Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T12:27:18.096Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Welfare, Wealth and Poverty in Urban China: The Dibao and Its Differential Disbursement*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2012

Dorothy J. Solinger  and
Yiyang Hu
Dorothy J. Solinger*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine.
Yiyang Hu
Affiliation:
Email: synviv@hotmail.com.
*
Email: dorjsoli@uci.edu (Corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the broader social science literature, most studies of social protection investigate welfare in democracies, and at the national level, and typically assume that welfare is given in order to influence voting. This paper, to the contrary, considers social assistance in authoritarian China at the urban level. Its findings are compatible with an explanation that there are two dissimilar logics influencing the distributional decisions of lower-level administrators. That is, there appear to be two modes of social policy implementation, which vary with the fiscal capacity of a given city, as indicated by its average wage: Wealthier cities seem to prefer to push off the streets those viewed as unsuited to a modern city, therefore allocating a substantial proportion of their social assistance funds to them, in order to entice them to stay at home. On the other hand, poorer places seem to permit such people to work outside, in the hope that they will thus be better able to support themselves, thereby saving the city money. A data set from China's Ministry of Civil Affairs was used.

Keywords

social assistanceurbanWuhanLanzhouwelfarelower-level administrationsocial policyChina
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 211 , September 2012 , pp. 741 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The authors thank John K. Kennedy, Kam Wing Chan, Qin Gao, Russell Dalton, Yumin Sheng, Thomas P. Bernstein, and Barry Naughton for many sorts of assistance. We also benefited greatly from very helpful comments from three anonymous readers, and have responded to them as much as we could.

References

Bakken, Borge. 2000. The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control and the Dangers of Modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Kam Wing. 2009. “Urbanization in China: What is the True Urban Population of China? Which is the Largest City in China?” Unpublished ms.Google Scholar
Chan, Kam Wing. 2010. “Fundamentals of China's urbanization and policy.” The China Review 10 (1), 63–94.Google Scholar
Chen, Feng. 2000. “The Re-employment Project in Shanghai: institutional workings and consequences for workers.” China Information 14 (2), 169–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Shaohua, Ravallion, Martin and Wang, Youjuan. 2006. “Di bao: A Guaranteed Minimum Income in China's Cities?” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3805, January.Google Scholar
Chen, Xiangming. 1991. “China's City Hierarchy, Urban Policy and Spatial Development in the 1980s.” Urban Studies 28 (3), 341–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Linda J. 2007. Postcommunist Welfare States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Du, Yang, and Park, Albert. 2007. “The Effects of Social Assistance on Poverty Reduction.” Paper presented at The International Conference on Policy Perspectives on Growth, Economic Structures and Poverty Reduction, Beijing, June.Google Scholar
Duckett, Jane. 2010. The Chinese State's Retreat from Health. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duckett, Jane, and Hussain, Athar. 2008. “Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues.” The Pacific Review 21 (2), 211–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esping-Andersen, Gosta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Frazier, Mark. 2010. Socialist Insecurity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gao, Qin, and Riskin, Carl (forthcoming). “Generosity and participation: variations in Urban Livelihood Guarantee policy.” In Kennedy, David and Stiglitz, Joseph E. (eds.), Law and Economics with Chinese Characteristics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, and Kaufman, Robert. 2008. Development, Democracy, and Welfare States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, Daniel Robert. 2010. “Explaining Policy Making in the People's Republic of China: The Case of the Urban Resident Minimum Livelihood Guarantee System, 1992–2003.” PhD diss., University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
He, Shenjing, Wu, Fulong, Webster, Chris and Liu, Yuting. 2010. “Poverty concentration and determinants in China's urban low-income neighbourhoods and social groups.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34 (2), 328–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heberer, Thomas. 2009. “Relegitimation through new patterns of social security.” The China Review 9 (2), 99–128.Google Scholar
Hicks, Alexander. 1999. Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hong, Zhaohui. 2002. “Lun shehui quanli de ‘pinkun’ – Zhongguo chengshi pinkun wenti de genyuan yu zhili lujing” (“Poverty of social rights: dilemmas of urban poverty in China”). Xiandai Zhongguo yanjiu 79 (4), 9–10.Google Scholar
Huber, Evelyne, and Stephens, John D.. 2001. Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, William J. 2009. The Chinese Worker After Socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hussain, Athar, 2007. “Social Security in transition.” In Shue, Vivienne and Wong, Christine, (eds.), Paying for Progress in China. London and New York: Routledge, 96–116.Google Scholar
Leung, Joe C.B. 2008. “The Development of Social Assistance in Urban China.” Paper presented at the Provincial China Workshop 2008, Nankai University, Tianjin.Google Scholar
Leung, Joe C.B. 2006. “The emergence of social assistance in China.” International Journal of Social Welfare 15, 188–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Shi. 2006. “Rising poverty and its causes in urban China,” in Shi, Li and Sato, Hiroshi (eds.), Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban China. London and New York: Routledge, 128–51.Google Scholar
Liu, Yuting, He, Shenjing and Wu, Fulong. 2008. “Urban pauperization under China's social exclusion.” Journal of Urban Affairs 30 (1), 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Civil Affairs website. http://cws.mca.gov.on/article/tjsj/dbsj/index.shtml/1.Google Scholar
Miller, Tom. 2009. “Case studies: I. Wuhan.” China Economic Quarterly, March, 32–35.Google Scholar
Ministry of Finance. “Report on the Implementation of the Central and Local Budgets for 2007 and on the Draft Central and Local Budgets for 2008.” http://www.china.org.cn/government/NPC_CPPCC sessions2008/2008-03/18/content 12. Accessed 26 May 2008.Google Scholar
Offe, Claus. 1972. Advanced capitalism and the welfare state,” Politics & Society 2, 479–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Keefe, Philip. 2004. “Social assistance in China: an evolving system.” Paper for ANU conference, 27 August. Draft.Google Scholar
Oksenberg, Michel, and Tong, James. 1991. “The evolution of central–provincial fiscal relations in China, 1971–1984.” The China Quarterly 25, 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orenstein, Mitchell. 2001. Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pieke, Frank N. 2009. “Marketization, centralization and globalization of cadre training in contemporary China.” The China Quarterly 200, 953–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A.. 1993 [1972]. Regulating the Poor. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2002. “Labour market reform and the plight of the laid-off proletariat.” The China Quarterly 170, 304–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2009. States' Gains, Labor's Losses. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2011. “The urban dibao: guarantee for minimum livelihood or for minimal turmoil?” In Wu, Fulong and Webster, Chris (eds.), Marginalization in Urban China: Comparative Perspectives. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 253–77.Google Scholar
Tang, Jun. 2002. “The report of poverty and anti-poverty in urban China: the poverty problems in urban China and the program of minimum living standard,” Manuscript. Beijing.Google Scholar
Tang, Jun. 2004. “Jiasu zuidi shenghuo baozhang zhidu de guifanhua yunzuo” (“Speed up the standardization of the minimum livelihood guarantee system”). In Xin, Ru, Xueyi, Lu, and Peilin, Li (eds.), Shehui lanpishu: 2004 nian: Zhongguo shehui xingshi fenxi yu yuce (Social Blue Book: 2004 Analysis and Predictions of China's Social Situation) Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 11–28.Google Scholar
Tang, Jun. 2006. “Tiaozhengzhong de chengxiang zuidi shenghuo baozhang zhidu” (“The urban and rural minimum livelihood guarantee system in adjustment”). In Xin, Ru, Xueyi, Lu, and Peilin, Li (eds.), Shehui lanpishu: 2006 nian: Zhongguo shehui xingshi fenxi yu yuce (Social Blue Book: 2006 Analysis and Predictions of China's Social Situation) Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Tang, Jun. 2008. “Jianli zonghe de zuidi shenghuo baozhang zhidu” (“Establish a comprehensive minimum livelihood guarantee system”), http://thjp.vip.sina.com/M.htm. Accessed 18 March 2008.Google Scholar
Taylor, John G. 2008. “Poverty and vulnerability.” In Yusuf, Shahid and Saich, Tony (eds.) China Urbanizes. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 91–104.Google Scholar
The World Bank. 2009. “From Poor Areas to Poor People: China's Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda.” Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Wang, Hui. 1996. “Chengshi zuidi shenghuo baozhang gongzuo zhi wo jian” (“My opinion on the urban minimum livelihood guarantee work”), Zhongguo minzheng 10, 34.Google Scholar
Wang, Meiyan. 2007. “Emerging urban poverty and effects of the dibao program on alleviating poverty in China.” China & World Economy, 15 (2), 74–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Yaping. 2004. Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Zhikun. 1999. “Chengshi jumin zuidi shenghuo baozhang,” (“Urban residents' minimum livelihood guarantee”), Zhongguo minzheng 11, 18–19.Google Scholar
Wen, Jiabao. 2008. “Report on the Work of the Government,” delivered at First Session of the Eleventh National People's Congress on March 5, 2008, at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008npc/2008-03/19/content_6549177.htm. Accessed 26 May 2008.Google Scholar
Wong, Christine. 1991. “Central-local relations in an era of fiscal decline.” The China Quarterly 128, 691–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Christine. 2009. “Rebuilding government for the 21st century,” The China Quarterly 200, 929–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Fulong. 2009. “Debates and developments: the state and marginality: reflections on urban outcasts from China's urban transition.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33 (2), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Fulong, and Huang, Ningying. 2007. “New urban poverty in China.” Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48 (2), 168–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Fulong, Webster, Chris, He, Shenjing and Liu, Yuting. 2010. Urban Poverty in China. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xue, Jinjun, and Zhong, Wei. 2006. “Unemployment, poverty and income disparity in urban China.” In Shi, Li and Sato, Hiroshi (eds.), Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban China. London and New York: Routledge, 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Zhongguo chengshi.” 2006. “Zhongguo chengshi jumin zuidi shenghuo baozhang biaojun de xiangguan fenxi, jingji qita xiangguan lunwen” (Chinese urban residents' dibao norm's relevant analysis; economic and other related treatises), accessed 18 August 2007 at http://www.ynexam.cn/html/jingjixue/jingjixiangguan/2006/1105/zhonggochengshijimin.Google Scholar
Zhongguo minzheng . 1996. “Jianli zuidi shenghuo baozhang zhidu de jige wenti” (“Several issues in establishing the minimum livelihood guarantee system”), 9, 14.Google Scholar
Zhongguo renmin gongheguo guojia tongjiju. various. Zhongguo tongji nianjian (China Statistical Yearbook). Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe.Google Scholar