Study On Social Assistance For Rural Vulnerable Groups In Our Country

By the end of 2006, there are 21.48 million people living in absolute poverty and 35.5 million low-income residents in China's rural areas, which constitute the main rural vulnerable groups in our country. As special social groups in China's economic and social transition period, rural vulnerable groups are living in extreme poverty, lack of competitiveness, and lying at the bottom of the rural community. As the basis of rural social security system, rural social assistance plays an important and irreplaceable role in the protection of the basic survival and development of vulnerable groups in rural areas. However, there are many problems in relief funds, relief items, rescue system and legislative aspect of the existing rural social relief system, which can not supply effective relief to vulnerable groups in rural areas. How to improve rural social relief to play a better role in the final safety net protection is of great significance in the protection of the basic living of vulnerable groups in rural areas, narrowing the income gap and improving the social security system in rural areas.This paper analyzes the problem of rural social assistance in our country in terms of economics. First of all, it defines the concepts of vulnerable groups and social assistance; clarifies the related researches in China and introduces the mature social relief system in developed countries and also indicates its own structure and innovative ideas. Following this, the paper discusses the problem of the need for social assistance of vulnerable groups in rural areas from the development of the market economy, narrowing the income gap and the improvement of the social security system in rural areas. Then it analyzes the current situation of social relief for vulnerable groups in rural areas and lists the present problems in rural social relief system. And it analyzes the corresponding reasons in-depth. Finally, it raises a number of policy recommendations to perfect China's rural social relief for vulnerable groups from five aspects, including the safeguarding of sources of funds, standardizing minimum livelihood guarantee system, adjustment of poverty alleviation strategies, improvement of special relief and the strengthening of legislation. The innovation of this paper lies in: First, previous studies focused mainly on social relief system itself, ignoring research on the main targets of social assistance—vulnerable groups. Starting with vulnerable groups in rural areas, the thesis analyzes problems in the exiting relief projects carried out in-depth on the basis of the analysis of the composition and characteristics of vulnerable groups in rural areas. Also, it raises related policy recommendations from the point of how to supply effective assistance to rural vulnerable groups. Second, this paper brings poverty alleviation and development into the category of rural social relief, expanding the meaning of rural social assistance. It regards China's rural poverty alleviation and development as a positive social assistance project, which is complementary to rural minimum livelihood guarantee system and is a major important and difficult item in China's rural social relief. On this basis, the paper makes a more detailed analysis of the adjustment on poverty alleviation strategies and the improvement of poverty alleviation methods.