Research On The China’s Multidimensional Relative Poverty Based On Feasible Capability Theory

Poverty governance is one of the most prominent global issues,and to eliminate poverty is the common vision and goal of the international community.At this stage,the imbalance of development between urban and rural areas in China is still prominent,and there is a long way to establish a long-term governance mechanism for relative poverty.In the new era,China’s social contradictions have been transformed from solving the growing "material and cultural needs" of the people to solving the "need for a better life",from solving the "backward social production" problem to solving the "imbalanced and inadequate development" problem.Multidimensional relative poverty is an important manifestation of imbalanced and inadequate development.Under this background,the development-oriented poverty relief works in the new era ought to focus on solving the multidimensional relative poverty problem,comprehensively interpreting and grasping the people’s needs for a better life from a multidimensional perspective,and focus on the development ability of individuals with the overall improvement of the welfare level.Then,how should we scientifically build the identification criteria and measurement system of China’s multidimensional relative poverty? What is the actual situation of multidimensional relative poverty in China? What are the main causes of poverty and related influencing factors? And how to formulate an effective multi-dimensional relative poverty governance path? This study focuses on the above issues to carry out in-depth discussions.This study follows the basic idea of "problem posing – theoretical research –empirical research – policy research – conclusions with prospects",to deeply explore a series of problems of China’s multidimensional relative poverty based on Amartya Sen’s Feasible Capability Theory.The full text consists of 9 chapters.The first 3 chapters are the theoretical basis.After determining the research background and significance,the follow-up research is carried out with the support of Feasible Capability Theory.First of all,it reviews the literature on various research topics of multidimensional relative poverty in the academic community,and carries out national empirical research on relative poverty standards,systematically sorts the poverty standards and measurement practices of typical countries,and then comprehensively reviews the evolution process and theoretical evolution of China’s poverty standards since the reform and opening up,including rural poverty standards,poverty identification standards and poverty exit evaluation standards.Secondly,the Feasible Capability Theory is explained and interpreted in detail,including the connotation,formation principle and five instrumental freedoms.The theoretical relationship between the Feasible Capability Theory and multidimensional relative poverty is further systemically sorted out,including the mechanism and characteristics of poverty caused by the lack of feasibility ability,the identification and quantification of multidimensional relative poverty from the perspective of feasibility ability,and its spatial impact mechanism,and a series of research hypotheses are proposed.Finally,it establishes a theoretical analysis framework of "identification and measurement –interpretation and deduction – improvement and governance".In Chapter 4,this study explores the static measurement and decomposition of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.From the four levels of conforming to the evolution of poverty connotation,coordinating urban and rural poverty governance,basing on the national anti-poverty objectives and the international poverty standards,the comprehensive research and judgment are carried out to build China’s multi-dimensional relative poverty indicator system and identification criteria.Then,based on the five-year CFPS micro-investigation data,this study measures and decomposes the breadth,depth and intensity index of China’s multidimensional relative poverty by the A-F method.The study finds that China’s multidimensional relative poverty has shown a positive trend year by year,and the number of families suffering from severe multidimensional deprivation is very small.With the increase of poverty deprivation count threshold,China’s multidimensional relative poverty index gradually decreased,and the number of households identified as multidimensional relative poverty decreases.From the perspective of urban and rural areas,the gap between the multidimensional relative poverty level of urban and rural households is constantly narrowing,and the difference between the poverty gap and the internal inequality degree is also gradually easing.From the perspective of subregions,although the incidence of multidimensional relative poverty and the average share of deprivation in the western region have declined significantly,the overall welfare level of the multidimensional relative poverty households is still low,and the degree of multidimensional deprivation is still high.From the perspective of the contribution degree of each indicator,the per capita annual net income of households,the years of adult education,the self-rated health of adults,adult pension insurance and living fuel rank the top in the poverty contribution degree of each year,and the above indicators can explain more than 60% of the causes of households poverty.In Chapter 5,this study explores the dynamic measurement and decomposition of China’s long-term multidimensional relative poverty.Relative poverty is not only multidimensional but also temporal.This chapter introduces the intertemporal duration analysis method,adds the time dimension,and dynamically measures and decomposes China’s long-term multidimensional relative poverty index.This study finds that the longer a multidimensional relative poor households fall into poverty,the more difficult it will be to get rid of poverty(or to get rid of poverty in any dimension).The majority of households are in the state of non-permanent multidimensional relative poverty,while the number of households trapped in permanent relative poverty is relatively small.Moreover,this type of households are more difficult to get rid of poverty,and may even have a higher poverty vulnerability.From the perspective of urban and rural areas,the long-term multidimensional relative poverty index in rural areas is much higher than that in urban areas.However,with the increase of the critical value of duration,the long-term multidimensional relative poverty index in both urban and rural areas shows a downward trend,and the decline rate in rural areas is higher than that in urban areas.From the perspective of subregions,the long-term multidimensional relative poverty problem in the central and western regions is still relatively serious,but the performance of poverty reduction in the process of economic development is outstanding,and the poverty gap caused by the imbalanced and inadequate development in different regions shows an obvious trend of narrowing among regions.From the perspective of the contribution of each indicator,poverty in the education dimension has become the main factor for the whole households to fall into long-term multidimensional relative poverty.At the same time,the contribution of children’s medical insurance and out-of-school children to the poverty of households in the western region is significantly higher than that of households in the eastern and central regions,which indicates that the welfare level of children’s medical care and education in the western region needs to be further improved,and should be included in the content of alleviating relative poverty and anti-poverty work.In Chapter 6,this study explores the regional disparity and spatial inequality of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.This chapter uses Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method to investigate the regional disparity and spatial inequality of China’s multidimensional relative poverty,and uses Kernel density estimation method to deeply describe the dynamic distribution and evolution characteristics of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.The study finds that the regional disparity of China’s multidimensional relative poverty is gradually narrowing,but there are still significant spatial inequality characteristics.From the perspective of the overall regional gap,the Dagum Gini coefficient of China’s multidimensional relative poverty showed a downward trend in the survey period,from 0.312 in 2010 to 0.238 in 2018.From the perspective of intra-regional disparity,although the multidimensional relative poverty of households in the eastern region is not as serious as that in the central and western regions,the internal disparity is relatively large.From the perspective of inter-regional disparity,the inter-regional disparity of China’s multidimensional relative poverty has shown a trend of "falling – rising – falling" on the whole.The multidimensional relative poverty disparity between the eastern and western regions is the largest,and the spatial inequality is more obvious.From the perspective of the source and contribution of the regional disparity,the inter-regional disparity is the main source of the China’s multidimensional relative poverty regional disparity and spatial inequality characteristics,and the impact of hypervariable density(cross overlap)is relatively small.Therefore,in order to alleviate the problem of multidimensional relative poverty,we should focus on narrowing the gap between regions,especially the disparity between eastern and western regions.Kernel density estimation results show that the polarization of China’s multidimensional relative poverty is gradually easing,which further verifies the robustness of Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition results.In Chapter 7,this study explores the spatial correlation and spillover effect of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.According to the first law of geography,this chapter uses the Spatial Moran Index to examine the spatial autocorrelation of multidimensional relative poverty in China’s provinces,and further constructs a series of spatial metrological models to conduct empirical research on the influencing factors and spatial spillover effects of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.The study finds that China’s multidimensional relative poverty has a significant positive spatial correlation,and there is a strong spatial agglomeration effect in the overall scope.Among them,the provinces with "high – high" concentration mainly include Guangxi,Sichuan,Guizhou,Yunnan and Gansu,where the degree of multidimensional relative poverty is relatively serious;Provinces with "low – low" concentration mainly include Beijing,Tianjin,Shanghai,Jiangsu and Zhejiang,which have relatively low levels of multidimensional relative poverty.At the same time,China’s multidimensional relative poverty also has a significant spatial spillover effect between different provinces.With other conditions unchanged,each 1% increase in the multidimensional relative poverty of neighboring provinces may increase the multidimensional relative poverty of this province by 0.205%.From the perspective of spatial factors,the per capita fiscal expenditure on education,social security and employment,medical and health care and housing security in neighboring provinces also have certain spatial spillover characteristics for the multidimensional relative poverty in this province.Among them,the per capita fiscal expenditure on education has the most obvious spatial spillover characteristics.In Chapter 8,this study explores the governance path of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.This chapter is based on the Feasible Capability Theory,starting from the three aspects of governance principles,governance ideas and practical paths,to deeply research the governance path of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.The study points out that the governance path of China’s multidimensional relative poverty should be based on meeting the people’s needs for a better life,with the goal of achieving common prosperity,and clarify the governance ideas around promoting pro-poor growth,inclusive development,targeted poverty alleviation and multi-agent cooperation.Further combining China’s current development reality,we will focus on economic development(financial poverty alleviation and industrial poverty alleviation),personal development(education poverty alleviation and health poverty alleviation)and green development(ecological construction poverty alleviation and ecological compensation poverty alleviation)at three levels,with a view to comprehensively improving the feasible ability of social members,alleviating the multidimensional deprivation of individuals or households,and finally achieving the multidimensional relative poverty governance effect.Finally,Chapter 9 summarizes the main research conclusions of the previous chapters and points out the topics that need to be further explored in the future.The innovation of this study is mainly reflected in the innovation of perspective,theory and method.(1)In terms of the innovation of perspective,the first is to build a theoretical analysis framework and research mechanism of China’s multidimensional relative poverty based on the Feasible Capability Theory,which has expanded the research depth of the relative poverty problem to a certain extent;Secondly,the quantitative analysis of the poverty gap,internal inequality and poverty duration of China’s multidimensional relative poor households has broadened the research scope of relative poverty;Thirdly,the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary integration has enriched the research perspective of relative poverty.(2)In terms of the innovation of theoretical,the first is to establish a multidimensional relative poverty identification and measurement system that takes into account the income dimension and welfare dimension,expand the relative poverty to the theoretical category of multidimensional relative poverty,and deepen the theoretical connotation of relative poverty;The second is to closely follow the connotation of the era of common prosperity in the new era,take improving the feasible ability of the poor as the starting point and foothold,and formulate a multidimensional relative poverty governance path around economic development,personal development and green development,providing new ideas for the theoretical research of anti-poverty.(3)In terms of the innovation of method,firstly,Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method and Kernel density estimation method are used to investigate the regional disparity and spatial inequality characteristic of China’s multidimensional relative poverty.Compared with the traditional decomposition method of regional disparity,Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition can not only identify the differences within and between regions,but also capture the contribution of hypervariable density(i.e.the overlapping phenomenon between different regions)to the overall regional disparity,which provides an important theoretical support for accurately analyzing the imbalance of regional relative poverty;Secondly,according to the first law of geography,introducing the idea of spatial poverty,using the Spatial Moran Index,and a series of spatial metrological models to carry out empirical research on the spatial correlation,influencing factors and spillover effect of China’s multidimensional relative poverty,which broadens the research thinking of capturing the main causes of poverty compared with the existing literature.