IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/chinae/v30y2022i1p82-105.html

Exploring China's Potential Child Poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Yangyang Shen
  • Sabina Alkire

Abstract

This paper estimates child poverty in China using 2018 data from the China Household Income Project. Applying the Alkire–Foster drawer approach, we constructed a multidimensional poverty indicator system that accounted for multiple factors contributing to a child's development and well‐being, based on which we estimated multidimensional poverty experienced by children. Children's poverty varied by age, gender, rural/urban settings, and geographic region. By extending the Alkire–Foster drawer approach, two important features of child poverty in China were found, which had normally been neglected by per capita poverty measures: poor children in nonpoor families and unequal allocations to different children within the same families. The results showed that more than 40 percent of multidimensionally poor children lived in nonpoor families. Unequal resource allocation within families was observed in half of the families. These two features of child poverty require more policy attention and the Chinese government should prioritize addre ssing multidimensional child poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Yangyang Shen & Sabina Alkire, 2022. "Exploring China's Potential Child Poverty," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(1), pages 82-105, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:30:y:2022:i:1:p:82-105
    DOI: 10.1111/cwe.12406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12406
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/cwe.12406?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nancy Qian, 2008. "Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China: The Effect of Sex-Specific Earnings on Sex Imbalance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1251-1285.
    2. Sabina Alkire, Rizwan Ul Haq, Abdul Alim, 2019. "The State of Multidimensional Child Poverty in South Asia: A Contextual and Gendered View," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp127_vs2.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    3. Sabina Alkire, James E. Foster, Suman Seth, Maria Emma Santos, Jose M. Roche and Paola Ballon, 2015. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis: Chapter 9 - Distribution and Dynamics," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp090_ch9.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    4. Sabina Alkire, James E. Foster, Suman Seth, Maria Emma Santos, José M. Roche and Paola Ballon, 2015. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis: Chapter 7 - Data and Analysis," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp088_ch7.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    5. Andy Sumner & Christopher Hoy & Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez, 2020. "Estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on global poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-43, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp127 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp090 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sabina Alkire, James E. Foster, Suman Seth, Maria Emma Santos, José M. Roche and Paola Ballon, 2015. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis: Chapter 2 - The Framework," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp083_ch2.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    9. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp088 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Sabina Alkire and James Foster, 2019. "The Role of Inequality in Poverty Measurement," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp126.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    11. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp126 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Alkire, Sabina & Foster, James, 2011. "Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 476-487, August.
    13. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp083 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    15. Di Qi & Yichao Wu, 2019. "Comparing the Extent and Levels of Child Poverty by the Income and Multidimensional Deprivation Approach in China," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(2), pages 627-645, April.
    16. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp119 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Alkire, Sabina & Foster, James & Seth, Suman & Santos, Maria Emma & Roche, Jose Manuel & Ballon, Paola, 2015. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199689491.
    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. Jhonatan Clausen & Nicolas Barrantes & Carolina Trivelli & Fabio Salas, 2025. "Evaluating Poverty in all its Forms and Dimensions: Monetary, Multidimensional, and Subjective Poverty in Peru," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 861-893, September.
    2. Khaufelo Raymond Lekobane & Keetie Roelen, 2020. "Leaving No One Behind: Multidimensional Child Poverty in Botswana," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(6), pages 2003-2030, December.
    3. Alkire, Sabina & Oldiges, Christian & Kanagaratnam, Usha, 2021. "Examining multidimensional poverty reduction in India 2005/6–2015/16: Insights and oversights of the headcount ratio," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    4. Nicolai Suppa & Sabina Alkire & Ricardo Nogales, 2023. "The many forms of poverty: Analyses of deprivation interlinkages in the developing world," IREA Working Papers 202321, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Dec 2023.
    5. Sophie Scharlin-Pettee & Yeshwas Admasu & Sabina Alkire, 2024. "Multidimensional Poverty, Gender, and Forced Displacement: A Multi-Country, Intrahousehold Analysis in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(12), pages 1852-1878, December.
    6. Rodrigo García Arancibia & Ignacio Girela, 2024. "Graphical Representation of Multidimensional Poverty: Insights for Index Construction and Policy Making," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 172(2), pages 595-634, March.
    7. Bao, Yanxi & Liao, Tingxuan, 2024. "Multidimensional poverty and growth: Evidence from India 1998–2021," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    8. Pinaki Das & Bibek Paria & Shama Firdaush, 2021. "Juxtaposing Consumption Poverty and Multidimensional Poverty: A Study in Indian Context," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(2), pages 469-501, January.
    9. Gaurav Datt, 2019. "Multidimensional poverty in the Philippines, 2004–2013: How much do choices for weighting, identification and aggregation matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1103-1128, October.
    10. Najam, Zaira, 2020. "The Sensitivity of Poverty Trends to Dimensionality and Distribution Sensitivity in Poverty Measures - District Level Analysis for Pakistan," MPRA Paper 102383, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Cecilia Njoroge & Anja Smith & Marisa von Fintel, 2024. "Inequalities in Water Insecurity in Kenya: A Multidimensional Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 171-193, October.
    12. Rodrigo García Arancibia & Ignacio Girela & Daniela Agostina Gonzalez, 2025. "Global Multidimensional Poverty Prediction using World Development Indicators," Working Papers 350, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    13. Shatakshee Dhongde & Robert Haveman, 2022. "Spatial and Temporal Trends in Multidimensional Poverty in the United States over the Last Decade," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 447-472, August.
    14. Sabina Alkire, 2016. "Measures of Human Development: Key Concepts and Properties," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp107.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    15. Alkire, Sabina & Nogales, Ricardo & Quinn, Natalie Naïri & Suppa, Nicolai, 2023. "On track or not? Projecting the global Multidimensional Poverty Index," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    16. Gallardo, Mauricio, 2022. "Measuring vulnerability to multidimensional poverty with Bayesian network classifiers," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 492-512.
    17. Nick Bailey & Anne-Catherine Guio, 2022. "Adaptive Deprivation Scales in a Multi-National Context: The European Child Deprivation Indicators," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(6), pages 2335-2362, December.
    18. Khaufelo Raymond Lekobane, 2022. "Leaving No One Behind: An Individual-Level Approach to Measuring Multidimensional Poverty in Botswana," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 179-208, July.
    19. Jalandhar Pradhan & Soumen Ray & Monika O Nielsen & Himanshu, 2022. "Prevalence and correlates of multidimensional child poverty in India during 2015–2021: A multilevel analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(12), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Na Li & Mang He, 2024. "Feminization of poverty: an analysis of multidimensional poverty among rural women in China," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, December.

    More about this item

    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:bla:chinae:v:30:y:2022:i:1:p:82-105. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwepacn.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.