How and Why has Poverty in China Changed? A Study Based on Microdata for 1988 and 1995

Abstract

Poverty alleviation is on China's political agenda and ambitions are high in a country experiencing rapid economic growth. In a speech at the Central Work Conference on Poverty Eradication on 23 September 1996 Premier Li Peng declared that the country could see an end to poverty in its rural areas by the end of the century. This would mean lifting the country's remaining 65 million poor out of poverty.