water quality and geological instability) and population problems (economic outcomes and health risk).…”

The Impact of Perceived Value on Farmers’ Regret Mood Tendency

“…They suggested that the income gap, poverty and a reduction of demand for labor in rural areas are the driving forces behind immigration. Liu et al [26] found that in terms of PAR in China, there might be livelihood vulnerability arising from the different relocation characteristics. They also suggested that the PAR generally achieves the target of livelihood vulnerability reduction.…”

Spatial Association and Effect Evaluation of CO2 Emission in the Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration: Quantitative Evidence from Social Network Analysis

“…SNA is a good tool to investigate the network relations and global structure features between individuals within a system. In urban systems, SNA has been applied to measure population migration [40][41][42], urban structure [43], urban construction [44], the urban structure of the ecological relationships [45], and so on.…”