A Study Of The Empowerment Of The Urban Poor Family

The study object of this paper is the poor family with healthy labour force in SM District of Xiamen. Through the analyse of the family type and the empirical research of the empowerment of the poor family, this paper intends to research the shortage of the antipoverty policy. The study starts with the subjectivity of the poor family with healthy labour force, uses the Family Cycle Theory and the Empowerment Theory to anatomy the poor family. On one hand, it studies the main task and the main difficulty of the poor family in different phases of famiy cycles. On the other hand, it studies the empowerment situation of the poor family at the individual level, the level of interactions and the environmental level. Based on above, this paper discusses how the antipoverty policy can lead the poor family to achieve empowerment and go into the positive cycle.The data in the paper come from questionnaire investigations and interviews. The author chose three communities from the 97 communities of SM District as the survey subjects, and finally completed 246 available questionnaires and 39 case interviews of poor family, 13 case interviews or meeting records of the correlative community clerks and government officers.Through the empirical research, the author holds that the main shortage of the antipoverty policy in Xiamen lies in: Firstly, the policy cann't play the inspiriting role well, which weaken the effectiveness of the Minimum Living Standard System. Secondly, the supporting policies are lack of validity. For examples, the faultiness of the employment training system and difficulty access of small loan, the incorrect orientation of community employment service and the lack of the professional institution. So the policy should be adjusted and perfected at three levels, in order to contribute an active and reasonable policy supporting environment, which can not only help the poor family with different needs, but also promote the empowerment of the poor family. From the macroscopical perspective, we can introduce the idea of the Asset Building as an important supplement of the Minimum Living Standard System.According to the status quo of China, the form of the Asset Building should be diversified.From the intermediate perspective, we can establish prefect supporting policies. For examples, the policy aiming at the family in different phase of family cycle ,the effective employment training system, and the collectivity empowermentpromoted by the community and the policy support carried out to facilitate self-established business.From the microcosmic perspective, we can improve the'soft skills'of the poor and arrange social workers to mentally lift them out of poverty.The paper has the following characteristics: First, this paper sorts the poor family into different types according to the Famiy Cycle Theory, studies the main task and difficulty of poor family in different phase. Second, it starts with the subjectivity of the poor family. It Explores on their control over resources and ideology in empowerment , and their consciousness and action of changing the predicament of poor family. At last, this paper researches the poor family in a view of development. It studies the process of the effort made by the poor family to get rid of poverty.