Working Poor in Mainland China: Concept and Life Trajectory of Its Main Working Groups

Abstract

In-work poverty seems to be a kind of "invisible poverty", which is closely related to the social risk and particularly lurks among working-age population. It de facto brings out the problematical aspects of economic and social secured conditions among individuals who are "in-work". In the labor market, describing and discussing the main working poor groups reveals the issue of in-work poverty. Based on this, working poor refer to the people who have a decent job but fall under the poverty threshold and have high risk into the condition of insecure and poor working/living quality. Internationally, the bulk of literature on in-work poverty comes from developed countries. However, the Asia-related research on in-work poverty remains underexplored. Thereby, the research describes a vivid picture of working poor in mainland China, makes a general definition and also, investigates that what kind of working groups in mainland China are suffering from high risk into poverty. The attempts will be made to distinguish the main in-work poverty groups with their trajectory historically under the labor market transformation and the economic reform. The research aims at a better understanding of poverty issue in the labor market underlying the life course and gender dimension.

Decomposing Differences in Health Service Utilization between Older Rurul-to-Urban Migrant Workers and Older Rural Residents：What is Driving the Differences?

“…As public policy plays a very signi cant role in shaping the income distribution and protecting their legitimate rights and interests, including protesting unpaid wages, raising the minimum wage. The positive and obvious function of such social policy is to give the poor people opportunities to change their life [35][36][37]. Echoing with previous published studies [38,39], SAH contributed the difference because SAH is largely a re ection of the integrated perception of their health, including the biological, psychological and social dimensions, that is strongly correlated with their health services utilization.…”

Determinants of Differences in Health Service Utilization between Older Rural-to-Urban Migrant Workers and Older Rural Residents: Evidence from a Decomposition Approach

“…In general, the income problems faced by older rural-to-urban migrant workers cannot be blamed on their "not working hard" but is a social problem that governments should value, as public policy plays a very significant role in shaping income distribution and protecting their legitimate rights and interests, including protesting unpaid wages and raising the minimum wage. The positive and obvious function of such social policy is to give the poor people opportunities to change their life [41][42][43]. Echoing previously published studies [44,45], SAH contributed to the differences because SAH is largely a reflection of the integrated perception of their health, including the biological, psychological, and social dimensions that are strongly correlated with their health service utilization.…”