ABSTRACT
The economic reform in China, which started in the late 1970s or early 1980s, has energetically promoted the growth of the Chinese economy, particularly in rural areas. It was estimated by the World Bank (1992) that those suffering rural poverty had declined from about one-third of the rural population – 250 million in 1978 – to roughly one-tenth by 1985-90. The World Bank indicated that, while the number of poor people worldwide fell by 8 million between 1987 and 1998, the number of poor outside China actually increased by 82 million (World Bank, 2000). The poverty line adopted by the World Bank was based on the monetary value of a calorie intake of 2,150 kilocalories (kcal) per day and included a measurement of average expenditure of the poor on non-food goods and services. The poverty line for 1990 stood at 275 yuan (US$35)1 per year.2 Currently, one common international standard for determining absolute poverty is an income of US$1.00 or less per day (World Bank, 2000).
