CGT Member Qin Gao authors new report for UNICEF
CGT member Qin Gao, Director of the Columbia China Center for Social Policy has co-authored a recent report with Fellow of the Columbia China Center For Social Policy, Yi Wang to inform policymakers and the public about the levels, trends, and patterns of child multidimensional poverty in China, and how they compare with child income poverty.
The Chinese government reported eradicating rural extreme poverty at the end of 2020, a significant achievement. Measures of child poverty in China from both monetary and multidimensional perspectives would be timely for China’s post-2020 anti-poverty policy agenda.
The report offers four main findings. First, the share of children in multidimensional poverty declined nationally from 49 percent in 2013 to 19 percent in 2018. Second, in terms of gender and age group differences, the multidimensional deprivation intensity was lower for boys than for girls in rural China in both years.
Third, by comparing child multidimensional and income poverty, [they found] that the child multidimensional poverty rate was much higher than the income poverty rate across rural, urban, and migrant population groups and in both 2013 and 2018. Fourth, across population groups and years, low education attainment of household heads was persistently associated with greater odds of children being in poverty.
The report offers four policy recommendations including designing multidimensional and child-specific policy measurements and monitoring systems; continued and expanded support to improve the economic resources and living conditions of rural children and their families; creating child-centered policies that are sensitive to the specific needs of different child subgroups; and lastly, making structural changes to the Hokou system and social welfare systems that enable equal access.
Read the full report here.