Evaluating The Effects Of Poverty Alleviation And Welfare Dependeney In The Subsistence Allowanee System For Rural Residents

Poverty has always been one of the most acute social problems during the process of China’s social and economic development. And the poverty in rural areas is particularly important for China, a country with a huge population of farmers. Since the reform and opening up, China’s rural poor population has significantly reduced. However, the poverty problem in China’s rural areas is still very grim. The subsistence allowance system for rural residents (SASRR hereafter), as Chinese government’s main anti-poverty policy and measure, bears a heavy responsibility to alleviate the poverty in rural areas. Therefore, in the prevailing circumstance, an empirical evaluation of SASRR proves to be the demand of realities and to be meaningful in policy.Drawing on the community data and adult data of China Family Panel Studies of 2010 (CFPS2010), the evaluation and analysis of SASRR are based side-effects model and conducted from the perspectives of village level and individual level respectively. The evaluation results of village level indicate that:Firstly, significant effects on poverty alleviation were found with the implementation of SASRR. However, the effects were mainly spotted in middle-western rural areas and those in eastern areas were rather limited. Secondly, the enhancement of the allowance standards for SASRR failed to exert significant influence on the poverty alleviation of eastern and middle-western rural areas. Thirdly, no significant time-effectiveness of SASRR existed on the poverty alleviation of eastern and middle-western rural areas. As for the evaluation results of individual level, on the one hand, compared with the senior recipients of SASRR, the junior suffered more significant welfare dependency; on the other hand, compared with the recipients of SASRR with higher education, those with lower education suffered more heavy welfare dependency. Besides, the evaluation results also reveal some other important influential factors on rural poverty alleviation.According to the policy evaluation results, corresponding suggestions are proposed from the inner-system and outer-system respectively. As far as SASRR is concerned, this thesis preliminarily redesigns the system from the perspective of relative deprivation. To be specific, for one thing, the consensus approach of relative deprivation is adopted in the definition of the target group for SASRR and the formulation of corresponding allowance standards for SASRR; for another, as for the implementation of SASRR, different rural areas should carry out the system according to their own developing situations of economy and society as well as financial conditions, the government at all levels are supposed to regulate and improve the qualification examination mechanism and enhance the propaganda and fulfilling degree of the system. Meanwhile, besides the system, it was suggested that the government should strengthen the combination between SASRR and its relevant supporting policies (including improving the human capital of the rural subsistence allowance recipients and providing them with more employment opportunities as well as vocational trainings), then on this basis establish a comprehensive policy system that involved different levels and fields, so that the rural poverty problems which obsess China’s economic and social development for a long time could be reduced and solved fundamentally.