Chinese Rural Poverty Inside and Outside the Poor Regions

How is the transition to a market economy affecting the disposition of poverty in China? This chapter uses the data from the 1988 and 1995 national surveys of rural households to examine the characteristics of rural poverty as the transition progresses. While the extent of urban poverty increased in the nineties, it is still very much smaller than that of rural poverty and rather different in character and cause. We confine ourselves here to the rural poor.