Disparities in the level of poverty in China

This paper uses the Dual Cut-offs Approach to measure multidimensional poverty in China at the national, rural-urban, regional and provincial levels using the China Family Panel Studies data from 2010. Five dimensions and thirteen indicators are considered for the enumeration of poverty. It is observed that irrespective of cut-offs and weights, rural poverty in China is three to nine times of urban poverty. Social insurance, toilet and cooking fuel are the major indicators contributing to both rural and urban poverty. More urban households in the Western region are deprived, but urban poor households are deprived in more indicators in the Central region, and some Eastern provinces are poorer than some of the Central provinces. Furthermore, the paper identifies the provinces that contribute most to national poverty levels and finds the sources of poverty in those provinces.