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This study develops a conceptual framework of multidimensional energy poverty by using a multidimensional poverty index that considers energy accessibility, affordability, and service availability. The index is then utilized to evaluate the extent, depth, and intensity of multidimensional energy poverty (MEP) in China. Specifically, this study aims to identify factors that contribute to the urban-rural and regional MEP disparities in China. The results reveal that (1) MEP is widespread in China; (2) Rural areas experience 2.5 times more MEP compared to urban areas, while inland regions have 1.5 times higher MEP rates than coastal regions; and (3) these disparities are primarily caused by low-income levels, lack of non-agricultural employment opportunities, and educational attainment. Therefore, policies targeting low-income, unemployed, and less-educated individuals are necessary to address this issue. In addition, promoting urbanization and eliminating the household registration system are crucial steps to address MEP disparities in China. Furthermore, improving energy infrastructure and increasing knowledge dissemination can also help reduce reliance on traditional energy sources. • Designed multifaceted poverty index mattering energy access, affordability, service. • Energy Poverty gaps stem from income shortage, non-agricultural jobs, education gaps. • Rural (inland) MEP is 2.5 (1.5) times higher than that in urban (coastal) areas. • The study offers crucial policy insights for alleviating energy poverty in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the key projects of the top ten targeted poverty alleviation projects, Photovoltaic Poverty Alleviation Projects (PPAP) has played an important role in poverty alleviation and eliminating absolute poverty. This paper analyzes the impact of the PPAP on the consumption and poverty vulnerability of impoverished households and reveals the characteristics of the targetedness, effectiveness and sustainability of PPAP based on the data of the previous poverty-stricken households recorded in four townships in Wuwei County, Wuhu City, Anhui Province, China. The results show that under the extreme poverty standard line, PPAP can significantly reduce the poverty vulnerability of impoverished households, and the effect of the PV poverty alleviation project has a strong sustainability; It has a significant heterogeneous impact on families of different poverty types, among which, it plays a significant role in alleviating the poverty vulnerability of impoverished households due to the loss of labor ability, and low-income families, with strong targetedness; For families with a high degree of vulnerability to poverty, the PPAP can significantly alleviate their vulnerability, indicating the effectiveness of PPAP to play a bottom-up role for the poor families. • Effect of China's Photovoltaic Poverty Alleviation Policy. • The targetedness, effectiveness, and sustainability of poverty reduction effects. • Micro-level statistical data obtained from on-site surveys on impoverished households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nonlinear relationship between poverty and CO2 emissions based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2019. In this study, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is first used. Findings confirm that poverty has a negative impact on CO2 emissions in the short run and a positive impact in the long run, while both effects of inclusive finance on CO2 emissions are negative. In order to explore the reasons for the change in the coefficient of poverty, we introduce a moderating effect (ME) model and a dynamic panel threshold (DPT) model. The result shows that the negative effect of poverty on CO2 emissions diminishes with the moderation of inclusive finance. When inclusive finance crosses the threshold value (IFI = 0.2696), the impact of poverty on CO2 emissions will change from negative to positive gradually, which verifies the applicability of the "Poverty-CO2 Paradox" in China and provides an empirical basis for breaking the "Poverty-CO2 Paradox." Consequently, deepening poverty reduction and pushing the region's inclusive finance to the threshold level are proposed as effective ways to promote CO2 emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' cooperatives play an important role in enabling small farmers to integrate into modern agriculture. Based on the survey data of 7200 farmers in four provinces of China, this paper uses the multi-dimensional poverty measurement method and the instrumental variable method to reveal the transmission mechanism and multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect of farmers' cooperatives in deep poverty-stricken areas in China to realize joint agricultural empowerment through the supply chain. The results show that farmers' cooperatives play an important role in enhancing small farmers' financing, technology application, market sales, and rights decision-making. Every increase in the degree of interest connection between the two will help farmers reduce the multi-dimensional poverty level by 12.3%, and the mitigation effects on material poverty, ability poverty, and rights poverty are between 10% and 13%. Compared with agricultural cooperatives with weak organizational service capacity, cooperatives with high organizational service capacity have a more significant multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect on farmers, which leads to farmers obtaining financing and improving their ability and income. In addition, the difference in benefit coupling between agricultural cooperatives and farmers of different leading bodies also results in the heterogeneity of multi-dimensional poverty alleviation effects of farmers. To a certain extent, the supply chain is affected by the risk endowment of members, the supply chain's poverty alleviation performance is affected by members' supply chain's poverty alleviation performance, and there is a certain risk transfer and "distribution failure". Therefore, optimizing the benefit coupling structure and risk sharing mechanism between farmers' cooperatives and farmers has become an important way to break the pattern of "the strong are always strong" and "distribution failure" for supply chain members and farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating poverty is the primary goal of sustainable development. China has eliminated absolute poverty in 2020, yet there is a chance that it could happen again. The poor population is mostly concentrated in ecologically fragile areas. We need to take more inclusive and effective initiatives to prevent the population in ecologically fragile areas from returning to poverty. In this study, a decision tree and logistic regression model were used to assess the risk of returning to poverty in Karst ecologically fragile areas. The data comes from 303 households in four counties in Guizhou and Guangxi. There are 12 main influencing factors identified, with the percentage of workforce numbers and loans having interactive effects. The results show that: (1) Poor resilience of livelihood assets, external shocks, and the effects of some support measures will be visible after a long period, leading to "transient" poverty and return to poverty. (2) Ecological environment management in ecologically fragile areas is very important to solve the problem of returning to poverty. (3) Appropriate loans can reduce poverty, especially when loans are used to cultivate a new excellent labor force. At the same time, it is necessary to evaluate farmers' repayment ability reasonably and scientifically to reduce the risk of returning to poverty. The combination of ecological restoration and agricultural development is the key to solving ecological and social problems in Karst areas. Efforts should be made to improve the risk-resilience of farmers' livelihood assets and the efficiency of livelihood assets utilization by implementing targeted support measures. This research provides a new approach to studying the mechanism of poverty recurrence, which is of great practical significance for consolidating the results of poverty eradication and realizing rural vitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty has been a long-term global challenge, and China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) Strategy has made considerable advances in recent years. Taking a poverty-stricken county in Southwest China as an example, this study evaluated the effectiveness of the TPA strategy using a propensity scoring weighting model for multiple non-equivalent household groups based on counterfactual inference. It was found that households who planned to be out of poverty earlier had significantly higher incomes than those later, with transfer incomes contributing substantially to the income gap. The non-poverty-stricken households had much higher total income and significantly lower transfer incomes than the poverty-stricken households, including those that planned to be out of poverty earlier and those later. A more nuanced analysis revealed that the income of the poverty-stricken households was not as sustainable as expected. Therefore, measures to improve the self-development capabilities of these poverty-stricken households were also proposed to ensure the poverty alleviation programs are more effective and sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through more than 40 years of China's reform and opening up, China's economic development has exceeded the "surprise of China". China's annual average growth rate for world economic development ranks second in the world. By 2020, the article has achieved all-round poverty eradication and overall happiness. By 2020, this article will write an epic antipandemic with great love. During the "fourteenth five-year plan" period, China has entered a new stage of high-quality social and economic development, but environmental pollution is still one of the primary obstacles to high-quality social and economic development. Because of its diversity, environmental pollution cannot be reasonably handled only by the market economic system. It also needs to be based on the effectiveness of the natural environment supervision policies of government departments. At the same time, the healthy logical thinking of the development trend of high-quality natural environment is the key to regional economic statistics and the concept of green development. In this paper, empirical research and analysis methods are used, and the description is carried out in the form of data charts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a concerning problem in many parts of the world, especially in rural and poor areas. Due to health service inequality and public stigma towards the disease, it is difficult to conduct face-to-face interventions. The widespread use of mobile phones and social media applications thus provide a feasible and acceptable approach for HIV prevention and education delivery in this population. The study aims to develop a generalizable, effective, acceptable, and convenient mobile-based information intervention model to improve HIV-related knowledge, attitudes, practices, and health outcomes in poverty-stricken areas in China and measure the impact of incentive policies on the work of village doctors in Liangshan, China.Methods: A randomized controlled trial design is used to evaluate the effectiveness of an 18-month mobile-based HIV prevention intervention, collaborating with local village doctors and consisting of group-based knowledge dissemination and individualized communication on WeChat and the Chinese Version of TikTok in Liangshan, China. Each village is defined as a cluster managed by a village doctor with 20 adults possessing mobile phones randomly selected from different families as participants, totaling 200 villages. Clusters are randomized (1:1:1) to the Control without mobile-based knowledge dissemination, Intervention A with standardized compensation to the village doctors, or Intervention B with performance-based compensation to the village doctors. The intervention groups will receive biweekly messages containing HIV-related educational modules. Data will be collected at baseline and 6-, 12-, and 18-month periods for outcome measurements. The primary outcomes of the study are HIV-related knowledge improvement and the effectiveness of village doctor targeted incentive policies. The secondary outcomes include secondary knowledge transmission, behavioral changes, health outcomes, social factors, and study design's acceptability and reproducibility. These outcomes will be explored via various qualitative and quantitative means.Discussion: The findings will provide insights into the effectiveness, generalizability, and challenges of the mobile-based HIV prevention intervention for the population living in rural communities with low education levels and will guide the development of similar models in other low-income and culturally isolated regions.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrial.gov: NCT05015062 ; Registered on June 6, 2022. [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 parental expectation in adolescents' education is an essential factor of adolescents' social and emotional development. However, little is known about how it is related to adolescents' mobile phone addiction, especially for adolescents from low-income families. To address this issue, this study investigated the relationship between parental expectation and mobile phone addiction, and its underlying mechanisms in adolescents from low-income families. We hypothesized that parental expectation would negatively predict mobile phone addiction, and self-esteem and social anxiety would play multiple mediation roles in this relationship. Results from a sample of 1,953 Chinese adolescents in low-income families revealed that (a) parental expectation was negatively associated with adolescents' mobile phone addiction, (b) both social anxiety and self-esteem played partial and parallel mediating roles between parental expectation and mobile phone addiction, and (c) social anxiety and self-esteem mediated the association between parental expectation and mobile phone addiction sequentially. This study would advance our understanding of how proper parenting styles and social networks helped to prevent children's mobile phone addiction. The limitations and implications of this study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to assess India's performance in generating the required quantity and quality of employment for its growing population since independence in 1947. But the exercise is set in a longer period that covers India's population growth since the turn of the twentieth century (1901) in relation to its ability to generate employment. The half-a-century preceding independence, despite a slow population growth, was a disaster in generating employment and any signs of structural change. Detailed analysis of the issue since independence shows that there was indeed a demographic burden more than the world average as well as its comparator Asian countries such as China and Indonesia. While employment generation with reference to growth—employment elasticity—was quite impressive during the first four decades of independence, it almost collapsed ever since the adoption of neoliberal economic reforms in 1991, thus entering a phase of 'jobless growth', a phenomenon that is shared by China in a more vigorous form. This has led to what may be called an exclusion of working age people from not just employment but from labour force indicating the emergence of 'discouraged workers' in a larger set that we called underutilized labour. But what about those who are included in the workforce? Does it ensure an escape from poverty for those at the bottom? Our estimates show that the pace of reduction in the incidence of poverty is so slow that a significant share of households is still below the international definition of extreme poverty. We attribute this to the quality of employment characterized by a high incidence of informal sector employment as well as low wages measured by the share of workers not receiving a recommended subsistence wage. The absence of any kind of social security to an overwhelming share of workers adds to this situation of absolute poverty. Finally we examine the question of poverty from the point of manifold inequalities by dividing the households in the economy in terms of their employment, educational, rural–urban, and social group statuses for estimating predicted probability of being poor. The results bring into sharp focus the huge variation in predicted probability that shows households with low education, disadvantaged social group status, casual nature of employment, and living in rural areas at the bottom end of the scale. These results bring out the imperative for creating more employment with better quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meanings of being "underclass" in China are increasingly ambivalent when various disadvantaged social groups also get access to digital platforms which become more and more influential in not just facilitating people's economic and cultural practices online but also mediating, distorting, and reshaping these processes. Using critical techno-cultural discourse analysis about how the underclass represent poverty and themselves by creating short videos and performing live-commerce on Kuaishou, this study finds that digital entrepreneurialism becomes an interlocking governmentality to discipline the underclass' online participation. Afforded by the platform and operationalized by multiple networked actors, entrepreneurialism incorporates the underclass in the digitally mediated productive relationship and at the same time disciplines their online representation and exploits the involved entities through both platform labor and monetary investments to cultivate an underclass entrepreneurial subject. Although claiming to include and empower the diversified Chinese underclass, digital platforms actually reproduce the underclassness by mobilizing the calculated conformity among the underclass to experience the intertwining online and offline inequalities through digital entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, nuances of minor narratives still exist in the digitally mediated self-representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The huge health expenditure for chronic diseases in the elderly is one of the uncertain factors that may cause the Borderline poor families to return to poverty after China fully lifts itself out of poverty in 2020, especially in rural low-income areas. Based on the latest data released by China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper used the two-part model to analyze the impact of elderly chronic diseases on health expenditure and catastrophic health expenditure of Borderline poor families in rural China. Some interesting results were found. For example, elderly chronic diseases such as stroke and hepatic disease have a large impact on the catastrophic health expenditures of families on the edge of poverty in rural China. Therefore, the government should drive middle-aged and elderly people to actively participate in physical exercise and prevent the high incidence of chronic diseases in the elderly. Furthermore, the government should improve the medical insurance system to provide solid support for low-income families and other vulnerable groups to avoid returning to poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging has become a global challenge. Drawing data from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey 2008, 2011, and 2014, this study examines the effect of informal care receipt on functional limitations and depressive symptoms among older people in China using lagged fixed effects model. Our findings suggest that receiving informal care is significantly associated with a slower functional decline. We also find that this effect varies across different income groups. The protective effect of informal care is more pronounced among older people with higher income compared to those with lower income. We do not observe any significant associations between receiving informal care and depressive symptoms of older people. This study highlights a pressing need for the Chinese government to establish a comprehensive long-term care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the ecological systems theory, this study examined the multiple risk factors experienced by children from low-income families in China and their subsequent impact on children's psychological adaptation. A cumulative ecological risk questionnaire was constructed to examine the exploratory and descriptive risk factors most commonly exposed to children in families, schools and communities. The study sample consisted of 428 children from low-income families (N = 428; Mage = 12.35, SD = 2.51) from 20 ordinary primary and secondary schools across China. We conducted an exploratory latent class analysis using the responses from the cumulative ecological risk questionnaire. The results showed that a three-group solution fit the data best, with the following breakdown: "low-risk" = 41.1%, "family-risk" = 21.7%, and "school-risk" = 37.2%. The three groups showed significant differences in terms of psychological adaptation. The "low-risk" group exhibited fewer problem behaviors and higher prosocial behavior than the other groups. The "family-risk" group showed more significant adaptation difficulties, while the "school-risk" group showed lower levels of prosocial behavior. The results suggest that the ecological risks experienced by children from low-income families had significant group heterogeneity, which may further affect their psychological adaptation. Highlights: The ecological risks of children from low-income families were heterogeneous and may affect children's psychological adaptation. Latent class analysis favored a three-group solution: low-risk, family-risk, and school-risk groups. The three groups showed significant differences in terms of the children's psychological adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Low-income rural residents in China are disadvantaged due to their financial vulnerability and insufficient access to resources, and this situation demands more research effort. This study examined the pattern of outpatient service satisfaction and its determinants among low-income adults in rural China. (2) Methods: Rural low-income respondents who used outpatient services in their local healthcare facilities in Jiangsu, China evaluated the access, cost, environment, doctor–patient interaction, and other topics during their outpatient visit (N = 662). Latent class analysis was used to identify the groups characterized by various dimensions of outpatient satisfaction. Multinomial logistic regression explored the determinants of class membership. (3) Results: Three latent classes were identified: 28.70% had low satisfaction, unsatisfied with every dimension; 20.69% reported medium satisfaction that valued doctor–patient relationships; and 50.60% had high satisfaction but thought that costs were high. Both low and medium satisfaction were associated with a higher proportion of self-paid fees. (4) Conclusions: Healthcare costs were an important determinant of outpatient service satisfaction. Medical social workers are suggested to be included in the medical team to help patients identify financial assistance. Special aid programs may be developed to help relieve rural low-income patients' medical cost-related burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although extreme poverty has been eradicated in China, older adults in empty-nest households may risk falling into or returning to poverty in the future. Previous studies on poverty alleviation had focused on the measurement of ex-post poverty at a particular time. Few studies have assessed households' vulnerability to poverty from a forward-looking perspective. This study aims to identify the vulnerability to poverty and its determinants among rural empty-nest households with older adults. A total of 1951 rural empty-nest households with older adults followed for 1 year were included in the analysis. The three-stage Feasible Generalized Least Square method was used to estimate the vulnerability to poverty in 2019 and 2020. A regression model was used to explore the effect of different factors on vulnerability to poverty, and Shapley values were used to decompose each factor's contribution and the attributable percentage. With the increase of the poverty threshold, the success rate of predicting poverty status in 2020 based on poverty vulnerability in 2019 increased from 33.00% to 63.71%. Regardless of the poverty threshold, the vulnerability to poverty incidence decreased from 2019 to 2020. For example, under the Shandong province poverty line, the estimated proportion of rural empty-nest households with older adults vulnerable to poverty had decreased from 15.63% in 2019 to 11.17% in 2020. The Shapley decomposition results suggested that the number of the household labour force, the interviewees' education and age and household size were the four most influential factors that contributed significantly to the poverty vulnerability. This study reveals that a portion of rural empty-nest households with older adults are still vulnerable to poverty. The formulation of future anti-poverty policies should prioritize these groups and adopt targeted poverty prevention and poverty alleviation measures based on the driving factors of poverty vulnerability among rural empty-nest households with older adults. [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]

Objectives: To investigate the screening status of warning signs for mental and behavioral development (WS) and influencing factors of infants and young children (IYC) in poverty eliminated regions of Henan Province. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study. A total of 15 680 IYC aged 6-23 months from 51 poverty eliminated counties in Henan province from June to September of 2023 were selected through a multi-stage random sampling method. IYC's early warning signs were screened using the WS checklist (WSC). Children's socio-demographic characteristics, maternal information, birth status, and illness conditions such as fever and diarrhea within 2 weeks were measured through a uniformly designed questionnaire. All participants also received the measurement of height, weight, and hemoglobin concentration level. Logistic regression model was used to explore the influencing factors of positive WSC and conducted sensitivity analyses. Results: Among the sample of 15 680 IYC, there were 8 462 boys (53.97%) and 7 218 girls (49.03%), with their age of (15±5) months. A total of 291 (1.86%) IYC were positive in WSC. Parenting risk ( OR =5.07, 95% CI 3.93-6.52, P <0.001) and preterm birth ( OR =1.63, 95% CI 1.06-2.52, P =0.027) were both positively associated with the odds of WSC's positivity. Being girls ( OR =0.66, 95% CI 0.52-0.85, P =0.001), age (12-17 months, OR =0.47, 95% CI 0.35-0.62, P <0.001; 18-23 months, OR =0.40, 95% CI 0.30-0.54, P <0.001), and maternal educational level (junior high school, OR =0.46, 95% CI 0.32-0.66, P <0.001; senior high school or vocational high school, OR =0.35, 95% CI 0.23-0.56, P <0.001; college and above, OR =0.36, 95% CI 0.23-0.57, P <0.001) were all negatively associated with the risk of WSC's positivity. Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that, after excluding anemic children, the association between preterm birth and WSC's positivity was not significant ( OR =1.54, 95% CI 0.95-2.49, P =0.081). Despite this situation, being girls, age and maternal educational level were still negatively associated with the odds of WSC's positivity (all P <0.05); preterm birth, parenting risk were remained positive associated with the risk of WSC's positivity (all P <0.05) either by excluding children with protein-energy malnutrition or 2-week morbidity, or using prevalence ratio instead of OR . Conclusions: Among the IYC in poverty eliminated regions of Henan Province, the risk of positivity of WSC was higher for those IYC with parenting risk, preterm birth, boys, younger age, and lower maternal education level. These influencing factors, such as gender, age, preterm birth, parenting risk and maternal educational level, were in certain stability across different IYC characteristics and estimation models.

The improvement of energy-related efficiency has promoted energy-sustainable development in China; however, it may be inhibited by energy poverty. This paper constructs an index system to measure China's energy poverty. Subsequently, we evaluate energy-related efficiency towards SDG7 comprised of energy production efficiency and energy sustainable utilization efficiency using a dynamic two-stage data envelopment analysis model. Furthermore, we adopt fixed effect models to quantify the impact of energy poverty on improving energy-related efficiency and the underlying mechanism. The findings indicate that: (1) China's energy poverty situation gradually improves from 2011 to 2020. The energy-related system's performance is medium due to the poor performance in its energy production stage in 30 provinces during 2011-2020. Energy-related efficiency is greater in areas with a higher response to SDG7. (2) The impact of energy poverty on improving energy-related efficiency is significantly negative. Addressing energy poverty significantly improves energy-related efficiency in regions characterized by a high energy poverty index and low energy-related efficiency. However, it bears no impact in regions with a low energy poverty index and high energy-related efficiency. (3) The moderating effect of technological innovation effectively improves energy-related efficiency, whereas the marketization level has an inverse effect. Consequently, this paper suggests several policy implications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript, and the manuscript is approved by all authors for publication. We would like to declare on behalf of the co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: The ambitious expansion of social health insurance in China has played a crucial role in preventing and alleviating poverty caused by illness. However, there is no government-sponsored health insurance program specifically for younger children and inequities are more pronounced in healthcare utilization, medical expenditure, and satisfaction in some households with severely ill children. This study assessed the effectiveness of child health insurance in terms of alleviating poverty caused by illness., Methods: Data were collected from two rounds of follow-up surveys using the China Family Panel Studies 2016 and 2018 child questionnaires to investigate the relationship between child health insurance and household medical impoverishment (MI). Impoverishing health expenditure (IHE) and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) were measured to quantify "poverty due to illness" in terms of absolute and relative poverty, respectively. Propensity score matching with the difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method, robustness tests, and heterogeneity analysis were conducted to address endogeneity issues., Results: Social health insurance for children significantly reduced household impoverishment due to illness. Under the shock of illness, the incidences of IHE and CHE were significantly lower in households with insured children. The poverty alleviation mechanism transmitted by children enrolled in social health insurance was primarily driven by hospitalization reimbursements and the proportion of out-of-pocket medical payments among the total medical expenditure for children., Conclusions: Children's possession of social health insurance significantly reduced the likelihood of household poverty due to illness. The poverty-reducing effect of social medical insurance is most significant in rural areas, low-income families, no-left-behind children, and infants. Targeted poverty alleviation strategies for marginalized groups and areas would ensure the equity and efficiency of health system reforms, contributing to the goal of universal health insurance coverage in China., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This study aimed to investigate the association between sanitary toilets and health poverty vulnerability among rural western Chinese adults aged 45 years and older. Using data from the 'Rural Household Health Inquiry Survey' conducted in 2022, a three-stage feasible generalized least squares method was employed to calculate health poverty vulnerability. Propensity score matching (PSM) and mediation effect analysis were used to assess the association between sanitary toilets and health poverty vulnerability among rural western Chinese adults aged 45 years and older and the mechanisms underlying this impact. This study revealed that the use of sanitary toilets was significantly associated with decreased health poverty vulnerability in adults over 45 years of age. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that this effect was more pronounced among males (β = -0.0375, P<0.05), those aged 60-74 years (β = -0.0476, P<0.05), and households with middle income (β = -0.0590, P<0.01). Mediation effect analysis identified total household income (a×b = -0.0233, P<0.05), household size (a×b = -0.0181, P<0.01), number of household laborers (a×b = -0.0107, P<0.01), and registered poor households (a×b = -0.0081, P<0.01) as the mediating factors between sanitary toilets and health poverty vulnerability. The provision of sanitary toilets has been instrumental in mitigating health-related poverty among middle-aged and elderly people residing in rural areas. By improving household livelihood capital, the vulnerability of these individuals to health-related poverty can be significantly reduced., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 Ma et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Agricultural mechanization is a crucial indicator of modernization in agriculture. It improves productivity and underpins the evolution of a modern state. This study scrutinizes the enduring effects of government subsidies on farm machinery acquisition, income growth, and capital accumulation in rural households. It is based on policies about targeted poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Research findings indicate that government subsidies have significantly increased the per capita net income of rural households. However, in the post-poverty alleviation era, for households that already possess agricultural machinery, the benefits brought by government subsidies in the early stages of the policy cycle tend to diminish over time. From 2016 to 2020, government subsidies continued to enhance the value of agricultural machinery in rural households. Their impact on ownership rates first slightly declined and then increased again. The promotional effect in 2020 was not significantly better than in 2016. When China is fighting against poverty, it is essential to encourage rural households to use their income and government subsidies to accumulate production capital. A long-term mechanism has been established to protect the achievements of poverty alleviation, promote agricultural mechanization and rural modernization, and support rural revitalization., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhao Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The reform of rural collective property rights is pivotal in advancing agricultural modernization and comprehensive rural revitalization. This study aims to explore the impact of this reform on income growth and poverty reduction in rural areas, as well as its underlying mechanisms. Utilizing data from the China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS), the propensity score matching (PSM) method was employed to empirically analyze the effects of rural collective property rights reform on income growth and poverty reduction. The findings reveal that the reform has a significant positive impact on rural income levels, indirectly enhancing income through two channels: increasing village collective assets and promoting land transfer. Additionally, the reform has a significant negative impact on rural poverty levels, effectively alleviating poverty in rural areas. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals the differential effects of property rights reform, indicating that non-poor villages, villages with higher educational levels among village leaders, and rural areas in the western regions benefit more from the reform. This study provides precise evidence for policymakers, offering a scientific basis for deepening rural collective property rights reform, promoting income growth, and fostering sustainable rural development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xiang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Objectives: This study aimed to examine whether China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) program mitigates depression and explores the mechanisms through which the TPA program affects individuals' depression., Methods: Using the data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) survey from 2012 to 2020, we employ a Difference-in-Difference model to analyze the effect of the TPA program on individuals' depression levels., Results: Our findings indicate that the TPA program reduces depression scores by 0.116 points, accounting for 6.82% of the standard deviation of depression scores. Further analyses indicate that these effects are mediated through improvements in local medical conditions, reductions in household healthcare spending, increases in household entertainment expenditures, and greater likelihood of living in family., Conclusion: This study showed that the TPA program significantly mitigates individuals' depression levels. The possible channels include (1) improving local medical conditions, (2) cutting down household healthcare spending, (3) increasing household entertainment expenses, and (4) increasing the likelihood of living in family., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they do not have any conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Yang, Xiong and Tang.)

Drawing upon data from the 2018 CHARLS, this paper utilizes MEPI and a 10% threshold indicator to, respectively, assess the energy poverty (EP) status among middle-aged and older adults in China, focusing on the unavailability and unaffordability of energy services. Additionally, an econometric model is constructed to investigate the effects of EP on the health and welfare of middle-aged and older adults. Regression results indicate that EP exerts a significant negative impact on the health and welfare of middle-aged and older adults. This conclusion remains robust after conducting endogeneity and robustness tests, demonstrating its validity. Finally, based on the calculation results, we propose relevant policy recommendations including enhancing energy services for older adults in rural areas, integrating household energy alternatives with targeted poverty alleviation, enhancing monitoring mechanisms, and conducting energy education activities to alleviate EP and improve the quality of life of middle-aged and older adults., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Wang, Wu, Wang, Li, Lei, Wu and Qu.)

This study aimed to understand the health status of low-income individuals living alone and to identify influencing factors. Using systematic random sampling methods, low-income individuals living alone were randomly selected. Via telephone interviews, we gathered information about their general health status. A logistic regression model was used to analyze relevant factors about the physical health of this population. The study included 1583 low-income individuals living alone. The prevalence rate of all kinds of diseases in low-income living alone in this survey was 88.63%. The multifactorial logistic regression analysis revealed that the risk factors for illness in this population were age ≥ 60 (OR 1.842, 95% CI 1.135-2.926, P = 0.006), self-rated poor mental health (OR 2.538, 95% CI 1.128-3.828, P = 0.005), and self-rated poor hearing status (OR 2.781, 95% CI 1.586-3.647, P = 0.001). Being female (OR 0.469, 95% CI 0.178-0.821, P = 0.033) was identified as a protective factor. Low-income individuals living alone are a unique group who lack familial care and economic and social support, and are thus in a disadvantaged social position. Therefore, this population requires increased attention, especially regarding their physical health. Implementing targeted assistance policies to improve their health status and enhance their quality of life is essential., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

As the primary goal of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), poverty eradication is still one of the major challenges faced by countries around the world, and relative poverty is a comprehensive poverty pattern triggered by the superposition of economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Therefore, Therefore, this paper introduces the perspective of coupled coordination to consider the formation of relative poverty, constructs indicators in three major dimensions: economic, social, and environmental, proposes a fast and more accurate method of identifying relative poverty in a region by using machine learning, measures the degree of coupled coordination of China's relatively poor provinces using a coupled coordination model and analyzes the relationship with the level of relative poverty, and puts forward suggestions for poverty management on this basis using typology classification. The results of the study show that: 1) the fusion of data crawlers, remote sensing space, and other multi-source data to construct the dataset and propose a fast and efficient regional relative poverty identification method based on big data with low comprehensive cost and high identification accuracy of 0.914. 2) Currently, 70.83% of the economic-social-environmental systems of the relatively poor regions are in the dysfunctional type and are in a state of disordered development and malignant constraints. The regions showing coupling disorders are mainly clustered in the three southern prefectures of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan, and their spatial distribution is relatively concentrated. 3) The types of poverty and their coupled and coordinated development in each region show large spatial variability, requiring differentiated poverty eradication countermeasures tailored to local conditions to achieve sustainable regional economic-social-environmental development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Globally, fall-related injuries are a substantial problem, and 80% of fatal falls occur in low-income and middle-income countries. We aimed to measure time from injury to hip-fracture surgery in people aged 50 years or older living in low-income and middle-income regions, as well as to measure the proportion of patients with surgical stabilisation of their hip fracture within 72 h of admission to hospital and to identify risk factors associated with surgical delay., Methods: For this secondary analysis, we analysed data collected from Africa, Latin America, China, India, and Asia (excluding China and India) for the International Orthopaedic Multicentre Study in Fracture Care (INORMUS) between March 29, 2014, and June 15, 2022. Patients from INORMUS were included in this analysis if they were aged 50 years or older and had an isolated, primary hip fracture sustained from a ground-level fall. Staff at participating hospitals identified patients with musculoskeletal injury and referred them for assessment of eligibility. We report time from injury to surgery as three distinct time periods: time from injury to hospital admission, time from admission to surgery, and a total time from injury to surgery. Date and time of injury were self-reported by patients at the time of study recruitment. If time to hospital admission after injury exceeded 24 h, patients reported the primary reason for delayed admission. Reasons for surgery, no surgery, and surgical delay were reported by the treating team. For patients undergoing surgery, multivariable regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for surgical delay., Findings: 4486 adults aged 50 years or older with an isolated, primary hip fracture were enrolled in INORMUS from 55 hospitals in 24 countries. Countries were grouped into five regions: Africa (418 [9·3%] of 4486), Latin America (558 [12·4%]), China (1680 [37·4%]), India (1059 [23·6%]) and Asia (excluding China and India; 771 [17·2%]). Of 4486 patients, 3805 (84·8%) received surgery. The rate of surgery was similar in all regions except in Africa, where only 193 (46·3%) of 418 patients had surgery. Overall, 2791 (62·2%) of 4486 patients were admitted to hospital within 24 h of injury. However, 1019 (22·7%) of 4486 patients had delayed hospital admission of 72 h or more from injury. The two most common reasons for delayed admission of more than 24 h were transfer from another hospital (522 [36·2%] of 1441) and delayed care-seeking because patients thought the injury would heal on its own (480 [33·3%]). Once admitted to hospital, 1451 (38·1%) of 3805 patients who received surgery did so within 72 h (median 4·0 days [IQR 1·7-6·0]). Regional variation was seen in the proportion of patients receiving surgery within 72 h of hospital admission (92 [17·9%] of 514 in Latin America, 53 [27·5%] of 193 in Africa, 454 [30·9%] of 1471 in China, 318 [44·4%] of 716 in Asia [excluding China and India], and 534 [58·6%] of 911 in India). Of all 3805 patients who received operative treatment, 2353 (61·8%) waited 72 h or more from hospital admission. From time of injury, the proportion of patients who were surgically stabilised within 72 h was 889 (23·4%) of 3805 (50 [9·7%] of 517 in Latin America, 31 [16·1%] of 193 in Africa, 277 [18·8%] of 1471 in China, 189 [26·4%] of 716 in Asia [excluding China and India], and 342 [37·5%] of 911 in India)., Interpretation: Access to surgery within 72 h of hospital admission was poor, with factors that affected time to surgery varying by region. Data are necessary to understand existing pathways of hip-fracture care to inform the local development of quality-improvement initiatives., Funding: The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, McMaster Surgical Associates, Hamilton Health Sciences, and the US National Institutes of Health., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests MB receives financial support from McMaster Surgical Associates and the Canadian Orthopaedic Association; grant support from Smith and Nephew, Huxley Health, Sonex, the US Department of Defense, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the US National Institutes of Health via the Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Physician Services, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. PJD receives grant funding from Abbott Diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics, and Siemans; is a consultant to Abbott Canada, Renibus, Roche Canada, and Trimedic; is a speaker for Velocity Canada; is a member of a data safety monitoring board for the Pulmonary Embolism Prevention after Hip and Knee Replacement (PEPPER) study; is President of the Society for Perioperative Research and Care; and has been provided with medical devices for studies by CloudDX and Phillips Healthcare. RI is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council senior research fellowship. EA receives an Australian Government Research Training Programme scholarship, grant funding from the UK National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR 203194), and has previously received grant funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. All other authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) during the 2013-2014 academic year, this paper examines the effects of family poverty on adolescents' cognitive and noncognitive outcomes. We find that family poverty is detrimental to adolescent development. Children from poor families have poorer academic performance and noncognitive abilities. We also find that the negative effects of family poverty are more pronounced among children with urban hukou, boys, and children from one-child families. Furthermore, we find that there are multiple channels behind the estimated effects, including parental educational expectations, parental education investments, and parent-child relationship. This paper opens up the "black box" of family poverty affecting children's development, which can provide reference for governments to design measures aimed at eliminating poverty trap., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Payment for watershed ecosystem services (PES) has been applied to water conservation and poverty reduction in an increasing number of developing countries. This study evaluates the effect of payment for watershed ecosystem services on farmers' income in conservation intervention areas using a difference-in-differences model and a panel dataset that covers 18 countries in the Xin'an River Basin in China for fourteen consecutive years (2006-2019). The results show that PES programs increase farmers' income and that the poverty reduction effect is sustainable. The PES programs mainly increase the farmers' income in conservation intervention areas through two paths: triggering the transfer of agricultural labor and promoting agricultural restructuring. PES programs are pro-poor and more conducive to increasing the income of farmers in upstream regions and counties with lower levels of economic development. This paper reveals the specific role played by PES in promoting rural poverty reduction in developing countries, providing insights into alleviating the contradiction between poverty and watershed ecosystem protection., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Objective: China has made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation. However, with the change in economic development and age structure, the population stricken by poverty due to medical expenses and disability accounted for 42.3 and 14.4% of the total poverty-stricken population, respectively. Accordingly, it is crucial to accurately pinpoint the characteristics of people who are about to become poor due to illness. In this study, we analyzed the incidence of impoverishment by medical expense at the provincial, family, and different medical insurance scheme levels to identify the precise groups that are vulnerable to medical-related poverty.Method: Data were extracted from the Fifth National Health Service Survey in China in 2013 through a multi-stage, stratified, and random sampling method, leaving 93,570 households (273,626 people) for the final sample. The method recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) was adopted to calculate impoverishment by medical expense, and logistic regression was adopted to evaluate its determinants.Results: The poverty and impoverishment rate in China were 16.2 and 6.3% respectively. The poverty rate in western region was much higher than that of central and eastern regions. The rate of impoverishment by medical expense (IME) was higher in the western region (7.2%) than that in the central (6.5%) and eastern (5.1%) regions. The New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) was associated with the highest rate (9.1%) of IME cases. The top three diseases associated with IME were malignant tumor, congenital heart disease, and mental disease. Households with non-communicable disease members or hospitalized members had a higher risk on IME. NCMS-enrolled, poorer households were more likely to suffer from IME.Conclusion: The joint roles of economic development, health service utilization, and welfare policies result in medical impoverishment for different regions. Poverty and health service utilization are indicative of households with high incidence of medical impoverishment. Chronic diseases lead to medical impoverishment. The inequity existing in different medical insurance schemes leads to different degrees of risk of IME. A combined strategy to precise target multiple vulnerabilities of poor population would be more effective. [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]

Selecting the appropriate targeted poverty alleviation policies and exploring the implementation path of refined poverty alleviation policies are important to provide support for achieving a comprehensive poverty alleviation for China in 2020. Two models, namely, land resources-environmental carrying capacity (LRECC) index and the coupling coordination degree (CCD), were established to quantitatively explore the important effects of differences in the LRECC in the production, living and ecological spaces on poverty, and determine the important role of superior carrying space in poverty alleviation. Additionally, this study explored the relationship between the poverty incidence and the LRECC by using of the coefficient of geographical association (CGA) to perform the priority and the optimal selection of targeted poverty alleviation policies from the production, living, and ecological spaces. Results showed that the comprehensive CGAs of Long Zhouping township, Huo Shaoping township and other townships were high; therefore, the priority of targeted poverty alleviation was high. By contrast, the comprehensive CGAs of Ya Zikou township, Du Zhenwan township, and other townships were low; thus, the priority of targeted poverty alleviation was low. Long Zhouping and Dayan townships should select the production aspect of targeted poverty alleviation policies, whereas Du Zhenwan and Ya Zikou townships and Gao Jiayan and Moshi townships should select the living and ecological aspects, respectively. Selecting the appropriate targeted poverty alleviation policies by quantitatively identifying the advantages of regional land resource endowment and the poverty incidence will help take the poor out of poverty, and do not become poor again, thereby achieving regional sustainable development. • Explaining the relationship between the natural resource endowment in different evaluation units and rural deep poverty. • Quantitative analysis of the relationship between the LRECC and poverty incidence was established by the CGA model. • Selecting the appropriate targeted poverty alleviation policies will help the poor out of poverty, and do not become poor again. • Exploring the selection and implementation path of targeted poverty alleviation policies from microcosmic scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty reduction is a common challenge facing the whole world. China has taken a series of anti-poverty measures and great achievements have been made. However, the question of how to lift and keep rural households above poverty line remains a worthy subject of academic attention. Building on surveyed results in Lankao County in Henan province of China, this study proposes a theoretical framework for explaining the paths to achieving the livelihood resilience of rural households after shaking off poverty. We analyze the generative mechanisms of livelihood resilience of rural households. Results show that the livelihood resilience of the households who have shaken off poverty is closely related to their capacity to utilize accessible resources, learn new knowledge and exploit external resources. Households having modern agricultural productive systems or living in specialized villages have a relatively high level of resilience than those do not. Three types of capacities are identified as the Triggers, Pushers and Optimizers , respectively, acting on the generative process of livelihood resilience for households. They interact among one another to promote households' livelihood resilience. Finally, we propose that China should take additional measures to enhance rural households' livelihood resilience to facilitate a sustainable development. More importantly, such experience is of great value for improving livelihood resilience of rural households in China and other developing countries. • We propose a theoretical framework to check the livelihood resilience and generative mechanism of households out of poverty. • The livelihood resilience of the households who have shaken off poverty is closely related to their three types of capacity. • Households involving modern agricultural productive systems have a relatively high level of resilience than those do not. • Three types of capacity interact among one another to promote households' livelihood resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, biodiversity conservation and the achievement of common prosperity are important challenges. China bid farewell to "absolute poverty" in 2020 but continues to face challenges, such as relative multidimensional poverty, especially in regions of protected areas (PA). The correlation between poverty and the natural environment leads to further research on the distribution and spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics of relative poverty regions affected by the restrictive policies of PA. Quantitative research on these regions helps researchers formalize ecological indemnification policies based on the condition of different regions, thereby stabilizing efforts toward poverty alleviation. Through a study on relative poverty areas in 489 county-level administrative regions in China influenced by 477 national nature reserves, this study formulated a multidimensional integrated poverty index model that comprises three systems, namely, natural environment, economy, and society and 13 indicators. Using the comprehensive index, spatial analysis, and cluster analysis to investigate the evolutionary characteristics and driving factors of poverty from 2014 to 2019, the study created a distribution map of relative poverty regions affected by PA. The results indicated the following. (i) Relative poverty regions are mainly concentrated in provinces on the northwest side of the Hu Line with strong spatial correlation between these regions. Among them, the relatively poor areas with persistent deterioration become the keystone to stabilizing poverty alleviation and promoting green development. (ii) Poverty alleviation focuses on the economic dimension, whereas the environmental and social dimensions lack engagement. (iii) Conservation areas overlap with relative poverty regions. However, the increase in PA does not necessarily lead to the aggravation of the poverty in counties. The results offer a valuable reference for decision makers in formulating targeted policies and measures for areas affected by PA to facilitate green development and common prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Climate change is widespread, rapid, and is intensifying. Using Chinese disaster data and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data, this study examines the impact of climate shocks on the vulnerability of farm households to poverty and the mechanism of household resource allocation in this process. The results show that (a) climate shocks can significantly increase the poverty vulnerability of farm households. (b) The effect of climate shocks on farm household poverty vulnerability is regionally and individually heterogeneous. Climate non-security zones, risk-averse farmers, and low social capital farmers are more vulnerable to climate shocks and fall into poverty. (c) The mediating effects suggest that climate shocks affect the poverty vulnerability of farm households by influencing their developmental investment, productive investment, and precautionary saving. The paper finally concludes and discusses some policy implications in the national response to climate change and transformation of farmers' livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has historically eliminated absolute poverty and built a comprehensive well-off society through targeted poverty alleviation, at the end of which, however, many issues are worthy of scholars' attention kept emerging. A significant one was cognitive-behavioral differences between officials and folks regarding the procedure, standards, and methods of removing the poverty hats, which formed a new social dilemma called the official-folk game. Officials did not carry out targeted poverty alleviation work in strict accordance with the criteria specified by the government. In comparison, folks who have reached poverty elimination standards were unwilling to take off their poverty hats after targeted assistance due to the fear of returning to poverty. To fully explain this social dilemma, this study analyzes the causes of cognitive-behavioral differences between officials and folks in China's targeted poverty alleviation from the perspective of evolutionary game theory. The results show that bounded rational officials and folks will eventually get caught up in the prisoner's dilemma without exogenous factors' intervention. Furthermore, the study proposes that the government establish reasonable punishment, incentives, and supervision mechanisms to guide officials and folks and eliminate their cognitive-behavioral differences by investigating the influence of exogenous policy factors on the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) of the official-folk game. This finding not only reveals the formation mechanism of the cognitive-behavioral differences between officials and folks and presents an effective solution at the individual level but also provides a reference for other developing countries to overcome similar social dilemmas in the process of eliminating absolute poverty. [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]

Poverty alleviation and politics are interrelated in complex ways. Poverty governance is essentially a multi-faceted process of using political power, exercising political authority, mobilizing political resources, running political institutions, and gaining political legitimacy. However, the approach of economics has long dominated current discussions in the literature on poverty reduction, resulting in a relative lack of political science research on poverty reduction interventions. This special issue has gathered together carefully selected articles to examine the politics of poverty governance in non-electoral settings, with a specific area focus on China. Despite focusing on China, this special issue adopts a comparative analytical lens and extends beyond China studies by striving to position China's poverty governance in relation to general theories of political science. This introductory article seeks to expound the motives highlighted in the special issue, identify the literature gap that the special issue aims to fill, summarize the key findings and contributions, and finally suggest some promising new areas of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does poverty relief breed corruption? This question has been examined in several electoral polities, but not in other political settings. This study engages in this academic discussion by proposing a unique corruption mechanism in the case of China. The dual causes of National Poor Counties' unique exit mechanism and long distance from economic hubs create a unique local poli-economic environment, in which local bureaucrats share the incentive to stay in the program, which in turn leads to an intra-elite alliance and more corruption. I test the empirical implication of these mechanisms by first building up a new county-level corruption dataset for 881 low-income counties,and then leveraging propensity score weighting to evaluate the impact of the third wave (2001–2010) of China's poverty alleviation program on county level corruption. The results of this test show some evidence that counties participated in the third wave of the program are associated with approximately 4.4–19.7 percent increase in corruption incidence and 10.5–23.5 percent increase in numbers of convicted persons compared to similar non-participant counties. These findings highlight the importance of proper institutional designs in poverty alleviation regimes to lower the corruption incentive of local bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers how the Chinese government's strategy of relational poverty governance has permitted its gaining control over parts of the country where its authority was fragile. President Xi Jinping's interest in targeted poverty alleviation has led success of this strategy to become a major concern of local governments. Based on fieldwork undertaken in China during the period 2016–2020, the article shows that state-managed political mobilization and rigid bureaucratic governance strategies are not the only means through which political power is exercised; relational poverty governance is another basis of the exercise of state power in rural communities. Mechanisms whereby three levels of state power—symbolic, bureaucratic, and moral—are executed in relational governance are identified. Through practical operations that include emotional interactions, paired assistance systems, and moral supervision, the state regains control in remote areas and strives to achieve successful governance. The article concludes by discussing the policy effectiveness of relational poverty governance and its implications for rural governance in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating poverty is a worldwide problem, but China has recently made major achievements in poverty alleviation. By the end of 2020, 832 nationally designated poor counties had all been lifted out of poverty within five years. Why do some poor counties perform better in poverty alleviation? This paper leverages a unique county-level dataset of 832 nationally designated poor counties in China and uses discrete-time event history analysis to understand the relationship between political institutions and poverty alleviation. We find that the presence of a county party committee secretary concurrently holding a higher rank position above the county level significantly increases the odds ratio of accomplishing poverty alleviation tasks. Previous studies have emphasized the important role of empowering people in democracies for poverty reduction. This study shows that empowering key governmental actors in authoritarian regimes can help them increase their bargaining power and improve the performance of poverty alleviation. In addition, this paper echoes the research on political institutions of authoritarian systems and deepens the understanding of the importance of the higher-ranking institution of Chinese officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility plays an important role in alleviating rural poverty. Previous studies have explored the relationship between accessibility and rural poverty, but they offer limited evidence of the collective influence of multiscale transport accessibility (town-level, county-level, and prefecture-level accessibility) and its nonlinear effects on rural poverty. This study adopted the gradient-boosting decision tree model to explore the nonlinear association and threshold effects of multiscale transport accessibility on the rural poverty incidence (RPI). We selected Huining, a poverty-stricken county in China, as a case study. The results show that multiscale transport accessibility collectively has larger predictive power than other variables. Specifically, town-level accessibility (12.97%) plays a dominant role in predicting the RPI, followed by county-level accessibility (9.50%) and prefecture-level accessibility (7.38%). We further identified the nonlinear association and effective ranges of multiscale transport accessibility to guide poverty-alleviation policy. Our results help inform policy and planning on sustainable poverty reduction and rural vitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern clean energy is essential for economic development, making energy poverty a pressing matter for both developing and developed countries. Studies have shown that low levels of income and consumption indicate poverty, and the essence of poverty is "capability poverty," which has formed a new understanding of the causes of poverty. This study extends the capability framework to energy poverty. It uses data from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to build an empirical model to analyze the impact of cognitive capability on household energy poverty in terms of income levels and energy decision-making. A higher cognitive capability has a significant impact on encouraging households to eradicate energy poverty. Further, the non-linear moderation model is used to test the impact of the interaction between cognitive capability and income, information, and social network on energy poverty. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the driving factors of energy poverty and offers novel recommendations for policymakers to address the problem. • Expand the impact of the capacity framework from poverty to energy poverty. • Empirical research using China Family Panel Studies data. • Explore the causes of energy poverty from a social and personal level. • Eliminate or reduce energy poverty by rebuilding personal capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the genus Rhinopithecus (Milne‐Edwards, 1872, Primates, Colobinae) included four allopatric species, restricted in their distributions to China and Vietnam. In 2010, a fifth species, the black snub‐nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri) was discovered in the Gaoligong Mountains located on the border between China and Myanmar. Despite the remoteness, complex mountainous terrain, dense fog, and armed conflict that characterizes this region, over this past decade Chinese and Myanmar scientists have begun to collect quantitative data on the ecology, behavior and conservation requirements of R. strykeri. In this article, we review the existing data and present new information on the life history, ecology, and population size of R. strykeri. We discuss these data in the context of past and current conservation challenges faced by R. strykeri, and propose a series of both short‐term and long‐term management actions to ensure the survival of this Critically Endangered primate species. Specifically, we recommend that the governments and stakeholders in China and Myanmar formulate a transboundary conservation agreement that includes a consensus on bilateral exchange mechanisms, scientific research and monitoring goals, local community development, cooperation to prevent the hunting of endangered species and cross‐border forest fires. These actions will contribute to the long‐term conservation and survival of this Critically Endangered species. Highlight: We confirmed the existence of at least six remaining groups, totaling between 520 and 600 individuals, of the Critically Endangered black snub‐nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri) in the Gaoligong Mountains on the Sino‐Myanmar border.We examined the present conservation challenges faced by the world's last remaining population of this species, and offer a set of new management strategies to ensure its continued survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the long-term health consequences of early-life chronic poverty—as proxied by enduring starvation experiences—for residents aged 45–90 in rural China. Chronic poverty poses a common threat to rural households' well-being in the developing world. However, our knowledge remains limited about whether and how it shapes later-life health disparities. This study focuses on such later-life outcomes as self-rated health and depression. We conduct multiple regression analysis and instrumental variable analysis that utilizes exogenous variation in respondents' childhood disaster experiences and local geographic condition as an instrument for self-reported starvation experiences. We find persistent disadvantages in the later-life self-rated health and depression of rural Chinese who experienced early-life chronic poverty. Suggestively, the lasting health impact of early-life chronic poverty may be elevated by current social disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correlations between socioeconomic factors and poverty in regression models do not reflect actual relationships, especially when data exhibit patterns of spatial heterogeneity. Spatial regression models can estimate the relationships between socioeconomic factors and poverty in defined geographical areas, explaining the imbalanced distribution of poverty, but the relationships between these factors and poverty are not always linear however, and conventional simple linear local regression models do not accurately capture these nonlinear relationships. To fill this gap, we used a local regression method, geographically weighted random forest regression (GW-RFR), that integrates a spatial weight matrix (SWM) and random forest (RF). The GW-RFR evaluates the spatial variations in the nonlinear relationships between variables. A county-level poverty data set of China was employed to estimate the performance of the GW-RFR against the random forest (RF). In this poverty application, the value of R 2 was 0.128 higher than that of the RF, the NRMSE value was 1.6% lower than the RF, and the MAE value was 0.295 lower than the RF. These results showed that the relationship between poverty factors and poverty varies with space at the county level in China, and the GW-RFR was suitable for dealing with nonlinear relationships in local regression analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' poverty has long been of global concern, mainly in poor rather than affluent areas. The goal of this paper is to better understand the range of poverty in the context of regional differentiation and to enrich knowledge on farmers' poverty in affluent areas and areas with good natural conditions. A questionnaire survey of poor farmers in the major grain-producing area of Changchun, Northeast China was conducted. Farmers' poverty was studied from income poverty and multidimensional poverty by intertwining qualitative and quantitative methods. The results indicate that low education levels and poor physical health were most prevalent in poor farmers, followed by income poverty and low living standards. Governmental policies and the macroeconomic situation in the agricultural sector, non-agricultural employment, aging, cultivated land, and family size correlated closely with farmers' poverty. The macro changes in policies and global trade liberalization in the agricultural sector impacted farmers' income through the prices of agricultural products and subsidies and influenced the effect of cultivated land. For poor farmers, the effect of employment opportunities in villages was more significant than in urban areas. Aging remains a challenge for farmers' poverty now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]