Poverty concentration and determinants in low-income neighbourhoods and social groups in Chinese large cities

Abstract

<p>Based on a large-scale house hold survey conducted in 2007, this paper reports on a study into poverty concentration and determinants in China's low-income neighbourhoods and social groups. Three types of low-income neighbourhood are recognized : dilapidated inner city neighbourhoods, declining workers' villages, and urban villages. Respondents are grouped into four categories: working urban residents, laid-off/unemployed urban residents, retired urban residents,and rural migrants. Firstly, this study applies the FGT(Foster,Greer,Thorbeck) index to measure poverty concentration across different types of neighbourhood and different groups. The highest poverty concentration is found in dilapidated inner city neighbourhoods and the laid-off/unemployed group which endure multiple disadvantages. Meanwhile, mismatches between actual hard ships, sense of deprivation, and distribution of social welfare provision are found. Second, we ran logistic regression models to analyze the association between poverty generation and varioud explanatory variables, and thus examine poverty determinants in different neighbourhoods and groups.Variations in institutional protection and market remuneration are becoming equally important in predicting poverty generation, and these are differently associated with poverty generation in different kinds of neighbourhoods and groups. As China's urban economy is increasingly shaped by markets, the mechanism of market remuneration is becoming a more important determinant of poverty patterns, especially for people who are eliminated or excluded from state institutions, notably, laid-off workers and rural migrants.</p>

基于2007年在中国6个大城市开展的大规模家庭户调查，采用FGT指数法和逻辑回归分析方法，探讨中国大城市低收入邻里及其居民的贫困集聚程度和决定因素。研究发现，老城衰败邻里的贫困集聚度最高，同时承受多重不利状况的下岗/失业人员的贫困集聚度也是最高；事实贫困、被剥夺感与社会福利分配之间存在不匹配现象。在贫困的决定因素方面，制度保障和市场薪酬对城市贫困的发生具有同等重要的作用，但对不同低收入邻里和不同社会群体又表现出不同的关联性。随着市场作用的加强，市场薪酬机制正在成为贫困产生的更为重要的决定性因素。