| Poverty means far more than simply not having enough money for minimal survival needs. It means the "denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development - to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and respect from others."Therefore, poverty affects all aspects of the nation's life. It affects the environment, health, education, housing, nutrition and agriculture to name but a few areas.Poverty is a complex phenomenon and persistent, hard to solve. The Government of China's efforts to stimulate economic growth have focused mainly on the productivity of its enormous rural population since 1978. Today, the growth of china's economy is going year by year very fast. In addition, China has complied an impressive record in reducing human poverty over the last four and half decades through the adoption of a broad program of rural economic reforms. Broad participation in the subsequent reform- driven economic growth, together with a "well-funded national reduction program" have brought about a tremendous reduction in the rural absolute poverty.Despite China's strong and sustained economic growth, poverty is still widespread, especially in remote rural areas.In this paper, we analyze the poverty issue and its determinants based on evidence from Hubei Province. As a large province, we use a case study of two villages named Zhou Long and Liu Xiang at HongAn County.This research is divided into four parts; we first explain the concept of poverty, secondly we describe and analyze china's rural poverty by focusing on its general characteristics, review its poverty strategies and its impacts, thirdly, talk about poverty in rural Hubei Province and give examples of two villages mentioned above. Finally we conclude and give some recommendations.Analyzing the poverty issues in the villages of Zhou Long and Liu Xiang, we notice that farming and somehow family business are the major sources of household income. For these poor peasants household there is a higher percentage of farming and family business, and lower percentage of non-family business. But there is a paradox in these two villages; we notice that there is a high proportion of the male adult who has worked outside. Therefore, the amount of labor wage and business income should definitely influence positively the situation of these poor people. Meanwhile, there is a very obvious correlation among educational level of the farmers, their average annual household income and occurrence rate of poverty. The families spent lot of money for supporting child education, but they have big problems to contribute because their income can't cover all the schooling expenses, because they have to satisfy other basic needs such as food health and their income is too limited. As consequence, many children have a little chance to attend school. Geographic conditions in this area are an obstacle for economic development. These conditions make villagers difficult to access to exchange of commodities and to obtain technology information somehow. Finally, among villagers investigated, the general health of farmers was found to be serious because some are confined unable to work for several months, therefore, people suffering from serious illness have effect on their farming activities and their business.China's major concern is the disparity between rural an urban, and between East and West. Improving the quality of life and reducing poverty in rural society are the government priorities. Raising rural living standards is likely to require efforts on a number of fronts: relieving the financial burdens on farmers; stimulating farmers' entrepreneurial spirit through incentives, improving land use and labor efficiency... |
PDF Full Text Request