Examining Poverty Reduction of Poverty-Stricken Farmer Households under Different Development Goals: A Multiobjective Spatio-Temporal Evolution Analysis Method

Abstract

Accurately identifying the degree of poverty and poverty-causing factors of poverty-stricken farmer households is the first key step to alleviating absolute and relative poverty. This paper introduces a multiobjective spatio-temporal evolution analysis method to examine poverty reduction of poverty-stricken farmer households under different development goals. A G-TOPSIS model was constructed to evaluate poverty-stricken households under short-, medium-, and long-term development goals. Then, GIS analysis methods were employed to reveal the spatio-temporal distribution of poverty-stricken households, and poverty causing factors were detected using the obstacle degree model. Taking Fugong County in Yunnan Province, China, as an example, the empirical results show that: (1) Great progress has been made in poverty reduction during the study period; however, some farmer households which have escaped absolute poverty are still in relative poverty and are still highly vulnerable. (2) Farmers with higher achievement rates under three different development goals are mainly distributed in the central and northern regions of study area, with a pattern of high–high agglomeration under the medium and low development goals, while low–low agglomeration mostly appears in central-southern regions. (3) Under the short-term development goals, the main poverty-causing factors are per capita net income, safe housing, sanitary toilets, years of education of labor force and family health. Under the medium- and long-term goals, per capita net income, labor force education and safe housing are the development limitations. (4) Infrastructure and public service are crucial to ending absolute poverty, and the endogenous force of regional development should be applied to alleviate the relative poverty through sustainable development industries and high-quality national education.