ABSTRACT
Poverty remains an urgent issue all over the globe, as stressed by the World Bank’s recent poverty estimates in 2008. After the World Bank International Comparison Project published its updated purchasing power parity prices (PPP) a new global poverty line was set at US$ 1.25 a day. The new report once again stresses that developing countries, in particular, often have to tackle poverty reduction as part of their development process so that the poor can participate in the income gains resulting from accelerated development. Even if Bourguignon (2004) states that economic growth tends to reduce absolute poverty in a country, and although China has been remarkably successful in diminishing severe poverty, there are still enormous differences between highly developed urban settlements and rural areas (Knight and Song 1999). As a result, poverty has often been regarded (mainly) as a rural problem (Khan 1998). Having been neglected for a long time, urban poverty and inequality, in particular, have been of growing concern in recent years (Knight and Song 2003). Li (2006) stresses that even though poverty may not be as severe in Chinese urban agglomerations as in other developing countries it is still a problem that cannot be neglected. This is especially true if the subjective impression of relative poverty, which varies between cities, is accounted for (Gustafsson et al. 2006). The problem is amplified by migration, since migrants relocating from rural regions to urban centers are generally expected to be poorer than urban registered inhabitants (Appleton 2008).
