| In the1990s, in order to ease the social impact of the economic transition and guarantee the basic livelihood of the laid off workers, the minimum living security system came into being, which built the last survival line of defense for urban residents. After almost twenty years of development, China’s new social assistance system with the minimum living security at the core is preliminarily formed. Meanwhile, China has already successfully stridden into middle income countries from a less developed, low income country with weak financial foundation. When the reform enters a higher stage, accumulative conflicts in the process of transition and social problems brought by economic development break out intensively, strongly hit the existing system of our country, so the reform is moving forward difficultly.Facing the unbalance of the interest distribution and urban poverty at the present stage, the social assistance system for relieving poverty is pushed to the forefront of system construction. Based on the above background, the thesis selects the minimum living security for urban residents as the research object, specially analyzes its reducing poverty and income redistribution effects. Overall, the thesis can be divided into five parts:The first part is the systematic illustration of theoretical foundation, emergence, development of social assistance system and properties, contents, functions of minimum living security system.The second part at first introduces the establishment and development about the minimum living security for urban residents in China, and then emphatically conducts policy analysis of targeting and minimum living security standard. When discussing the targeting of the minimum living security system for urban residents, the thesis uses discrete choice model to analyze what factors affect the probability of family to get the minimum living security. The results indicate that household heads with poor health, no spouse, sent down to the countryside, unemployment, medical services purchased by self, having many employed family members, low per capita disposable income of household before receiving minimum living security income, low estimated market value of the household durable goods, high per capita disposable income of the home city, living in the central or western region are the main factors which can increase the probability of households getting the minimum living security and also affect the targeting of the minimum living security.When analyzing the minimum living security standard, the thesis at first conducts empirical analysis of the determinants of the minimum living security standard. The test results show that in the eastern region, it is very sensitive to the average wage of the employed in urban units, government financial resources, CPI and demographic dependency ratio; in the central region, it is mainly affected by CPI; in the western region, government financial resources is the decisive factor of the minimum living security standard for urban residents.When evaluating the nominal minimum living security standard, the thesis finds that it increases year by year from2004to2011, with the average annual growth rate of9.60%; the nominal minimum living security standard of the eastern region is significantly higher than that of central and western regions, while its growth rate of central and western regions is higher than that of eastern region in most years. From the view of gap in the nominal minimum living security standard, the gap within the eastern region is the largest one, the gap within regions is slightly higher than that between regions.When evaluating the real minimum living security standard according to anti-poverty capacity, the thesis finds whether from the perspective of alleviating absolute poverty or relative poverty, the real minimum living security standard shows a significantly downward trend. The provinces with relatively strong reducing absolute and relative poverty capacity are mainly in the eastern region, the relatively weak are mainly in the central and western regions. The thesis also conducts comprehensive evaluation of the real minimum living security standard in the term of meeting social anti-poverty demand and minimum living security expenditure burdens. The conclusions are that the minimum living security standards of provinces such as Tibet, Jiangxi and Hebei, have relatively strong anti-poverty capacity and cause relatively heavy minimum living security expenditure burdens, these provinces need central government continually increasing financial input to the minimum living security; the minimum living security standards of provinces such as Gansu,Guangxi and Henan, not only have relatively weak anti-poverty capacity, but also impose relatively heavy minimum living security expenditure burdens, which to some extent hinders the minimum living security standard from improving, so the central government increasing financial transfer can help to relieve the problem; the minimum living security standards of provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian and Shanghai, have relatively weak anti-poverty capacity and place relatively light minimum living security expenditure burdens. If only these provinces adjust the the minimum living security to the living need of urban residents and economic growth, anti-poverty capacity of the minimum living security can be improved; the minimum living security standards of provinces such as Beijing, Tianjin and Zhejiang, not only have good anti-poverty capacity, but also lead to relatively light minimum living security expenditure burden, they have the probability of further improving the the minimum living security standard.The third part is the evaluation of policy effects. The thesis uses the urban part of Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP)2002and2007to calculate anti-poverty and income redistribution effects of the minimum living security for urban residents. On the whole, the policy is better at alleviating absolute poverty than relative poverty. Its target is to help the seriously poor families to relieve poverty, but not to lift them completely out of it. The results also show that although the minimum living security plays a role in narrowing the income gap to some extent, the effect is relatively weak, and the eastern region significantly lags behind the central and western regions in terms of using the policy to realize income redistribution.When calculating the reducing poverty effect of the minimum living security by region, the thesis finds that in2002, whether the absolute poverty line or the relative poverty line is applied, the province with the strongest relieving poverty capacity is Chongqing, the weakest are Beijing, Jiangsu, Henan and Sichuan. In2007, when the absolute poverty line is adopted, the provinces with the strongest relieving poverty capacity are Hubei and Sichuan, the weakest are Anhui and Chongqing; when the relative poverty line is adopted, the provinces with the strongest relieving poverty capacity are Henan, Hubei, Chongqing and Sichuan, the weakest are Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong. When calculating the reducing poverty effect of the minimum living security by family type, the thesis finds that in2002, in the term of absolute poverty reduction, female-headed households and households with three family members benefit most from the minimum living security, while in the term of relative poverty reduction, the households with disabled household heads and the households with unemployed household heads benefit most from the policy.In2007, for the absolute poverty reduction, the households with disabled household heads, single person households and households with elderly household heads benefit most from the policy; for the relative poverty reduction, the households with disabled household heads, single person households and households with unemployed household heads benefit most from the policy.Through calculating the income redistribution effects of the minimum living security by region, the results show that in2002, the minimum living security of Chongqing and Gansu in the western region have relatively strong income redistribution effect; the minimum living security of Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong in the eastern region have no significant income redistribution effect. In2007, the minimum living security of Hubei and Henan in the central region have relatively strong income redistribution effect; the minimum living security of Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu in the east region have relatively small income redistribution effect. Through calculating the income redistribution effects of the minimum living security by family type, the thesis finds that in2002, after the minimum living security is carried on, the income gap between households with disabled household heads, between households with unemployed household heads and between households with many people decrease larger. In2007, after the minimum living security is carried on, the income gap between households with disabled household heads, between single person households and between households with unemployed household heads decrease larger.The fourth part is policy simulation. Due to the minimum living security belongs to local policy, the thesis selects Tianjin as a case to conduct policy simulation. The results show that if only Tianjin realized minimum living security full cover, effective granting the minimum living security income, eliminating ineligible households at the existing minimum living security standard in2007and2008, urban absolute poverty in Tianjin would be completely eliminated. Although under the above conditions, moderately increasing security standards are not able to reduce relative poverty rate, but able to reduce the depth and strength of relative poverty and significantly improve income inequality.The fifth part is according to the research conclusions, from the aspects of identification of the security subjects, setting the minimum living security standard, the security funds supply, the management of security subjects and so on, to put forward policy recommendations for the future development of the minimum living security system for urban residents.The innovations of the thesis can be summarized as below:Firstly, the thesis uses multiply poverty lines to comprehensively calculate the reducing poverty effect of minimum living security system for urban residents in our country. The thesis finds that in recent years, the relieving poverty capacity of minimum living security has been improved significantly, but its target is to help the seriously poor families to relieve poverty, but not to lift them completely out of it; Secondly, the thesis uses multiply income distribution indices to comprehensively calculate the income distribution effect of minimum living security system for urban residents in our country. The results indicate that although the minimum living security plays a role in narrowing the income gap to some extent, the effect is very weak; Thirdly, the thesis selects Tianjin as a case and conducts microsimulations on the targeting and the minimum living security standard the two policy links. The thesis finds that under the condition of realizing the minimum living security full cover, effectively granting the minimum living security income, moderately improving security standards can bring the reducing poverty and income redistribution effects of minimum living security for urban residents into the most effective play. |
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