IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qss/dqsswp/2101.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Dynamics of Relative Poverty in China in a Comparative Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Tak Wing Chan

    (Social Research Institute, University College London)

Abstract

I use household panel data to study the dynamics of relative poverty in China, Germany, the UK, and the US. Compared to the three Western countries, not only is relative poverty more common in China, it is also deeper and more severe. Transient poverty accounts for less than half of the total poverty in Germany or the US, but about two thirds of that in China or the UK. Over three waves, 87 percent of Germans, 78 percent of Brits, 71 percent of Americans, but only 46 percent of Chinese were never poor. Using a multinomial logistic regression model, the determinants of poverty are found to be very similar across the four countries. But the variance explained of that model is much smaller for China than for the three Western countries. The results also raise questions about some regularities reported in previous research on poverty dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Tak Wing Chan, 2021. "The Dynamics of Relative Poverty in China in a Comparative Perspective," DoQSS Working Papers 21-01, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    • Handle: RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.ioe.ac.uk/REPEc/pdf/qsswp2101.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Du, Yang & Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui, 2005. "Migration and rural poverty in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 688-709, December.
    2. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    3. Jantti, Markus & Danziger, Sheldon, 2000. "Income poverty in advanced countries," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 309-378, Elsevier.
    4. Zhang, Chunni & Xu, Qi & Zhou, Xiang & Zhang, Xiaobo & Xie, Yu, 2014. "Are poverty rates underestimated in China? New evidence from four recent surveys," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 410-425.
    5. Jenkins, Stephen P., 2011. "Changing Fortunes: Income Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Britain," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199226436, Decembrie.
    6. Ravallion, Martin, 2016. "The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190212773, Decembrie.
    7. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Xia, Qingjie, 2014. "Understanding Urban Wage Inequality in China 1988–2008: Evidence from Quantile Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-13.
    8. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Xia, Qingjie, 2010. "Growing out of Poverty: Trends and Patterns of Urban Poverty in China 1988-2002," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 665-678, May.
    9. Peter Gottschalk & Robert Moffitt, 2009. "The Rising Instability of U.S. Earnings," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 3-24, Fall.
    10. Mary Jo Bane & David T. Ellwood, 1986. "Slipping into and out of Poverty: The Dynamics of Spells," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-23.
    11. Duncan, Greg J & Gustafsson, Bjorn & Hauser, Richard & Schmauss, Gunther & Messinger, Hans & Muffels, Ruud & Nolan, Brian, 1993. "Poverty Dynamics in Eight Countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 6(3), pages 215-234.
    12. Li,Shi & Sato,Hiroshi & Sicular,Terry (ed.), 2013. "Rising Inequality in China," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107002913.
    13. Xin Meng & Robert Gregory & Guanhua Wan, 2007. "Urban Poverty In China And Its Contributing Factors, 1986–2000," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(1), pages 167-189, March.
    14. Jyotsna Jalan & Martin Ravallion, 2000. "Is transient poverty different? Evidence for rural China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 82-99.
    15. Atkinson, Anthony B., 2015. "Inequality: what can be done?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101810, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Robert G. Valletta, 2006. "The Ins And Outs Of Poverty In Advanced Economies: Government Policy And Poverty Dynamics In Canada, Germany, Great Britain, And The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(2), pages 261-284, June.
    17. Park, Albert & Wang, Dewen, 2010. "Migration and Urban Poverty and Inequality in China," IZA Discussion Papers 4877, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Björn Gustafsson & Ding Sai, 2009. "Temporary And Persistent Poverty Among Ethnic Minorities And The Majority In Rural China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(s1), pages 588-606, July.
    19. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 1998. "Transient Poverty in Postreform Rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 338-357, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2021. "Reconciling the conflicting narratives on poverty in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    3. Glauben, Thomas & Herzfeld, Thomas & Rozelle, Scott & Wang, Xiaobing, 2012. "Persistent Poverty in Rural China: Where, Why, and How to Escape?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 784-795.
    4. Henrietta A. Asiamah, 2021. "Childhood Chronic Poverty Estimations: Looking Beyond a Count Index," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(1), pages 185-215, February.
    5. Iryna Kyzyma, 2020. "How Poor Are the Poor? Looking beyond the Binary Measure of Income Poverty," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(4), pages 525-549, December.
    6. Iryna Kyzyma & Donald R. Williams, 2017. "Public cash transfers and poverty dynamics in Europe," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 485-524, March.
    7. Zhang, Yumei & Filipski, Mateusz & Chen, Kevin & Diao, Xinshen, 2014. "Poverty Exit and Entry in Poor Villages in China," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 173100, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Katsushi S. Imai & Jing You, 2011. "Poverty Dynamics of Households in Rural China: Identifying Multiple Pathways for Poverty Transition," Discussion Paper Series DP2011-35, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    9. Yingfeng Fang & Fen Zhang, 2021. "The Future Path To China’s Poverty Reduction—Dynamic Decomposition Analysis With The Evolution Of China’s Poverty Reduction Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 507-538, December.
    10. Nicolai Suppa, 2018. "Transitions in poverty and its deprivations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(2), pages 235-258, August.
    11. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    12. Maria Emma Santos, 2012. "Measuring Chronic Poverty," OPHI Working Papers 52, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    13. Christophe Muller, 2008. "The Measurement Of Poverty With Geographical And Intertemporal Price Dispersion: Evidence From Rwanda," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(1), pages 27-49, March.
    14. Ward, Patrick S., 2016. "Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty: An Empirical Analysis Using a Balanced Panel from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 541-553.
    15. Kanbur, Ravi & Wang, Yue & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2021. "The great Chinese inequality turnaround," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 467-482.
    16. Bayudan-Dacuycuy, Connie & Lim, Joseph Anthony, 2013. "Family size, household shocks and chronic and transient poverty in the Philippines," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 101-112.
    17. Carlos Gradín & Coral Del Río & Olga Cantó, 2012. "Measuring Poverty Accounting For Time," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(2), pages 330-354, June.
    18. Nicolai Suppa, 2017. "Transitions in Poverty and Deprivations: An Analysis of Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 894, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    19. Elena Bárcena Martín & Frank A. Cowell, 2006. "Static and Dynamic Poverty in Spain, 1993-2000," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 179(4), pages 51-77, September.
    20. Rafael Perez Ribas & Ana Flávia Machado, 2007. "Distinguishing Chronic Poverty from Transient Poverty in Brazil: Developing a Model for Pseudo-Panel Data," Working Papers 36, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    relative poverty; panel data; cross-national comparison; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dr Neus Bover Fonts (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dqioeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.