CHINA'S CHANGING POVERTY: A MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRY CASE STUDY

In: Journal of international development: the journal of the Development Studies Association, Band 24, Heft 6, S. 696-713

Abstract

AbstractRecent assessments by Sumner and Kanbur argue that a substantial number of the world's poor currently live in middle income countries (MICs). Many of this new bottom billion live in two countries, India and China. The authors of the new bottom billion approach stress the importance of understanding the nature of poverty in these two crucial MICs. In this paper, we respond to this by examining current patterns of poverty in contemporary China, focusing on areas of ongoing and emerging poverty. We focus in particular on the ways in which forms of poverty emerging in recent years' poverty can be addressed during the current rebalancing phase in China's industrialisation and on what policies need to be implemented for this to occur. Our assessment is based on recent data and information available from Chinese Government Ministries, the National Statistical Bureau and Chinese research institutes and academies. It also refers to qualitative research undertaken in Chinese villages in several provinces, resulting from our involvement in various poverty assessments undertaken by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the International Poverty Reduction Center in China. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.