9781464818783

9781464818776

Front Cover

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Executive Summary

Abbreviations

1 Introduction

Context

Notes

References

2 Forty Years of Rural Poverty Reduction

Introduction

What drove poverty reduction in China?

Notes

References

3 Drivers of China's Economic Transformation and Poverty Reduction

Introduction

Growing agricultural productivity: Higher incomes and more choices

Progressive industrialization: Better jobs for more people

Managed urbanization: Multiple gains for migrants and nonmigrant rural families, but persistent inequality of opportunities

Expanded infrastructure investment: Improved connectivity and job creation for the poor

Notes

References

4 Poverty Alleviation Strategies

Introduction

Area-based poverty alleviation strategies

Social protection policies

Targeted poverty alleviation strategy

Notes

References

5 Implications of China's Poverty Reduction

China's approach to poverty reduction in a global context

References

6 The Way Ahead

Introduction

New drivers of growth and poverty reduction

Defining new standards and policy objectives for a prosperous China

Coordinating pro-poor development policies and social protection programs

Notes

References

7 Conclusions

Concluding remarks

References

Appendix A: Key Household Surveys

Boxes

Box 3.1 Agricultural technology extension for poverty reduction: Promoting mulch film in Guyuan

Box 3.2 Upgrading skills through learning by doing: How Mr. Xie Dewu set up his own valve-making company in Yongjia

Box 4.1 The evolution of poverty targeting: How China used international expertise

Box 4.2 Human resources and incentives for targeted poverty alleviation.

Box 4.3 East-West collaboration from the perspective of a poverty-stricken district in Ningxia Autonomous Region

Box 4.4 How digital technologies were leveraged for targeted poverty alleviation

Box 5.1 China's poverty reduction policies as a case study in pro-poor governance

Figures

Figure ES.1 The two pillars of China's approach to poverty reduction

Figure 1.1 Poverty reduction in China over the past 40 years based on the 2010 poverty standard

Figure 1.2 China accounts for almost three-quarters of global extreme poverty reduction since 1981: Poverty headcount based on the international poverty line, 1981-2017

Figure 2.1 Rapid economic growth drove poverty reduction

Figure 2.2 Drivers of rural poverty reduction, 1988-2018

Figure 3.1 Rapid and sustained economic growth in China came about with fast economic transformation, 1978-2018

Figure 3.2 Labor productivity, particularly from industry, drove high economic growth, 1995-2018

Figure 3.3 Employment and productivity of manufacturing, 1978-2001

Figure 3.4 Workers benefited from the diversification of jobs and the expansion of wage employment, 1998-2013

Figure 3.5 Wage gaps between urban and rural areas narrowed, suggesting that China reached the Lewis tipping point around 2007

Figure 3.6 Urbanization in China followed a similar pattern as other fast-growing economies, 1960-2019

Figure 3.7 Migration has increased consistently over time, as have migrant earnings as a share of total household income, 1993-2017

Figure 3.8 "Floating" populations' income per month

Figure 3.9 Infrastructure investment grew steadily beginning in the early 1990s

Figure 4.1 Central and provincial Anti-Poverty Fund allocations, 2001-20

Tables

Table 2.1 Poverty reduction between 1978 and 2019.

Table 4.1 Main social protection programs in rural and urban China, 2019 or latest available data

Table 4.2 Share of registered poor households achieving "three guarantees" and safe drinking water.