Focus shift needed: From development-oriented to social security-based poverty alleviation in rural China

Abstract Over the past 40-plus years since its reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in poverty reduction. It accomplished the task of eradicating absolute poverty at the end of 2020 as scheduled, which is of great significance to both China and the world. Using the China Household Income Project (CHIP) survey data from 2002 to 2018, this paper studies the characteristics of the rural poverty-stricken population and estimates the poverty reduction effect of China’s social security which transfers income to the poor. We find that the transferred income targeting the poor population can effectively reduce rural poverty. In the post-2020 era, poverty reduction in China has shifted its focus from eliminating absolute poverty to alleviating relative poverty. Since the majority of the remaining relatively impoverished people in China lack the necessary ability to work, they can hardly throw off poverty through development-oriented poverty alleviation programmes. Therefore, it is necessary to shift the focus of poverty reduction in rural China from development-oriented policies to social security-based policies, which is essential to alleviate relative poverty in the new stage and prevent people from slipping back to poverty.