Understanding Inequality And Poverty In China

This book explores trends of inequality and poverty in China, identifies their causes and assesses their consequences, analyzing in detail the regional/personal variation in incomes, measures of human wellbeing, the gap between the coastal regions and the interior regions, and urban–rural disparity.

Using the latest analytical frameworks, this book conveys a comprehensive and up-to-date view of inequality and poverty in China. It focuses on regional inequality but also uses micro-level data. It utilizes alternative data sets to provide more robust results. It employs the latest methodologies to examine poverty and inequality. This book explores trends of inequality and poverty in China, identifies their causes and assesses their consequences, analyzing in detail the regional/personal variation in incomes, measures of human wellbeing, the gap between the coastal regions and the interior regions, and urban - rural disparity.

Presents an up-to-date look at the social processes and consequences of China's rapid economic growth.

This volume provides comprehensive, up to date coverage of inequality and poverty issues in China. Going beyond standard data sources and using state-of-art research techniques, this volume substantiates a number of findings and conclusions and ensures policy recommendations are reliable and robust.

This book examines the evolution of economic inequality in China from 2002 to 2007; a sequel to Inequality and Public Policy in China (2008).

This volume examines trends in inequality in the People's Republic of China. It contains findings on inequality nationwide, as well as within the rural and urban sectors, with an emphasis on public policy considerations. Several chapters focus on inequality of income; others analyse poverty, inequality in wealth, and the distribution of wages. Attention is given to groups such as migrants, women, and the elderly, as well as the relationship between income and health care funding and the impact of the rural tax reform. All contributors to this volume make use of a large, nationwide survey of Chinese households, the product of long-term co-operation between Chinese and international researchers that is unique in its scope and duration. Using these data, the contributors examine changes in inequality from 1988 to 2002.

"While the incidence of extreme poverty in China fell dramatically over 1980-2001, progress was uneven over time and across provinces. Rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor, though migration to urban areas helped. The pattern of growth mattered. Rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth. Agriculture played a far more important role than the secondary or tertiary sources of GDP. Rising inequality within the rural sector greatly slowed poverty reduction. Provinces starting with relatively high inequality saw slower progress against poverty, due both to lower growth and a lower growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Taxation of farmers and inflation hurt the poor. External trade had little short-term impact. This paper a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the causes of country success in poverty reduction"--World Bank web site.