| Poverty remains a problem that concerns scholars in modern society. Even though it's to some extent acceptable that a large population was extremely destitute due to the harsh exploitation by salve-holders, landlords and capitalists, it seems more unreasonable that poverty still exist in socialistic countries. If the poverty in socialistic countries was a temporary issue resulting from inadequate and laggard social and economical development, then why are we having more impoverished population after the remarkable economical development during the past twenty years? Partly from this, we can learn that the success of economic increase will not naturally bring about social development, and the market economy itself will not eliminate poverty, nor does it leads to social justice and social equality, which constitute the footstone of fully development. Therefore, my thesis is under the recognition of that poverty is not simply an economic issue, but also a social problem. The study of poverty will definitely need the joint effort among economists, anthropologists and sociologists.Urban anthropology has the long interest in the various problems presented in urban lives, and has the commitment to uphold the voices from the disadvantaged groups in the hope of facilitating a better life of the people and a better future of the cities as a whole. Since 1990s, we could witness a explosion of impoverished groups, which are consist of the unemployed, laid-offs, as well as their dependants. In 1995, the policy of the lowest living's guarantee was built up timely and extended to the whole county in order to function as the last protection for the poor residences in urban areas. And this policy has a crucial role in maintaining the basic life of people and the stability of the society. After nearly ten years implementing, when we carefully examine the policy and it's effects, especially from the perspective of anthropology, we may acquire a deeper understanding about poverty and have more constructive suggestion on the improvement of the policy of the lowest living's guarantee.The starting point of my thesis is the analysis of age distribution on the urban poverty groups and I found that the poor has the inclination to concentrate on the middle age or old-age populations. By displaying these people's life condition, social status and the reasons for both, I suggest that poverty is not only theeconomic and material deficiency, but also the lacking of capability and social support network. From this point of view, I propose that the implementation of the policy of the lowest living's guarantee, which is formulated under the concept of supporting and compensation, cannot fully solve the problem of poverty. It may just touch the surface of the problem but far less an effective way to resolve the problem. What's more, the policy even facing various difficulties in fulfilling its objectives. Therefore, in my opinion, to better solve the problem of poverty, it's not sufficient to merely care about the economic factors and provide the lowest living's guarantee for the urban poor. We need to pay more attention on attitude building. That is to say, the government officials and other citizens should have a more neutral and equal attitude towards the people living in poverty, which means they should never discriminate but regards the protection by the policy of lowest living's guarantee as the human right for each people needed. More importantly, the impoverished people also need to correct their attitude too. They are given rights, but also bear their commitment to society. Only by doing these, can they win the respect of others. If a good culture in the society can be formed in which unity, friendliness, reciprocity and hard working is prevailed, poverty will collapse of itself.This paper employs the traditional anthropological methods such as participational observation as well as deeply interview and integrates the qualitative, quantitative and documentation analysis, which all in an effort to make so... |
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