A Cross-regional Study On The Changes Of Poverty In Rural China And Its Policy Preference

Both of the population of extreme poverty and poverty incidence in rural China has greatly reduced since the reform and open policy put into practice. However, the rapid of the proportions of the poverty alleviation has been slower and slower since the mid 1990s and the size of extreme poverty was lager all the same; on the other hand, some researches on poverty in existing argue that the poverty depth and poverty severity, which respectively measures severity of average poverty among the poor and the inequality of income distribution within the poor, has been deteriorated since 1985.Chinese government applies nothing but poverty incidence to measure the poverty; however, poverty incidence could only show the proportion of the poverty, but could not reflect how poor the people blow the poverty line and what the income distribution looks like within the poor. Meanwhile, on condition that poverty incidence continues to be used as the only way to measure poverty, the local governments, considering the political achievement in his post, usually choose the antipoverty policy that is benefit for the poor near the poverty line, which could not be good for the dog-poor at all and conflict with the policy of "to build a harmonious socialist society" that Chinese government is make efforts on. Therefore, in order to make benefits to the all the poor especially dog-poor, poverty depth and poverty severity should also be considered.It has turned out that general economy growth greatly affected poverty alleviation in China, and government antipoverty investment did not work remarkably. The economy growth in rural China includes the development of agricultural industry and the development of non-agricultural industry, and rural economic growth and policy affect the poverty measures through non-farm income and farm income. Besides, each area has its own special gift of agriculture recourses and rural labor force transferring, which results in the differences of non-farm income and farm income and different affects on poverty in different areas.According to two characters of poor provinces-the gift of agricultural recourses per capita and the transfer quantity of rural labor force, this study will choose two representative samples as research object, one is that own plenty of the gift of agricultural recourses per capita, such as Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Hebei, and the one own lack of the gift of agricultural recourses per capita, such as Yunnan, Shanxi and Hunan; the other is that one has large transferring rural labor force, such as Henan, Anhui and Hunan, and the one that has small transferring rural labor force, such as Yunnan, Shanxi and Heilongjiang. This study employs poverty incidence, poverty depth and poverty severity to measure rural poverty from 1985 to 2003, and analyses poverty changes in sections and time serial and the farm income and non-farm income affect on poverty. The conclusion of this study is as follows: (1) the poverty incidence of the nine provinces from 1985 to 2003 declines smartly, but by the end of the mid 1990s, has decline more slowly; meanwhile, poverty depth and poverty severity has been deteriorated year by year. (2) Farm income makes the poverty incidence, poverty depth and poverty severity better-off. Comparing with the areas that own plenty of agricultural recourses per capita and lager population of transferring rural labor force, the areas the own poor agricultural recourses per capita and small population of transferring rural labor force are more dependent to agriculture development to make the poverty better-off. (3)In the areas with plenty of agricultural recourses per capita, non-farm income induces poverty incidence decline and does not work to poverty depth and poverty severity, while in the areas with poor agricultural recourses per capita, it makes poverty incidence reducing and poverty depth and poverty severity deteriorated. The same thing happens accordingly in the areas with lager population of transferring rural labor force and the ones with small population of transferring rural labor force.