Coronavirus and its negative impact on the rural poor and labor migrants of China

The epidemic of COVID-19 in China has caused the worst public health emergency since the formation of the PRC. At the international level, there is a general pattern of the impact of such situations on employment and income of the population, which remains relevant in different periods and national contexts. The spread of COVID-19 has provoked a higher risk of negative consequences for farmers in poor areas. Some of them have limited development opportunities and cannot cope with sudden life difficulties. Despite the successes of the PRC in the fight against absolute poverty and the implementation of the targeted approach, the coronavirus epidemic showed the bottlenecks of this policy. The reduction of poverty in rural areas through the industrial complex formation remains a difficult task. Currently, most industries in the areas freed from poverty are still supported by the government and the political leadership, and not through sustained productivity growth. In terms of project selection, due to the tight deadlines and heavy burden of poverty eradication, most of the poor households chose industries with short industrial chains and low added value of products, which led to a more serious problem of homogeneity and identity of industrial products produced in villages. In poor areas, wage of the migrant workers accounts for the bulk of rural household income. During the coronavirus epidemic, due to the multiple restrictions, it was extremely difficult for migrant workers to return to big cities where they had jobs. As a result, their families in the villages suffered. Migrant peasants are mainly employed in the unstable urban informal sector. Since the epidemic has limited mobility and the informal sector has not been able to fully resume operations and production, the wages of migrant workers have declined due to unstable employment, which has increased fluctuations in the incomes of peasant households.