Study On Rural Chronic Poverty In Ecologically Vulnerable Areas

After nearly 30-year reform and opening up, the population of absolute poverty in rural China has decreased from 250 million in 1978 to 15 million in 2007, and poverty incidence from 30.7% to around 2%. From 1980 on, China accounts for 75% of population among the developing countries who are lift out of poverty—This is an amazing fact that China has acquired stupendous accomplishment in poverty alleviation.The success of large-scale poverty reduction is mainly the result of the average economic growth rate of 9% per year in the past over 20 years. A relatively popular point of view is that when the absolute poverty incidence decreases to a considerably low level, the economic increase won't make poverty decrease easily. Some other scholars hold that when poverty incidence decreases below 5%, economic growth will have little effect on poverty reduction. In my opinion, when the effect of poverty alleviation brought by economic growth reaches a considerably low point, i.e. when the growth effect of poverty alleviation falls into a trap like"Trap of Liquidity", there will be little effect on poverty reduction no matter how fast the economy grows and how much is put into poverty alleviation according to the original way of anti-poverty practices. In fact, there has emerged a phenomenon in poverty alleviation and development in China that the cost of poverty reduction is going up while the speed of that is slowing down. In the 1980s, the poor population in rural China decreased 13.5 million on average annually , 5.3 million in the 1990s and only 1.4 million during the years 2002-2005. This indicates that the growth effect of China's poverty alleviation is becoming smaller and poverty alleviation brought by economic growth is falling into the"Trap of Liquidity"which means poverty situation can hardly be further improved, which seems to foresee the necessity of certain adjustment on the current poverty alleviation system and policy. Meanwhile, after 30-year poverty alleviation and development, the nature and features of poverty in rural China have already changed or are changing: its distribution has experienced a transition from overall poverty in the early years of reform and opening up to regional poverty, and now it is going its way to spot poverty (village-based poverty). Besides, the poverty is changing from absolute poverty to relative poverty while its type is also changing: from income poverty to ability poverty. At present, the features of rural poverty are mainly reflected in the following three aspects:First, regional contractility of poverty population distribution ; Second, fluctuation of poverty alleviation of poverty population; Third, heterogeneity of poverty population. The current situation and features of the rural poverty determine the direction of poverty theory research and the orientation of anti-poverty policy now and in future. In my point of view, at present and in the near future, the research on the rural poverty should be carried out by centering on three aspects. First is the research on relation between poverty and environment to prove the influence on poverty caused by closeness of geographical environment and ecosystem vulnerability with a clear display of spatial distribution of rural poverty. Second is dynamic research on poverty. It means to introduce the time variable into the research, subdivide poverty types, analyze the endogenous mechanism and the external impacts of poverty fluctuation and propose system arrangement and policy needs of poverty alleviation and poverty recurrence targeting at different types of poverty. Third is the research on the relation between poverty and ability with view to finding the structure and features of"capabilities sets", figuring out how the ability of the heterogeneous poverty population influences the duration time of poverty and how to improve the ways of human development for the purpose of cultivating and hoisting capabilities.All the three problems mentioned above concerning poverty in rural China are confronted with a common problem—duration time of poverty. Regional contractility of poverty mainly focuses on the regions which are still in poverty after a long-term poverty; the variation mechanism of poverty alleviation and poverty recurrence can only be found in its dynamic time while the ability poverty of the heterogeneous population, just like a chronic disease, has the implication of the sustained poverty itself. Because the existing short-term static theory of poverty takes little effect, some other new theoretical framework and cognitive tools must be sought for to solve the three problems of rural poverty.The chronic poverty studied in this thesis is a branch of poverty research at the end of 20th century and in the early years of 21st century in the foreign academia. With the special geographical environment as the background, aiming at the special poverty population, characterized by dynamic means of poverty research, It places the poverty research into the macro framework including ecological environment, economic increase and human development, systematically analyzing and discussing protracted nature, diversification, fluctuation and population heterogeneity of poverty. The research on chronic poverty is not only helpful to spread the latest developments of foreign poverty research to China's academia and what is more important is to help offer a research thought and analyzing framework with theorical reference significance for China in the important phase of poverty alleviation.Though not a country typical of chronic poverty, China is still faced with the problem. Based on the three features of China's rural poverty mentioned above, by means of the analyzing framework and cognitive tools of chronic poverty, as well as with the 2390 observed samples of data for five successive years from 600 key counties of national poverty alleviation program recorded in Poverty Monitoring Report of China (2002-2006) and from the angle of relative income poverty(i.e. with 60% as a reference standard the per capita income of key counties of national poverty alleviation program accounts for of that of the province or region related), this thesis takes 60% as the reference standard and stipulates those above the standard are defined as non-poverty, those below the standard within 1 to 4 years transitory poverty and those below the standard for 5 years in succession chronic poverty. Based on this, combined with regional and spatial environment of poverty in rural China, starting from the definition of vulnerability of ecosystem and with the premise that the relation between China's rural poverty and environment and the incidence mechanism of chronic poverty in vulnerable ecology zone have been clarified, this thesis makes theoretical researches and empirical analysis on China's real situation of chronic poverty from such aspects as spatial distribution, multi-dimensional description, the situation and the population heterogeneity of chronic poverty. In addition, the thesis puts forward the idea that different patterns of poverty alleviation should be adopted according to different poverty types, targeting at the limitations of development-oriented poverty alleviation system and policy. Personally speaking, the existing system should be firstly improved for development-oriented poverty alleviation. Based on this and to cooperate with this, security-oriented poverty alleviation system should also be established to help build a new system framework of rural poverty reduction and concrete arrangement and policy design should be made accordingly. Except the first chapter of introduction, this thesis is divided into seven chapters:Chapter Two Review of evolution of poverty theory abroad and research on poverty in rural China. In this chapter, this thesis combs through by stages the main ideas presented during the evolution of poverty theory abroad from income poverty to ability poverty and to poverty of rights and the main subjects concerned with scholars in terms of poverty research in rural China in the last decade or so. From such evolution, the characteristics and laws of poverty research have been summed up and at the same time the deficiencies in the current research on poverty, especially such research carried out by China's academic circle, have been analyzed in this chapter. Then this thesis points out the five necessary means of transformation in this field and shows us the urgency of new theories in this field.Chapter Three General theories and dynamic features of chronic poverty and the definition of it in this thesis. In this chapter, the general definition of chronic poverty, its features, its cognitive pattern, its measurement of poverty, its dynamic features and the definition of chronic poverty in this thesis are all put forward. This thesis divides chronic poverty into chronic income poverty and chronic ability poverty, on which the research has been carried out from the angles of relative income poverty and absolute ability poverty respectively.Chapter Four The distribution and occurrence of poverty in ecologically vulnerable areas. Firstly, based on the definition of ecological vulnerability and ecologically vulnerable areas, the chapter describes the regional spatial distribution and features of the three types of poverty (non-poverty, transitory poverty and chronic poverty), makes a multi-dimensional description of the distribution of chronic poverty in ecological, ethnic and regional sense and summarizes the distribution features of chronic poverty under the influence of multi-conditions. Secondly, during the analysis of the formation of chronic poverty, other interdependence and interaction relations between geographic features and poverty growth, environment and poverty as well as chronic poverty have been illustrated. At the same time, this chapter makes a probe into the formation of rural chronic poverty in ecologically vulnerable areas from the point of farmer behavior pattern and into the occurrence mechanism of chronic poverty in such areas from the aspects of static closeness and dynamic openness.Chapter Five Poverty dynamics: chronic poverty, transitory poverty and non-poverty. By means of dynamic theory of poverty, the chapter firstly analyzes the types of poverty dynamics subdivision describing ecologically vulnerable areas and then divides transitory poverty into poverty-induced transitory poverty, Churning transitory poverty and transitory poverty of out-of-poverty type and makes a comparison between transitory poverty and chronic poverty in poverty dynamics. With the use of the discrete choice model (logit and OCM), a regression quantitative analysis on poverty occurrence and poverty dynamics has been carried out in order to interpret the influences of different factors of poverty occurrence on poverty and poverty dynamics.Chapter Six Chronic poverty in the capability deficiency of heterogeneous population.By adopting Amartya Sen's theory of ability poverty, this chapter categorizes"capabilities sets"and then analyzes the manifestation of capability deficiency and at the same time discusses the interactive circle between capability deficiency and chronic poverty, and then raises the concept of natural poverty incidence. Meanwhile, the poverty incidence of certain heterogeneous groups(such as senior citizens, children, women and the population with sanitary problems) has also be surveyed. Finally, coordinating systematic arrangement in health, education and training has been made aiming to improve the basic capability and development potentials of poverty population.Chapter Seven The transformation of anti-poverty system: from development-oriented poverty alleviation to security- oriented poverty alleviation. While analyzing the evolution of anti-poverty institution and related policies in China, this chapter makes comments on the characteristics of the prevalent development-oriented anti-poverty system , and then gives a detailed analysis on its limitations in practices with the conclusion that the single development-oriented anti-poverty system cannot further alleviate the poverty. After the analysis on poverty types especially on subdivided poverty types, this chapter holds that a new type of anti-poverty system in rural area should be established with the combination of autonomous poverty alleviation induced by growth , supportive poverty alleviation with preferential policy and security-oriented poverty alleviation under social policy arrangement.Chapter Eight The establishment of new anti-poverty system in rural area: fundamental framework and policy guarantee. With regard to the plan of the establishment of new anti-poverty system in rural area, this chapter tries to make concrete systematic plan and related policy arrangement for transitory poverty, development-oriented poverty alleviation and chronic poverty as well as security-oriented poverty alleviation, and then points out that the transformation of government is the fundamental guarantee for the establishment of new anti-poverty system in rural area.The basis of this thesis is the division of chronic poverty. By adopting the latest framework and cognitive tools of the chronic poverty abroad, this thesis conducts research on the chronic poverty problem of the ecologically vulnerable areas in rural China from the aspects of regional long-term income poverty and individual ability poverty.The first aspect is the chronic poverty. This chapter manages to define the chronic income poverty from the perspective of relative poverty. The chronic income poverty refers to a situation that the rural population in certain regions falls into income poverty for five successive years. It means that the chronic poverty is a kind of long-term poverty, which is measured by the continuous fluctuations of regional income per capita. Therefore, this kind of chronic poverty is both a kind of relative poverty and a kind of income poverty. Meanwhile, this chapter puts this sustained long-term poverty against the background of poverty dynamics and makes a comparative research on the transitory poverty that lasts from one to four years and the non-poverty above the relative poverty line so as to find out the internal relation and transformation mechanism between chronic poverty, transitory poverty and non-poverty.The second aspect is chronic ability poverty. This chapter manages to define the chronic ability poverty from the perspective of absolute poverty. The chronic ability poverty refers to the living state in which some certain rural population falls into long-term poverty due to capability deficiency. It indicates that the chronic poverty is very much like the chronic disease, which cannot be cured once affected. It demonstrates the pluralism and the heterogeneity of poverty. Because such kind of chronic poverty is caused by individual capability deficiency, it can also be regarded as ability poverty.The division of chronic poverty in this thesis not only gives a both relative and absolute perspective about poverty, but also displays the elementariness and the pluralism of income poverty and ability poverty. It carries out a relatively thorough analysis of poverty problem. On the basis of division of chronic poverty, this thesis also offers different system arrangement and poverty alleviation system to different types of chronic poverty. By adopting the latest framework and cognitive tools of the chronic poverty abroad, and at the same time according to the five-year time series data from national anti-poverty target counties, this thesis uses statistical analysis and econometric model against the background of ecologically vulnerable areas to carry out both macro and micro research on the chronic poverty in rural China, so it may bear some originalities as follows:1.From the angles of income poverty and relative poverty of chronic poverty, based on the authoritative data from Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China and with the proportion of income per capita of national anti-poverty target counties to that of the related province(region) as a reference standard, the thesis categorizes all the poverty samples collected into three types which are non-poverty, transitory poverty and chronic poverty and takes into consideration ecological vulnerability degree, ethnical and regional situation to study the distribution of chronic poverty in ecologically vulnerable areas, poverty dynamics and major influencing factors of chronic poverty from which the distribution, features of Change and rules of chronic poverty in rural China have been found, which makes the thesis the first case in this kind of research work in China in the poverty study of rural areas.2.Inspired by the cognitive tools of chronic poverty , in the chapter of poverty dynamics study, the thesis subdivides transitory poverty into three types which are poverty-induced transitory poverty,Churning transitory poverty and transitory poverty of out-of-poverty type and makes a statistic description of the distribution of transitory poverty in ecologically vulnerable areas and the relationship between transitory poverty and ethnic areas and western region. The subdivision of transitory poverty from the angle of relative poverty, even in the foreign chronic poverty theory, is seldom discussed.3.Based on the realistic situation of rural China's poverty, the thesis makes a monographic study on ability poverty of heterogeneous poor population and to some degree advances Amartya Sen'"capabilities sets"by dividing capabilities into basic capabilities and survival capabilities based on which the thesis analyses the poverty incidence of senior citizens poverty, children poverty , women poverty and disability poverty etc. and the nature and features of those poverties, which makes the thesis bear some degree of originality.4. The thesis puts forward and argues the concept of natural poverty incidence which holds that with individual capabilities available, poverty can't be definitely eliminated but chosen which bears political implication that poverty can't be eliminated but controlled.5. More than once the thesis touches upon the concept of"Trap of Liquidity"which, when used in this thesis, means driving poverty alleviation by development. In introduction and chapter seven, it is held that autonomous poverty alleviation through development-oriented poverty alleviation is bound to reduce poverty incidence to such a status like"Trap of Liquidity". Once in this situation, no matter how larger economic support will be given to shake off income poverty, further poverty reduction can hardly be achieved. The solution to further reduce poverty can only be possibly found through shifting the focus of anti-poverty to ability poverty and implementing anti-poverty strategies relying on system arrangement of social policies.6. After systematically combing through the research documents of rural China's poverty over the past years, aiming at weak problems in rural poverty study, the thesis proposes four research changes to promote rural China's poverty study which are change from income poverty to ability poverty, from macro perspective of regional poverty to micro perspective of individual farmer's poverty , from government domination to community involvement, from short-term static methods to long-term dynamic methods and from unidisciplinary research to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research.Chronic poverty research is an emerging branch in the domain of foreign development and poverty study and it itself has imperfections. Moreover, the application of chronic poverty in China's poverty theory and development-oriented poverty relief practice has just started. Therefore, the thesis is only a trial exploration and problems even defects are unavoidable in terms of the overall introduction of chronic poverty and the application of development-oriented poverty relief in ecologically vulnerable areas. One of the thesis's objectives is to offer a new idea for China's poverty study and development-oriented anti-poverty practice by means of trial use of chronic theory. Of course, the present study of the thesis is not mature enough and needs improvement in the following two aspects:Firstly, the thesis study is preliminary and framework-like, aiming to attempt to build a basic framework of China's chronic poverty study, yet deep research hasn't been made. Due to limited statistical materials available and the author's limited knowledge and abilities, the most special content in chronic poverty——Intergenerational Poverty,hasn't been mentioned. As to the measurement of chronic poverty, the thesis just gives a introduction but fails to make a quantitative model reflecting chronic poverty in ecologically vulnerable areas of China.Secondly, with regard to research methods, the most common one used in chronic poverty is the means of micro-analysis (home or individual) to observe the same poor people for five years consecutively. This is both time-consuming and costly, which is almost impossible for the author. In order to ensure the relative accuracy of the research and meanwhile meet the basic requirements of chronic poverty, from the perspective of relative poverty and with the five-year time series data from national anti-poverty target counties recorded in Poverty Monitoring Report of Rural China this thesis uses the ratio between the income per capita below the county level and the provincial income per capita to indirectly measure chronic poverty. This method meets the needs of the basic requirements of chronic poverty theory, however, due to the inevitable deviation from the actual degree of poverty, the accuracy of this research especially the estimation of poverty incidence may be affected to some extent.