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In China, firms actively participate in poverty alleviation to comply with the national policy and to build political connections. Whether firms curry favor with the government by increasing spending on poverty alleviation is an interesting research question under the context of anti-corruption campaigns. Using hand-collected data from the period 2016–2018, we examine how anti-corruption campaigns have influenced corporate poverty alleviation spending at the city level. Our results show that anti-corruption campaigns are positively related to corporate poverty alleviation spending. We further identify two possible channels through which the anti-corruption campaign increases corporate poverty alleviation spending: (1) political connections and (2) stock price crash risk. Finally, we find that the effects of the anti-corruption campaign on corporate poverty alleviation spending are stronger in firms located in cities with lower degrees of marketization, a lower media index, and a higher poverty rate, as well as in firms receiving fewer government subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to investigate health care needs, health service utilization, and their socio-economic and health-related determinants in people with spinal cord injury (SCI) living in Jiangsu and Sichuan Provinces of China. A total of 1355 participants with SCI living in the community were recruited using a multi-stage stratified random sample and surveyed by telephone or online. Outcomes evaluated included the presence of health care needs, mode of health service utilization, and specific provider types seen within 12 months preceding the survey. The prevalence of healthcare needs was 92%. Needs were higher in Sichuan (98%) as compared to Jiangsu (80%). Of those in need of health care, 38% reported not having utilized care, more in Sichuan (39%) than in Jiangsu (37%). In Jiangsu, inpatient care was more often used than in Sichuan (46% vs. 27%), while in Sichuan outpatient services were utilized more often (33% vs. 17%). On average, 1.6 provider types were seen, with Sichuan reporting fewer different provider types. Considerable differences in the prevalence of health care needs and service utilization patterns were found between provinces, mostly in favour of the economically more developed Jiangsu Province. People with low income, particularly those below the World Bank poverty line for middle-income countries, had increased health care needs but utilized health care less often. Moreover, environmental barriers contributed significantly to unmet health care needs. This implies the necessity to provide better accessible and more affordable rehabilitation services for people with spinal cord injury (SCI) in China such as community-based rehabilitation programming. Policies for alleviation of poverty in the case of SCI including insurance for catastrophic health expenditure should also be reviewed and adapted where applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on national time series data from 1990 to 2020 in China, the study quantified the index and analyzed the relationship among criminal cases, relative deprivation, and absolute deprivation by using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model. The results showed that the change in absolute deprivation had no significant influence on overall criminal cases, while the expansion of relative deprivation promoted an increase in criminal cases. Meanwhile, relative deprivation and absolute deprivation have disparate effects on different types of criminal cases. On the one hand, both absolute deprivation and relative deprivation have a positive effect on violent crimes. On the other hand, the impact of absolute deprivation on property crimes is not significant. Due to the large proportion of property crimes in the total criminal cases, the reduction of absolute deprivation has a limited inhibiting effect on total criminal offenses in China's current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that China's socialist economy had relatively high rates of extreme poverty while the capitalist reforms of the 1980s and 1990s delivered rapid progress. This narrative relies on World Bank estimates of the share of people living on less than $1.90 a day (2011 PPP), which show a sharp decline from 88 per cent in 1981 to zero by 2018. However, the World Bank's poverty line has been critiqued for ignoring variations in the actual cost of meeting basic needs. In this paper we review data published by the OECD on the share of people unable to afford a subsistence basket. These estimates indicate that from 1981 to 1990, when most of China's socialist provisioning systems were still in place, the country's extreme poverty rate was on average only 5.6 per cent, substantially lower than in capitalist economies of comparable size and income at the time: 51 per cent in India, 36.5 per cent in Indonesia, and 29.5 per cent in Brazil. China's comparatively strong performance is corroborated by data on other social indicators. Moreover, extreme poverty in China increased during the capitalist reforms of the 1990s, reaching a peak of 68 per cent, as privatisation inflated the prices of essential goods and thus deflated the incomes of the working classes. These results indicate that socialist provisioning policies can be effective at preventing extreme poverty, while market reforms may threaten people's ability to meet basic needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, women with disabilities are one of the main victims of human trafficking against women. The victims of abducting crimes and the buyers are both concentrated in rural areas, which implicit profound social and cultural causes. Demographic and social-culture factors under the influence of patriarchal ideology and marriage squeeze have jointly caused the crimes, while China's urbanization and poverty in rural areas deeply affected the lives of women with disabilities and protection against trafficking and other crimes. This study examines the influencing factors of trafficking in women in China and the inadequacies of social support and care for disabled women in anti-trafficking. Furthermore, this study recommends a set of countermeasures and suggestions on the aspects of social support and assistance for the prevention, timely rescue, and elimination of crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty has always been a global concern that has restricted human development. The first goal (SDG 1) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to eliminate all forms of poverty all over the world. The establishment of a scientific and effective localized SDG 1 evaluation and monitoring method is the key to achieving SDG 1. This paper proposes SDG 1 China district and county-level localization evaluation method based on multi-source remote sensing data for the United Nations Sustainable Development Framework. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of China's poverty areas and their SDG 1 evaluation values in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 have been analyzed. Based on the SDGs global indicator framework, this paper first constructed SDG 1 China's district and county localization indicator system and then extracted multidimensional feature factors from nighttime light images, land cover data, and digital elevation model data. Secondly, we establish SDG 1 China's localized partial least squares estimation model and SDG 1 China's localized machine learning estimation model. Finally, we analyze and verify the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of China's poverty areas and counties and their SDG 1 evaluation values. The results show that SDG 1 China's district and county localization indicator system proposed in this study and SDG 1 China's localized partial least squares estimation model can better reflect the poverty level of China's districts and counties. The estimated model R2 is 0.65, which can identify 72.77% of China's national poverty counties. From 2012 to 2018, the spatial distribution pattern of SDG evaluation values in China's districts and counties is that the SDG evaluation values gradually increase from western China to eastern China. In addition, the average SDG 1 evaluation value of China's districts and counties increased by 23% from 2012 to 2018. This paper is oriented to the United Nations SDGs framework, explores the SDG 1 localized evaluation method of China's districts and counties based on multisource remote sensing data, and provides a scientific and rapid regional poverty monitoring and evaluation program for the implementation of the 2030 agenda poverty alleviation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living arrangements and health behaviors are considered to be associated with mental health, but their relationship has been less investigated by national survey data in China. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship of living arrangements and health behaviors with anxiety among Chinese older people and to compare the results between urban and rural areas. The study was based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey conducted in 2018, and a total of 12 726 old-aged respondents were included. Ordinal logistic regression was used to analyze the associations between living arrangements, health behaviors and anxiety. This study found that people living in nursing institutions are likely to be more anxious than their dwelling counterparts. Although we found no significant relationships of health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and exercise with anxiety, older adults with greater dietary diversity were less likely to experience anxiety. Furthermore, different trends between living arrangements and anxiety, smoking and anxiety were also found among urban versus rural respondents. The findings of this study help to better understand anxiety among Chinese older people and shed light on health policy on older people protection and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of a scarcity of research on the spatial effects of urbanization on poverty reduction, this study uses panel data on 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2019 to construct a system of indices to assess poverty that spans the four dimensions of the economy, education, health, and living. We use the spatial autocorrelation test and the spatial Durbin model (SDM) to analyze the spatial effects of urbanization on poverty reduction in these different dimensions. The main conclusions are as follows: (a) China's urbanization has the characteristics of spatial aggregation and a spatial spillover effect. (b) Different dimensions of poverty had the attributes of spatial agglomeration, and Moran's index of a reduction in economic poverty was the highest. Under the SDM, the different dimensions of poverty also showed a significant positive spatial correlation. (c) Urbanization has a significant effect on poverty reduction along the dimensions of the economy, education, and living, but has little effect on reducing health poverty. It has a spatial spillover effect on poverty reduction in economic and living contexts. (d) There were spatial differences in the effect of urbanization on relieving economic and living-related poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intergenerational transmission of poverty has always been an important issue around the world. This study examines the effects of father's and mother's human and social capital on the income of their children in China by using the data obtained from the 2014 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey. The results show that (1) the effects of the human and social capital of the father and mother on the child's income are heterogeneous. Specifically, the father's education, father work industry and mother work industry have little effect on their child's income. However, the mother's education has a positive and significant effect on a child's income. (2) The effect of the mother's education on child's income is significant but limited, on average, the marginal contribution of the mother's education on the natural logarithm of the child's income is only 1.0%. (3) The child's human capital, including health, education, foreign language ability, and professional ability, significantly affects their income. (4) The results obtained from quantile regression and sub-sample regression support the above findings. Therefore, the effective means of intervening against the intergenerational transmission of poverty should be to help the individual improve their human capital, rather than starting with their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between individual income and self-control by employing the data available from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey 2014. We use the two-stage least square method (2SLS) and mediating/moderating effects to estimate the relationship between income and self-control. Results show that self-control impacts individual income both positively and significantly. Age and gender play moderate roles, while education plays a mediating role in the progress of self-control to impact individual income. Robustness analyses are conducted using an IV-quantile regression model, a plausible exogenous instrument, and combining different categories. Findings are consistent across different models and assumptions. This study indicates that an improvement in individual self-control is conducive to increasing individual income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now addressing relative not absolute poverty, China must redistribute income from the middle class to persons experiencing poverty. However, policy rhetoric has recently prioritised laziness as causing poverty, a view widely shared by China's middle class. Employing a convenience sample of 2,449 middle-class respondents, regressions relate the attribution of poverty to personality, and ideological and individual socialisation. Given two choices, most respondents chose laziness over unfairness but, with more choice, selected 'modern progress'. Respondents prioritising laziness exhibited extravert and authoritarian personality traits and more faith than others in government policies. They were less well educated and unlikely to have studied social sciences. Respondents subsequently attributing poverty to modern progress had similar characteristics but were not extravert. Building support for redistributive policies could therefore prove difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absolute poverty eliminated by China has been a chronic affliction of human society. In the course of modernization, China has completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, thus embarking on a path of Chinese-style modernization that is committed to poverty eradication and common prosperity. Eradicating poverty and its root causes is a social project that transformed human society, creating a miracle on earth. The current and continuing success of this project lies in China's unique national capacity for good governance, including its national capacity for mobilization, organization, transformation, development, and integration. This capacity is determined by the nature of the socialist system; the "sacred mission" of the Communist Party of China (CPC) provides it with inexhaustible impetus and a fundamental institutional guarantee. The national capacity for good governance is a specific manifestation of China's institutional strengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting an approach that differs from practices in other countries, China has made many achievements in reducing poverty for people with disabilities using two successful types of policies and a unique political mobilization mechanism. However, inconsistencies between the policies and their implementation in the Chinese policy environment has produced new exclusionary effects, hindering the process of social integration for people with disabilities. These obstacles need to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusive finance can impose significantly varying effects on poverty alleviation. Based on the data extracted from 31 provinces across China from 2007 to 2017, the spatial panel model and the threshold regression model were established, so as to explore the spatial effect and the threshold effect between inclusive finance and poverty alleviation. Moreover, this study attempts to reveal the influencing mechanism of these two effects imposed by the inclusive finance. The study finds that: First, the inclusive finance can impose significant effects on the poverty relief efforts. Second, the threshold effect can be evidently shown given that the inclusive finance facilitates both capital inflows and outflows. However, in the longer run, the capital inflows will exceed the outflow. In the meantime, the spatial effects are revealed from the aspects of spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence. Judging from the research findings, the Chinese authority shall pay closer attention to the development of the western regions, so as to narrow the developmental gap of inclusive finance among regions. In addition, we shall attach importance to guiding the capital inflows while reducing the capital outflows so as to speed up the crossing of the threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the problem of elderly poverty in China has been addressed in many studies, few systematically examine the capacity of public pension benefits to reduce poverty. To fill the research gap, this paper aims to understand better the effect of China's public pensions on poverty relief. The paper shows that, while the majority of Chinese people have been covered by public pensions, the pension that pertains to those outside the formal labour market does not effectively prevent substantial numbers of pensioners from poverty because of pension inadequacy. The phenomenon of pensioner poverty suggests that, to minimise poverty in old-age, as important as expanding pension coverage is guaranteeing pension adequacy, particularly for the informal workforce. China's experience for tackling elderly poverty through public pensions may provide insights for other countries considering the expansion of pension coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a growing call for L2/EFL teachers to connect the words they teach in classrooms with the world students participate outside classrooms, opportunities for L2/EFL students to engage with civic participation (CP) in language curricula remains limited. Drawing on student-authored videos from a digital multimodal composing (DMC) programme in China, this study reports on students' manifestation of CP during DMC. Data from student-authored videos, classroom observation, and interviews reveal that the students used DMC for three forms of CP, including advocacy of the sexually discriminated, fundraising efforts for the left-behind children stricken by poverty, and promoting civic learning of disease-related knowledge and protection measures. The findings also reveal that these forms of CP were manifested by the students' creative remixing of videos and visuals and ingenious layering of student-generated narrations based on their authentic concerns and community experiences. Implications on how DMC can be used to facilitate students' CP in language curricula are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gansu province, considered as one of the poorest provinces in China, faces great challenges in fighting against poverty. This study highlights the importance of studying multidimensional poverty in Gansu province. The Multidimensional Poverty Indices of 75 poverty-stricken counties in Gansu province are measured quantitatively. The main driving factors of poverty are identified through the construction and application of a multidimensional poverty measurement system, classifying the impoverished counties into several categories. This study provides a scientific basis for formulating effective policies to achieve sustainable poverty reduction and high-quality development in the region after 2020. The results show that: (1) more than half of the poverty-stricken counties in Gansu province have a degree of multidimensional poverty that is below the median poverty level, with regional variations; (2) the main factors driving poverty in these counties include shortages in water and land resources, educational disruptions, undesirable medical conditions, and the underutilisation of labour, which show spatial variations; and (3) these poverty-stricken counties are categorised into four types: counties with fragile ecological environments and insufficient natural resources, counties with undesirable socio-economic conditions, counties with unfavourable conditions in development, and counties with relatively balanced development conditions. Finally, this paper proposes policy recommendations to achieve stable poverty alleviation based on different types of impoverished counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data from 633 households in China's central and western regions, this article employs a life satisfaction approach to examine the influence of village poverty governance on the subjective well-being of rural households and estimates the monetary value of poverty governance. Applying the 2SLS and instrumental variable methods, this study demonstrated that improving village poverty governance can help increase the subjective well-being of rural households. The results also indicated that village poverty governance has a significant positive impact on the well-being of non-poor households but has no significant impact on the well-being of poor households. Given this difference, the participation of poor households in village poverty governance should be increased, and the capability approach of poor groups should be reinforced to prevent unfair procedures and uneven resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the perspective of person-in-environment by identifying whether social work students in China held a dominant orientation. The study was based on a sample of over 1,000 final-year social work students in Guangdong Province. It was revealed that although respondents prioritised the profession's individual-oriented goals, their practice preferences were indeterminate. Moreover, society-orientation was far from absent because social causes of poverty received most support. Paradoxically, micro practice was the preferred way of dealing with poverty. Ambiguity and discrepancy in the orientations of Chinese social work students not only reflected the evolving and pragmatic nature of social work in China, but also indicated the importance of understanding person-in-environment within an authoritarian context. IMPLICATIONS Chinese social work educators should provide integrative learning with both individual and society orientations. The international community of social work educators needs to be more culturally sensitive in their teaching regarding person-in-environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is widely recognized as a multifaceted concept and has been extensively studied. However, less research has been conducted to explore multidimensional poverty in China. This article aims to investigate the measurements and determinants of multidimensional poverty in mountainous areas of Southeast China. The Alkire–Foster method and a logistic regression modeling technique are applied to examine multidimensional poverty and its determinants, respectively. Four dimensions (income, education, health, and living standards) and eight indicators are considered for the measurements of multidimensional poverty. By interviewing 198 rural households in Shouning County, Fujian Province of China, the article reveals about sixty percent of the sample households are found to experience multidimensional poverty, which is remarkably higher than previous studies. Deprivation in four dimensions is not homogeneous. The incidence of deprivation in education and health dimension are remarkably higher than dimensions of income and living standards. Results also reveal that health (34.27%) and education (27.45%) are the two most important contributors of multidimensional poverty, which jointly account for 61.72% of overall poverty. Living standards (23.25%) and income (15.03%) are the other two important contributors of multidimensional poverty. The important determinants of multidimensional poverty are the number of chronic patients, dependency ratio, elevation, and information accessibility. The results confirm that chronic disease or disability is the key determinant of poverty in rural areas of China. The study suggests that policy focus of poverty alleviation should be changed from income growth to health and education improvement. The provision and accessibility of health care services in rural areas need to be emphasized. Future research should focus on the heterogeneity of multidimensional poverty in China to expound the spatial difference and household difference in multidimensional poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the poverty level of resettlers in the floodplains of the downstream Yellow River before and after resettlement. The Shapley value decomposition method is used to measure the influence of various factors on vulnerability to poverty, and the difference-in-differences model is used to analyse the impact of different resettlement modes on vulnerability to poverty. The results show that relocation greatly increases the risk of poverty for some resettlers. Higher education levels, physical health, and strong labour ability help reduce vulnerability to poverty. Differences in income, education level, and the health status of families are the primary causes of poverty risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Social Stratification, Past, Present, and Future' celebrates the 50th anniversary of the annual Cambridge Social Stratification Seminar. This editorial presents a brief characterisation of the 'Cambridge school' approach that has featured prominently through the seminar's lifetime. Then it discusses the domains and topics explored in this issue – education; intergenerational transmission of inequality; family, work and employment; occupations; migration for work; housing, and political preferences. While most of the papers focus on Great Britain, several papers involve international comparisons, one focuses on stratification in India, and another on China. Collectively, researchers reveal how social hierarchy influences people's lives, and reproduces fairly stably over time. The papers also contribute to understanding the sometimes counter-intuitive outcomes that challenge those charged with policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While China has succeeded in dramatically reducing income poverty, it is increasingly recognized that poverty is multidimensional. Moreover, all countries are expected under the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to halve poverty in all its dimension by 2030 "according to national definitions". However, there is little agreement, either in China or elsewhere, as to what the dimensions should be. Therefore, qualitative research was undertaken in Guizhou in 2019 to identify the dimensions of poverty through discussion with people with direct experience of poverty. Forty-two people participated in one of five extended creativity groups that met for up to 12 hours over two days. One group comprised people on middle incomes, the others, people in poverty, a substantial minority of whom were functionally illiterate. Eight dimensions of poverty were identified in addition to low income and poverty duration: lacking decent work; material deprivation; physical suffering; emotional suffering; social abuse and exclusion; institutional injustice; powerlessness; and struggle and resistance. If replication confirms these dimensions, indicators should be developed to enable multidimensional poverty to be adequately measured and anti-poverty policies better evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socioeconomic disadvantage may adversely affect HIV treatment outcomes, particularly in resource-limited settings. Data from people living with HIV (PLWH) who were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Guangxi, China were analyzed to investigate the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on the immunologic outcome (i.e., CD4 counts). Among 1198 participants, 55.0% were having CD4 counts ≤500 cells/mm3 and over two-third (68.5%) were considered to have a low level of SES. PLWH with high SES were more likely to have higher CD4 counts (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR]: 1.44, 95%CI: 1.08–1.91) than PLWH with low SES, after adjusting for potential confounders. CD4 counts were also significantly associated with certain socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and sexual orientation. In order to reduce SES-related disparity, a holistic approach may be needed to address the barriers to successful HIV treatment and care among PLWH with low SES. Poverty reduction and other structural interventions in addressing the socioeconomic disadvantages among PLWH should be key components of the national response to improving HIV treatment outcomes and ending the HIV epidemic in China and other low- and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the effects of universal basic education on the vulnerability to poverty in rural China while exploring this mechanism from a capability perspective. A regression-discontinuity design based on the implementation of compulsory education is used to identify the effects with household data. We find that compulsory education has significantly reduced the vulnerability to poverty by popularizing basic education in rural China. Regarding the mechanism itself, vulnerability to structural poverty is the primary source of vulnerability in rural China. Universal basic education's effect on reducing vulnerability to structural poverty is larger than that on reducing vulnerability to transitory poverty. Further analysis reveals that compulsory education primarily enhances various capabilities to obtain permanent income—such as cognitive abilities, health and the engagement in non-agricultural jobs—which are important pathways to reducing vulnerability to structural poverty. Our findings suggest that universal basic education has a fundamental effect on reducing vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: With a longitudinal design, we aimed to investigate the relationship between poverty and the risk of incident cognitive impairment in China. Methods: We used three waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (2008–2014). Cognitive impairment was assessed using the Chinese version of the Mini Mental State Examination. Poverty was measured according to the latest national poverty line settled at an annual per-capita income of 2300 yuan (approximately equivalent to 1.25 dollar/day) in 2011 in China. A marginal structural model was utilized to explore the association between poverty and the risk of incident cognitive impairment. The subgroup analyses were also conducted in this study. Results: The cumulative incidence of cognitive impairment over 6 years was 30.69% (1936/6309). Poverty increased 34% risk of incident cognitive impairment in the elderly (odds ratio = 1.34, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.15–1.56) after controlling behavioral factors and health status covariates. Participants who were male (OR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.08–1.76), lived in urban areas (OR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.22–1.98), and were married (OR = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.28–2.32) had higher poverty risks on incident cognitive impairment in subgroup analyses. Conclusions: Our results provide empirical support for the ongoing discussion about how economic hardship impacts of cognitive functioning, and highlight the negative health risks that economically disadvantaged individuals may experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a monitoring on the reduction of multidimensional poverty in rural China from 2010 to 2016. The results indicate that significant overall alleviation is observed in the rural China. After decomposing poverty reduction through Shapley method, dimensional and regional breakdown, this paper captures the factors contributing to the overall alleviation of multidimensional poverty in rural China: the decrease of poverty incidence, rather than the reduction of poverty intensity; the improvement in the dimensions of education and living standards; and the obvious alleviation of poverty in Western China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since Xi Jinping placed poverty alleviation on the main agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), various means have been adopted to promote a more rational distribution of income in difficult-to-manage regions. One method used by the CCP is the posting of first secretaries to rural areas, which allows the higher levels of government to penetrate the grassroots and facilitates effective poverty alleviation. This paper is a systematic empirical study on the topic of first secretaries-in-residence. It explains the operation, effectiveness, and deficiencies of the system and seeks to enhance understanding of rural governance in China among the academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is noted for remarkable reductions in rural poverty and aims to eliminate it by 2020. Achieving this outcome requires identification of the remaining poverty population and a strategy that effectively addresses the causes of their poverty. Drawing on a 2017 survey of 4626 rural households and 13,689 individuals in 628 counties, characteristics of rural China, of people identified as remaining poor and of poverty classifications, are examined, enabling an assessment of the general effectiveness of poverty targeting. Analysis of the causes of remaining rural poverty indicates the need for a combination of targeted development-oriented policy for poverty counties, villages and regions, and minimum life guarantees and public service measures for poverty households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs' subjective wellbeing has become an important topic in research: entrepreneurs undertake risks and create their companies seeking personal satisfaction and fulfillment. As a result, researchers have given considerable attention to the antecedents and the conditions under which wellbeing materializes, especially in emerging economies where poverty may be acute. In this study, we propose that generalized trust serves as an informal institution that affects entrepreneurs' subjective wellbeing. Further, we propose that this relationship is subject to boundary conditions of economic and social poverty as well as context-specific formal institutional features. We test our predictions using a multi-sourced sample of 818 Chinese entrepreneurs. We find that trust is positively associated with entrepreneurs' subjective wellbeing. This association is moderated by both economic poverty and social poverty. When high or low institutional voids are evident across the different regions of China, the main and moderating effects are further differentiated. The study suggests that, as a mechanism to mitigate the negative effect of lacking formal institutions, the level of trust in different regions is more relevant in social poverty rather than in economic poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 1995 to 2017, this article shows that China plays a positive role in mitigating poverty and inequality in Africa. Namely, imports from China, especially imports of machinery and equipment but not manufactured goods, alleviate substantially poverty in the region. In addition, China's foreign direct investment (FDI) and China's engagement in infrastructure projects in the continent help not only eradicate poverty, but also narrow income inequality. However, total exports or exports of raw materials and fuels to China are irrelevant to income distribution. We also compare these impacts with the impacts of economic links with the United States (US) and find insignificant effects of the US's imports and FDI on income distribution but some positive effects of exports to the US on poverty in Africa. Our findings are robust when both the fractional nature of poverty and inequality indices and their correlation are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although worldwide poverty, a basic concern of John Kenneth Galbraith, is reducing on average, I argue that poverty remains a critical issue in many countries. This led the Chinese government to propose the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Broadly, the BRI constructs a cross-continental nexus between countries to reduce their development uncertainties by increasing their connectivity. As a result, the Chinese government has invested trillions of infrastructure dollars in projects that have been introduced to the involved countries as sovereign debt along with the participation of Chinese multinational corporations. Although evidence has shown that this initiative is gaining increasingly more support from the less-developed countries, signs of uncertainty in various forms have clearly emerged. In light of such, I propose that possible in-country political instability, political conflicts among the participating countries, national debt defaults, and competition between China and the United States of America in regional influence may have added to the underlying uncertainties that have challenged the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the prime objective of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) is to alleviate poverty, their sustainability is largely dependent on their productivity. Using the Malmquist approach and a panel dataset of 21 MFIs, this paper analyzes changes in the productivity of China's MFIs between 2010 and 2012. Our findings reveal that the productivity of the MFIs in China stagnated due to the lack of technological change, despite progress in technical efficiency. Technical efficiency has been bolstered by improved management practices and size effect. The findings help improve our understanding of the Chinese microfinance sector in general, and MFIs' productivity in particular. One policy implication that can be drawn from the evidence is to encourage MFIs participation in innovation activities, so that the stimulation of technological change can improve the overall productivity of Chinese MFIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article chronicles the experiences which lead some female migrant workers in Dongguan, China, to deliberately transition from factory work to sex work. Their decisions are guided by indentured mobility as well as bounded rational choice. This article presents ethnographic data from 45 streetwalkers in Dongguan who navigated highly competitive and risky urban environments involving pimps, police, and gang members. The Chinese government hukou system puts them at an additional disadvantage. Still, life as a streetwalker became their path to economic freedom, removing them from the abject poverty of the factory sweatshop and into an individualized life in urban China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban-rural gap and regional inequality are long-standing problems in China and result in considerable number of studies. This article examines the dynamic behaviours of incomes for both urban and rural areas with a prefectural data set. The analysis is conducted by using a distribution dynamics approach, which have advantages in examination on persistence, polarization and convergence clubs. The results show that persistence and immobility are the dominant characteristics in the income distribution dynamics. The prefectural urban and rural areas converge into their own steady states differentiated in income levels. This pattern of urban-rural gap also exists in three regional groups, namely the eastern, central and western regions. Examination on the dynamics of the poorest areas shows that geographical poverty traps exist in both urban and rural prefectural areas. Our results indicate that more policy interventions are required to narrow down the urban-rural gap and to eliminate the poverty traps in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The booming rural tourism (RT) has broadened ways for rural revitalization and poverty alleviation strategy in China. Rural tourism enterprises (RTEs), as the core operator and a hinge delivering its benefits to rural communities, play a critical role in the achievement of RT expectation on rural revitalization. To address the research gap in business characteristics and efficiency of RTEs, and make the theoretical contribution to rural business and tourism management, this study collected and analyzed the business data with investors or managers of 60 national-class RTEs in Jiangsu Province, north Yangtze River Delta of China. The results showed that business characteristics of RTEs varied with their property, business strategy, and rural industrial base. Flexible and sustainable business operation and comprehensive regional development have a profound influence on business efficiency that presented multi spatial disparity from inter-regional and intra-regional views, respectively. In addition, the political and practical implications on rural business and RTEs for research and practice were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Zubben”, Amitav Ghosh explains, is “the flash lingo of the East”. This article examines how his trilogy of historical novels supplements English with (at least) 23 other languages and invites readers on a verbal voyage in which interpretation is required but inhibited. The challenges of navigating through his rich prose expose readers to a verbal cornucopia, which feeds a series of related themes sustained by a narrative rhythm of convergence and divergence, all stemming from asymmetrical colonial relations during the opium trade. These themes include: abundance and poverty, intimacy and exclusion; hybrid languages; authority and self-deception; chance and fate; the ineffable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the roles that political leaders have played in the formulation and implementation of government initiatives to tackle poverty and inequality in Brazil, China, India and South Africa since about 2002. While research on social policy and welfare expansion in the industrialised world has largely ignored leaders, we stress the importance of politics and political agency, since political leaders often exercised decisive influence even if their decisions to prioritise certain issues and to adopt certain strategies depend on the convergence of other factors. We examine their management of tensions and opposition within their governments and their political systems – as well as what we can discern of their motivations and political calculations. We consider the impact on government initiatives both of their adroit machinations and, at times, of their ineptitude. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Demographic transition due to population aging is an emerging trend throughout the developing world, and it is especially acute in China, which has undergone demographic transition more rapidly than have most industrial economies. This paper quantifies the distributional effects in the context of demographic transition using an integrated recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model with top-down behavioral microsimulation. The results of the poverty and inequality index indicate that population aging has a negative impact on the reduction of poverty while its impact is positive with regard to equality. In addition, elderly rural households are experiencing the most serious poverty, and their inequality problems compared with other household groups and within-group inequality worsen with demographic transition. These findings not only advance the previous literature but also deserve particular attention from Chinese policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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China made remarkable progress in rural poverty alleviation. A major policy instrument is the County Level Poverty Alleviation Program, which has vast policy support but is also criticized for targeting errors, misuse of funds, and making poverty both shameful and attractive. Whether this program, or the country’s economic growth in general, is the main force in poverty reduction is the question addressed in this article, analyzing data for the 592 poor counties. The response to the economic growth–policy alleviation conundrum is that a push for social wellbeing and empowerment is needed together with economic growth to achieve major poverty improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including how individual empowerment and resilience influence community resilience; reduction in rural poverty in China between 1986 and 2010; and entrepreneurship for community practitioners.

In this article, we study the effect of financial development (FD) on economic growth in western China. Special attention is paid to the western region because of the large-scale development strategy in West China. We specify the regression models based on the endogenous growth theory. The empirical results show that (1) FD can promote economic growth mainly through improving TFP; (2) FD is more important than human capital in promoting GDP growth; (3) The effect of FD on TFP growth is significant statistically in all regions, but it is the most significant economically in the western region of China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines poverty and welfare provision in early twentieth-century Beijing as dialogue and transaction between the city government and the urban poor. Earlier studies of the Chinese urban have tended to emphasize the material aspects of urban development, and the efforts of planners and city governments to modernize China’s cities, rather than the human experience of the city. This article draws on the extensive archives of the Beijing Municipal Government Social Affairs Bureau to extend our understanding of the experience of poverty and the agency of the poor. The archive confirms that Beijing’s growing and increasingly formalized welfare institutions were designed to discipline the poor as they alleviated poverty. However, the correspondence between applicants for welfare and the Social Affairs Bureau also reveals that the poor often approached these institutions instrumentally and assertively. Recourse to the welfare institute became a livelihood tactic, a claim on the authorities in pursuit of which certain sub-groups within the poor mobilized intangible assets, from social networks to understanding of the intended terms of the system, to sway the terms of their engagement with the authorities in their own favour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a relationship between population growth and issues related to climate change in association with China. Topics include observation of slow population growth by adoption of one child policy, illustration of different factors responsible for increment in carbon emissions such as energy intensity, development of low-carbon energy systems such as solar energy, utilization of natural gas for cooking purpose by farmers and reduction of emissions by supportive tax policies.

A number of contemporary paradoxes warrant explanation. First, in China, economic development has reduced poverty but dramatically increased inequalities. Second, the finance-led growth regime of North America has brought about a rupture with the Fordist Golden Age, causing a surge of inequality because of quite specific spill-over effects from the economy to policy. Third, the Eurozone crisis is often perceived as reflecting the limits of welfare states and the ideal of social equality, but some countries continue to exhibit an extended welfare system, moderate inequalities and a dynamic innovation and production system. To explain these paradoxes, this article applies a socio-economic approach based upon the concept of inequality regimes. Conventional interpretations stress the universality of the mechanisms that widen individual inequalities within each nation-state but reduce the hierarchy of national standards of living. This analysis, however, concludes that China, North America and Europe do not follow the same trajectory at all, since they have developed contrasting regimes of inequality that co-evolve and are largely complementary at the global level. This suggests an alternative to the hypothesis of an irreversible globalization of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past three decades, income inequality in China has increased rapidly relative to both China’s own past and other countries at similar levels of economic development. Using recent longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this article examines changes in income inequality and poverty prevalence between 2010 and 2012. Surprisingly, we find a modest decline in income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficients in the CFPS data. The urban–rural gap narrowed, with rural families enjoying faster income growth than urban families enjoyed. Income growth was greater for middle-income families than for families with either high or low incomes in 2010. By all measures, poverty was greatly reduced between 2010 and 2012. Two-thirds of families that had been poor in 2010 escaped poverty by 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]