Rural Labor Migration and Poverty Reduction in China

Using various sources of data, this paper examines the contributions of rural labor migration to economic growth and poverty reduction in China. The results show that there is still a significant number of people living in poverty in rural areas, while the effectiveness of migration on poverty reduction has declined, implying an urgent need for new approaches to poverty reduction. China's experiences could also be valuable for the formulation of development strategies in other developing countries.     

Building on Poor People's Capacities: The Case of Common Property Resources in India and West Africa

This article examines the relation between poor women and men and common property resources (cprs). It locates poor people's use of cprs within a wider focus on sustainable livelihoods, which argues that development initiatives need to build on people's assets and strengths, and identifies cprs as a crucial element of poor people's coping and adaptive strategies. The article considers evidence from India and West Africa with a particular focus on poverty reduction, equity, gender and management issues. Development agencies and governments which have re-focused their attention on poverty in recent years will find that cprs provide an entry point to understanding poor people's perceptions of poverty and for building on their capacities.     

克服农村文化贫困——社会主义和谐社会视角下的反贫困道路

文章通过对实践背景、理论背景和政策背景的分析揭示目前克服农村文化贫困的必要性，从文化理性的缺乏和对优秀传统文化的忽视两方面阐述了农村文化贫困的主要现状，强调文化因素对地区经济和社会发展的巨大反作用，主张文化贫困是造成经济贫困的重要原因，旨在通过对非经济贫困问题的深入探讨，找到和谐社会视角下农村反文化贫困的新途径。     

Migration and development in Mozambique: poverty,inequality and survival

Migration is many Mozambicans' preferred employment option (and sometimes last resort). Rural southern Mozambique, short of resources and traditionally less productive agriculturally than other regions of Mozambique, is now more developed and better off than other rural areas. An inter-regional analysis of the South, Centre and North of Mozambique demonstrates developmental differences largely attributable to labour migration (mainly to South Africa) and remittances. However, although migrant worker households, usually deficit agricultural producers largely dependent on migrant remittances, are often better off than non-migrant ones, many are still vulnerable to poverty. Migration has changed significantly over the last 15 years, with the eclipsing of mine migration and the increasing scarcity of jobs available to young Mozambicans. Despite the overall positive economic impact of migrant labour in southern Mozambique, as remittances decrease because earnings are lower and mechanisms for transfer are limited, its benefit may diminish.     

Poverty,gender and migrancy: Lesotho's migrant farmworkers in South Africa

During the 1990s, eastern Free State vegetable farmers increasingly relied on migrants from neighbouring Lesotho for seasonal labour. This coincided with a major downsizing of the mine labour force in South Africa, hitherto the major employer of Basotho migrant workers. However, there was no simple process of transfer of unemployed migrants from the mining to the farming sector; rather, decisions were mediated by domestic relationships and household poverty in Lesotho. Basotho women and girls have been a major casualty of mine retrenchments and the drying up of remittances, and those with domestic skills but little formal training have been forced into the labour market, mainly domestic work in towns and labour on farms. This article examines the Basotho migrants' experiences and conditions of employment, the regulatory environment within which they are recruited and employed, and their future in the context of changing immigration and migration legislation in South Africa.     

Poverty and Inequality in The Soeharto Era: An Assessment

This paper surveys the evidence on trends in poverty and inequality during the years of Soeharto's presidency. That Indonesia saw a decline in the incidence of poverty, and improvements in other welfare indicators such as infant mortality rates and literacy rates over these years, seems indisputable. Comparative studies show that by the latter part of the 1980s, the headcount measure of poverty in Indonesia was below that in the Philippines although above that in Malaysia and Thailand. But relative poverty has declined more slowly, and indeed increased in some urban areas between 1987 and 1996. The paper also examines evidence on the determinants of rural poverty in Indonesia in 1993, and suggests that rural development programs targeted to the specific needs of poor people in poor areas will be essential if rural poverty is to be further reduced in future years.     

Seebohm Rowntree and secondary poverty, 1899–19541

This article, focusing on Seebohm Rowntree's poverty surveys, considers the importance and durability of the concept of secondary poverty. It argues that secondary poverty was a central component of Rowntree's first survey of York, carried out in 1899, and in his lectures and writing in the Edwardian period. Moreover, secondary poverty remained an important feature of Rowntree's analysis during the interwar years and after the Second World War, and was adopted by other researchers in various ways. Although secondary poverty was not seriously examined in the published version of Rowntree's 1936 York survey, there is evidence that it was originally intended to feature, and it is clear that impressionistic evidence of poverty was gathered by Rowntree's investigators, as had been the case in 1899. Moreover, although it was completely expunged from the third survey of York, carried out by Rowntree and Lavers in 1950, a separate inquiry into secondary poverty was carried out in the early 1950s, with a number of prominent supporters. Subsequently, dissatisfaction with income‐based definitions and measurements of poverty allowed the concept of secondary poverty to continue to exercise an influence on the study of poverty in the postwar period.     

解决能力贫困是青海新农村建设的切入点

新农村建设是一项惠及亿万农民的世纪工程,其建设的长期性、艰巨性和复杂性,是由我国农村人口基数大、收入水平低、发展不平衡决定的.青海省作为西部经济欠发达省份的典型代表,新农村建设与经济发达的地区的新农村建设既不在一个起点上,也不可能达到同样的水平.青海省农村贫困的根源不是收入或消费的匮乏,而是由于教育、社会保障、健康和机会等方面的贫困而导致的“能力贫困“,新农村建设的切入点就是尽快解决农民的能力贫困问题.     

Exports, economic growth and the consolidation of peace in El Salvador

The pillars of inclusive growth in El Salvador have to be nontraditional export growth, investment, and government determination to reduce income inequality and poverty. This article analyzes the key obstacles to the development of a competitive and dynamic export sector: Dutch Disease driven by aid and remittances, a significant decline in real wages, and lack of productivity growth. Policies can and must focus on productivity growth rather than wage repression, in the pursuit of peace consolidation and long-term competitiveness.     

Revisiting the relationship between growth and poverty

The purpose of this article is to revisit the relationship between growth and poverty which was widely discussed during the sixties. In view of the renewed reliance on this mechanism during the eighties by the Reagan administration and a concomitant increase in the incidence of poverty, a revisit of the topic is relevant. A regression model similar to the previous studies, but expanded to capture the emerging issues during the eighties is estimated for the period 1964-1987. A simple variable coefficient model to capture the secular decline in the effectiveness of growth to reduce poverty is also estimated. It is found that over the sample period, growth and transfer payments had significant effects on poverty; but their effects have been diminished by changes in income distribution, family composition, and the decline of the manufacturing sector during the seventies and eighties. Another interesting finding is that the impact of growth on the incidence of poverty is race neutral.     

Seebohm Rowntree and the postwar poverty puzzle

In his third social survey of York carried out in 1950, Seebohm Rowntree reported a steep decline since 1936 of the percentage of households in poverty. He attributed the bulk of this decline to government welfare reforms enacted during and after the war. This article re‐examines the survivingrecords from the 1950 survey, using a revised poverty line and looking more closely at the measurement of income. It also re‐assesses the impact of welfare reforms on working‐class poverty, and finds that poverty in York was significantly higher, and the contribution of welfare reform substantially less, than was originally reported.     

Constructing migration: Infrastructure,poverty and development in KwaZulu‐Natal

Migration and population movement are probably the most neglected of the significant dynamics behind rural poverty in South Africa. Little is known about how people move from place to place, and much of what we thought we knew may be incorrect. In KwaZulu‐Natal job search is no longer the single dominating reason given for migration. Instead, infrastructure ties with it for first place today, with land close behind. The first article in this two‐part report notes that as many as two thirds of the province's disadvantaged families have broken away from their communities of origin and moved at least once during their lifetimes. Perhaps three million have migrated in the last fifteen years. A second unexpected finding is the predominance of rural‐to‐rural migration. Three quarters of all moves recorded were rural to rural, with many orientated towards advantaged rural areas around small towns and secondary cities. Results show how streams are channelled towards poverty or opportunity, and argue for a review of prevailing concepts of rural‐urban relations which structure delivery efforts. The second article, to follow later, notes that recorded income levels are now higher in some rural destination areas than in the urban shack communities that accommodate rural‐to‐urban migrants. Results of various studies presented show how access to information affects migration patterns, and the article also explores the role of infrastructure as a determining force in the regional distribution of population and as a factor in people's own bootstrap anti‐poverty efforts.     

Measurement of relative welfare poverty and its impact on happiness in China: Evidence from CGSS

Individual or household income has been the conventional yardstick of poverty. Presently, non-income factors are universally accepted as measures of poverty. Attention on the multiple dimensions of poverty and their policy implications has been growing in the past 20 years. However, few studies have analyzed relative multidimensional poverty, especially in China. Moreover, the relationship between relative welfare poverty and happiness has been rarely studied, particularly given that the decline of poverty seemed not bringing a significant increase in happiness in China. This research gap is noteworthy because enhancing the subjective well-being of the people is crucial to a nation's sustainable economic development. On the basis of the micro-level data from China General Social Survey, this study puts forward a welfare approach to analyzing the relative multidimensional poverty and then determines the link between relative welfare poverty and individual happiness. Our results show that 1) relative welfare poverty has not declined significantly and 2) there is a significantly happiness-reducing effect of relative welfare poverty.     

大理乳业发展现状及问题研究

作为大理州传统优势产业的乳业承担着稳定经济发展大局,促进农民收入,保障贫困户稳定脱贫的重要任务。首先对大理州乳业的现实发展状况进行了描述;然后分析了当前制约大理州乳业发展的影响因素;最后通过现状和问题的探讨,试图从完善奶牛良种繁育体系、提高技术创新能力、加大资金投入、强化政府支持力度、提升奶农环保意识、加强销售终端建设六个方面提出促进大理州乳产业健康发展的对策建议。     

The financing of rural producer co‐operatives: A case study

The article attempts to address the lack of empirical data in literature on South African producer co‐operatives. A detailed analysis of the financial results of a rural producer cooperative over a twelve‐year period is used to evaluate the project's start‐up phase and long‐term viability. The results generally expose weaknesses well documented in the international literature. Due to the poverty of the membership, the co‐operative was dependent on loans for its foundation. In the long run, the co‐operative survived, increasing not only the number of members, but also their wages. It has been weakened, however, by a lack of reinvested earnings, which was due to repeated withdrawals of revenues as wages and slow‐growing sales due to a lack of marketing effort.     

Feminisation of poverty among the street homeless women in South Africa

This article gives an overview of poverty, deprivation and homelessness as a social ill that is eating deep into the society's fabric. It affirms that these concepts are inextricably linked, illustrating this with the case of the street homeless women. Furthermore, it describes the characteristics of street homeless women in Johannesburg inner city and their perception of poverty. It also describes the survival strategies adopted by these women on the streets. The article also illustrates that street homeless women suffer most from unprecedented population growth, high levels of poverty, homelessness, illiteracy and unemployment. They form part of the largest group of the poorly sheltered population. The street homeless women in particular constitute a population at risk, especially when the nature of their homelessness is concealed. The article suggests it might be appropriate to give special attention to the poorest segment of the population, which includes the street homeless women. They must be made to participate fully and equally in policies and strategies to alleviate poverty.     

A poverty indicator system for local government

This article looks at the implications of using indicators (such as poverty levels, housing levels, access to services, employment rates, etc.) as part of a democratic and accountable process of local governance. It is argued that underlying the advocacy of particular indicators of poverty are different models of poverty and of governance. Some popular schools of thought on poverty are examined in terms of both models and measurement (indicators). A framework is proposed for developing indicators, and a set of housing indicators inspired by the United Nations' Urban Indicators Programme is considered using this framework. It is suggested that the current approach to developing indicators in South Africa is not integrated or coherent because it lacks grounding in an explicit and defensible model of poverty.     

The level of poverty in South Africa: Consideration of an experiential measure

Poverty is usually measured on a basis that is either subjective (respondent's perceptions) or objective (relating to some externally set standard). This article draws on an ‘experiential’ measure of poverty in which respondents with children report on whether or not they have had sufficient money to feed their children. Data from South Africa's 1994 October Household Survey showed that this and other measures revealed similar levels of poverty. However, the picture drawn of the social distribution of poverty suggests a higher incidence amongst those in squatter settlements and a lower incidence in rural areas.     

Urban–Rural Differences in Costs of Living and Their Impact on Poverty Measures

This note demonstrates empirically the importance of urban-rural price differences and inflation figures in poverty analysis. Using data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Survei Sosial Ekonomi Nasional, widely known as Susenas), it shows that the urban-rural food price differential during the period 1987–96 was 13–16%, not 28–52% as impli by the ‘official’ food poverty lines. The urban–rural poverty comparisons and the components of change in simulated poverty estimates presented here therefore differ from those based on the ‘official’ figures. They indicate that migration to urban areas between 1987 and 1996 accounts for a significant part of the observed decline in poverty. The paper concludes that it is essential to use accurate urban–rural cost of living differences in deriving aggregate, urban and rural poverty estimates.