Urban Migrants and Poverty Reduction in China

Urban Poverty Reduction Among Migrants in China is the result of a large-scale research project conducted across China from 2002 to 2010. Packed full of original material, academic analysis, expert knowledge and practical policy suggestions, it paints a detailed picture of one of the consequences of China’s startling economic transformation. It has been written by experts at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) working in partnership with UNESCO.

Since reform and opening up, China has witnessed increasingly large scale rural labour population mobility between town and country. According to statistics, in 2004 the number of rural peasant workers in urban areas reached about 120 million. Since the beginning of the 1990s, research circles have devoted much attention to this sociological group, Much of this research stresses the disadvantageous position of migrant workers compared to urban residents (Hukou). Very few of the articles point out that poverty exists among the urban peasant workers, and very few researchers regard this poverty as a specialized topic that deserves serious investigation, analysis and theorizing. Moreover, the Chinese government in its helping of the poor and in policy development, lacks emphasis on the problem of the impoverished urban peasant worker.

This book, through the angle of poverty analysis, attempts to deal with China’s problem of large-scale population mobility and its creation of an impoverished urban peasant worker population.