| Since the reform and opening-up, Chinese economy has developed rapidly as a result of the policy which allows partial population to get well-off first. On the one hand, though economic development has substantially decreased the absolute poverty incidence, various researches show that Chinese economic development is characterized by the drop of absolute poverty and the rise of relative poverty, which suggests that Chinese income inequality is weakened to a certain degree and a huge Chinese population cannot fully enjoy the benefits created by economic development. On the other hand, Chinese social structure is undergoing a huge social change and commencing class differentiation, with different social stratums differing in the occupation and allocation of the social resources, such as income, prestige, and power. In the context of Chinese economic growth, all social stratums are exposed to a variety of problems, such as whether there is any fundamental change of economic status, any difference in sharing the achievements of economic growth, or any inequity of resources occupation. Therefore, it is of important sociological significance to judge the pro-poor nature and degree of economic growth and study the pro-group nature of economic growth from stratum perspective.Based on the knowledge about the dynamic change of Chinese poverty during1989and2009, this paper measures pro-poor growth and pro-group growth in Chinese and decomposes the effect accordingly in a non-anonymous way. By means of cross-section regression and income dynamic distribution analysis, this paper studies the convergence of income level and growth rate between poverty population and non-poverty population as well as among different social stratums. Afterwards, this paper studies the influencing factors for pro-poor growth and pro-group growth in China from various angles, such as human capital, material capital, social capital and natural capital. Then, this paper measures and decomposes the inequity of key influencing factors and opportunity, as well as analyzes the difference on the family and group level. The main research contents and conclusions are as follows:First, according to literature review of poverty theory, pro-poor growth theory and inequity theory, poverty measurement index is still adoptable though it cannot satisfy all axiomatic standards, and meanwhile, the defects of poverty measurement are also correspondingly embodied in the measurement of pro-poor growth. As a result of the measurement advantage, Gini coefficient is applicable to measurement and decomposition under the circumstance of small cross term contribution. In case of severe cross terms, Generalized Entropy index can be applied to decomposing contributions within groups and between groups more obviously.Second, this paper has evaluated Chinese dynamic poverty during1989and2009, and analyzed the degree and characteristics of long-term poverty and temporary poverty. Additionally, from the perspective of long-term and short-term income transfer matrix, this paper analyzes the change of economic status of the poor who cast off poverty. The study shows that the change of poverty status in China is more reliant on rural poverty reduction degree. Thus, the future poverty-relief work shall focus not only on urban poverty and rural poverty, but also on long-term rural impoverished families. Owning to the large number of low-income families in Chinese villages, rural poverty incidence turns out to be more sensitive to poverty line. In the short run, non-poverty families neighboring to poverty line will be more vulnerable to poverty, whereas in the long run, non-poverty families at different income levels will face the convergence of poverty probability. The first two years after overcoming poverty achieve high poverty-returning rate, which will fall afterwards. In the short and long term, poverty classes at different income levels will be likely to achieve the highest income in the society. However, such probability is very small.Third, based on non-anonymous method, this paper modifies pro-poor growth and poverty equivalent growth rate according to dynamic poverty line, as well as measures and decomposes China’s pro-poor growth degree during1989and2009from the perspective of the whole country as well as cities and villages. The findings show that based on the standard of relative poverty line, economic growth was at a low degree of pro-rich during1989and2009, with the rich superior to the poor in income growth rate. In cities and towns, economic growth was characterized by medium pro-rich growth, while in villages, it was characterized by low degree of pro-rich growth. Different rural and urban objects varied in sharing the benefits of economic growth to a certain degree. Compared with urban rich people, rural rich people enjoyed fewer benefits of economic growth, while compared with rural poor people, urban poor people enjoyed fewer benefits of economic growth. However, economic growth was proved to be more favorable for the rich both in cities and in villages. For absolute poverty reduction, the worsening of income distribution and the rise of poverty line have offset half of the poverty reduction effect of economic growth. For relative poverty improvement, poverty reduction effect of economic growth was basically offset by the rise of poverty line.Fourth, according to occupational stratification, this paper makes a comparative analysis on the income growth of all Chinese social stratums, as well as analyzes the benefit degree of all social stratums during China’s economic growth through constructing pro-group growth rate, group growth curve and pro-group growth index. According to researches, in transformation period, the highest beneficial stratum consists of national and social manager, corporate operator, and senior technical professionals, with middle-level beneficial stratum constituted by ordinary technical professionals and clerks, low beneficial stratum by individual businesses and industrial workers, and non-beneficial stratum by business service personnel, agricultural laborers, and urban and rural unemployed people.Fifth, based on the inter-provincial space correlation test, this paper studies the convergence of income level and growth rate between poverty population and non-poverty population as well as among different social stratums by means of Barro regression equation and dynamic income distribution analysis. According to the result, with relative poverty line as standard, absolute convergence test reveals that there is no absolute β convergence for per capita income and poverty incidence among all provinces. The income level of not only inter-provincial poverty population, but also of inter-provincial rich people displays unimodal convergence. Additionally, Chinese social stratum demonstrates club convergence at income level. The first club achieves high income, including national and social managers, enterprise operators, senior technical professionals, and individual businesses. The second club achieves middle income, including ordinary technical professionals, clerks, business service personnel, and industrial workers. The third club achieves low income, including agricultural laborers and urban unemployment people (the unemployed and the semi-unemployed).Sixth, with family property, human capital, social capital and natural capital as major influencing factors, this paper integrates panel quantile regression with cross-section quantile regression to study the major factors that influence the growth of family and individual income. The study shows that family income growth is significantly influenced by householder’s educational level, householder age, family size, household labor’s educational level, social capital, family property, natural environment and public goods, but insignificantly influenced by householder gender, and householder’s marital status. Besides, quantity of labor force and urban and rural division only exercise a significant influence on low-and middle-income families. Individual income growth is insignificantly related to householder condition, with family size only significantly influencing the income growth of middle-income family members, while urban and rural factors only significantly influencing income growth of middle-and low-income stratums. Meanwhile, family property is the strong support for income growth of family members. Educational level and age exert a significant influence on individual income growth, and besides, gender and marriage only significantly influence income growth of middle-income group, with the most profitable social capital contributed by governmental organs or public institutions.Seventh, based on the objects of poverty population, non-poverty population and different social stratums, this paper measures and decomposes inequity of human capital, political capital, natural capital and medical security. On this basis, this paper studies the opportunity equity of receiving higher education, working in government or public institution, and enjoying social security. The findings show that household human capital increases its balance, with social capital raising its inequity degree and medical security basically popularized. Meanwhile, inequity degree of higher education opportunity decreases, with inequity degree of working opportunity in government or public institutions increasing, and that of medical security opportunity substantially declining.According to the studies in this paper, first, Chinese economic development is required to carry out pro-poor growth strategy. Economic growth package policy shall cover vulnerable group, without ignoring income distribution in economic growth. For instance, government investment closely associated with vulnerable group shall lean towards vulnerable group. Second, it is necessary to achieve the economic development objective of non-destructive equitable growth. Economic development means non-destructive equitable growth. If such equity is measured by results, life quality indexes such as income level will be required to exclude inequity and system design should guarantee opportunity equity. Third, it is necessary to further employment equity so as to eliminate reinforced stratum barriers. Employment equity should be facilitated to remove stratum reinforcement by eliminating inequity of urban and rural employment, popularizing higher education, and balancing human capital. Fourth, household urbanization should be realized to remove inequity of natural environment. Urbanization must pay particular attention to natural environment, rather than simply adopt village as definition standard, and besides, it should give priority to the integral moving of families in hostile natural environment. Meanwhile, urbanization should highlight the cultivation of family’s viability and development ability, ensure their income by reducing their living cost, and then fundamentally achieve urbanized family life by replacing space with time. Now, Chinese education is shifting quantity inequity to quality inequity, facing severe quality inequity. The inequity of junior and senior high school has developed into inequity of good-quality higher education opportunity, because of which it is an urgent task to remove the inequity of educational quality in elementary school as well as junior and senior schools. Sixth, rural public goods and quasi-public goods should be provided in larger quantity so as to promote the sharing of public resources. When offering a greater number of rural public goods and quasi-public goods, emphasis must be put on the principle of reasonable planning and classified offering. According to economic development level of different rural areas, the most effective and key public goods and quasi-public goods for local economic development should be offered.This paper has made explorations in the following aspects. First, it studies the characteristics of China’s economic growth from the perspective of pro-poor growth. Second, with the expansion of research objects, this paper not only studies pro-poor growth of poverty and non-poverty population, but also makes a new exploration on pro-group nature of economic growth innovatively from the angle of social stratum to expand research perspective. Third, this paper innovatively measures pro-group growth and conduct effect decomposition, mainly including group growth curve, pro-group growth index and its effect decomposition. In the study of income growth factors, this paper integrates panel quantile regression with cross-section quantile regression to deeply and meticulously depict the significance level of different factors’ influence on different income growths, which has overcome the limitation that cross-section regression, categorical regression and co-integration analysis are only applied to mean regression. |
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