The Analysis And Proposals Of The Urban Poverty In China

The problem of the urban poverty is an inevitable problem to encounter in the process of social transformation and economic reform in China at present. Owing to the Chinese unique social and economic reform, the severity of the urban poverty has long been ignored. However, with the further development of social and economic reform, the problem is becoming more and more critical. It is the center of economics and the focus of sociology as well.Concerning the urban poverty, the study is chiefly focused on two aspects: one from the macroscopic perspective, including the policy, system, economic reform, social structure and so on; the other microscopic perspective of individual, centering upon the effect of social capitals owned by individual on job application. Based on the comparison and analysis of particular cases and documental records, this paper first explicates in great detail the two perspectives: the structural perspective and social capital perspective, and then explain their separate limitations and finally offers a new vision --- the cultural perspective.On the basis of the introduction of unique characteristics of social economic structure and laid-off group in the northeast, and the unique southern cultural tradition in China, the paper makes a comparison of employment situation, uses the analytic strategic proposal put forward by Prof. Sun Liping of "process-event" to analyze the particular cases. It analyzes the explanation of urban poverty from the cultural perspective, exemplifies the vague but significant effect of cultural elements in the rational preference of maximal profits among the group in the same circumstances. The effect is not only exerted on the individual behavior model but on the value and belief, bearing the hereditary feature.The paper first makes clear the definition and conception of poverty. In view of conceptual evolution, people's viewpoints have been constantly changing. From the macroscopic perspective, poverty is attributed to the result of social policy. Poverty is due to the deprivation and discrimination in politics. Wrong policies are the cause of poverty. As far as China is concerned, the urban poverty is associated with the special historical background of economic and social structure transformation. It can be summarized as follows: first, in view of macro-economics and social background, this phenomenon is the by-product of social structure transformation and economic reform. Second, it is related to the system of benefit distribution and social security. The structural limitation is reflected on more attention paid on the particular aspect in structural condition but less on structural integrity and the complex interaction.From the individual microscopic perspective, in addition to the effect of environmental elements and individual capacity, social capital has great influence on job application. What's more, unemployment is the general cause of the presence of poverty-stricken group. The study of social capital can be divided into two different models from both individual and group perspectives. The individual perspective emphasizes the importance of social capital to the economic profits of private units. Whereas from the group perspective, social capital is primarily concerned with the group but not with the individuals. It means the public resources owned by a particular group used to improve living condition and welfare of the whole group. Social capital chiefly exists in human relations, involving obligation, expectation, information network, norms and social organizations and so on.However, neither the structural nor the social capital explanation can offer an adequate and detailed account of the protracted nature and hereditary characteristic of urban poverty, as well as the resulted cultural poverty, especially, the sign of the group consciousness and group behavior recently emerged in poverty-stricken urban group. Therefore, the author holds that these two above-mentioned viewpoints contains certain limitations and defaults. They couldn't offer su...