ABSTRACT
This essay examines the place of migration within China’s ongoing poverty alleviation efforts. The discussion shows that rural-urban labour migration has played a pivotal role in poverty alleviation in rural areas, a role that has been enhanced through explicit government initiatives to link migration with the expansion of employment opportunities for rural people and to use education, training and credit assistance to enable individuals in very poor households to migrate. At the same time, the discussion shows that rural-urban labour migration presents new challenges for government approaches to poverty alleviation in cities where migrants face particular vulnerabilities on account of institutional and social exclusion. To provide context for delineating and evaluating the impacts of migration on poverty alleviation in China it is useful to begin with a brief overview of key poverty trends.
