A model based approach for predicting annual poverty rates without expenditure data

The primus inter pares of the UN-approved Millennium Development Goals is to reduce poverty. The only internationally accepted method of estimating poverty requires a measurement of total consumption based on a time-consuming and resource-demanding measure of household expenditure in an integrated survey over 12 months. Rather than measuring poverty, say, only every fifth year, a model is presented to predict poverty based on a small set of household variables to be collected annually between two 12-monthly household surveys. Information obtained from these “light” surveys might then be used to predict poverty rates. The key question is whether the inaccuracy in these predictions is acceptable. It is recommended that these models be tested at a country level and if the test results are similar to those found here, that this approach be adopted.      

Youth and Well-Being: A South African Case Study

This paper was a result of an analysis from various data sources with a purpose to develop a better understanding of the level of socio-economic well being of young people in South Africa. Such understanding is aimed at enabling government to plan and implement well-structured and integrated development programmes that are relevant to the socio-economic needs of the youth and that will enable them to fully participate in all aspects of society. Two main sources of data were used for this analysis. The first is the Status of the Youth (SYR) data set. The second data set used in this study is the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) which is a national representative sample of 5,000 households. The study shows that the quality of life among majority of young people remains low, reflecting the historical racial cleavages of South African society. This is mainly due to the emergence of the AIDS pandemic in South Africa, and the fact that many young people remain outside the labour market.     

Poverty and Wellbeing at the ‘Grassroots’—How Much is Visible to Researchers?

This paper discusses the grassroots level understanding of poverty and wellbeing. There is rich debate and ever expanding literature on the meaning of wellbeing and poverty and their relationship in developing countries. In recent times wellbeing and poverty have been scrutinised within the discourse on multidimensionality of poverty. Most research outputs though are grounded in quantitative data. Investigations that focus on the perceptions and understandings of poor people about their situations remain sparse in the literature. The current study is an attempt to address this gap. The paper explores the common grounds and the points of departure between the researchers’ views of poverty and wellbeing and the perception at the grassroots. The paper presents findings of primary research conducted by the author in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh and Madhubani district of Bihar in India. Semi-structured survey instruments were deployed to interview a selection of poor, marginal and non-poor households. In addition to identifying the commonalities in grassroots and researchers’ understandings of poverty, the paper draws attention to factors that may be outside the radar of the researchers. It is envisaged that mapping a more holistic understanding of poverty and wellbeing will have important long-term policy implications for poverty reduction.

Assessing the Measurement and Structure of Material Hardship in the United States

Previous attempts to measure material well-being or hardship have not made clear the relationship of individual items to the broader concept of hardship. The current study used the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a large-scale U.S. survey with a large number of questions on the material circumstances of households to create a measurement model of hardship that takes this relationship into account. A higher-order model with five-first-order factors: consumer durables, resources available to meet needs, housing conditions, neighborhood problems and crime, and community services, and a single second-order factor hardship fit the data well, with the “Housing” and “Neighborhood” first-order factors most strongly related to the higher-order hardship construct. Despite our attempts to tie the hardship measures to objective conditions, subjective evaluations were strongly related to most of the factors.

西北民族地区扶贫开发实践的调查与浅析--以甘南藏族自治州为例

近些年,西北民族地区的扶贫开发工作取得了阶段性成效,但扶贫工作仍然任重道远。甘南藏族自治州是西北少数民族聚居区的一个典型代表。通过对甘南州进行了实地调研,首先将甘南州进行区域划分,分为农区、半农半牧区、牧区三个大区,然后对每个区域扶贫开发的现状和存在的问题进行深入分析,并针对性地提出对策和建议,以期有效地解决甘南州贫困人口的脱贫问题,同时为其他民族地区的扶贫开发提供借鉴。     

城镇贫困的特征演变

本文利用中国家庭收入调查数据研究了1988-2013年间我国城镇居民的贫困问题。以利用“马丁法”计算的各省历年贫困线作为贫困识别标准,发现25年间城镇地区的贫困率下降明显,尤其暂时性贫困和持久性贫困的贫困率已经很低,贫困人口以选择性贫困为主,即消费不足成为我国城镇人口贫困的主要特征。家庭人口多、有未成年子女会有更大概率陷入贫困,而教育和稳定的就业则可以有效缓解贫困。当前我国城镇地区的贫困人口认定和救助主要以收入为标准,本文认为应充分重视贫困人口消费不足的问题,拓展专项救助的范围,同时增大对教育、卫生、住房等基本民生保障的投入,减少低收入群体的过度储蓄,并特别关注贫困青少年的精神和物质消费需求。     

Impact of microcredit on rural household welfare and economic growth in Vietnam

Since its birth in 1970s, microcredit has been growing rapidly with the aim to reduce poverty and to promote economic growth. Using the large panel data of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Surveys, the objectives are twofold: (i) to evaluate the micro-impact of microcredit on rural household economy, particularly on output value and net income of rural households, using Matched Difference-in-Difference method; and (ii) to evaluate its macro-impact on economic growth, especially the aggregate effect of production increase and income growth, using Input–Output analysis. The results at micro level find that microcredit benefits self-employment rather than other economic activities of households. The salient results from the macro-economic analysis reveal that, not as expected, the effect of microcredit on output increase is not so large. The findings suggest that microcredit is an effective development strategy at both micro and macro levels, thus the Vietnamese government should enact the relevant policies to enhance the effectiveness and outreach of microcredit.     

精准扶贫视阈下的高校学生资助工作研究 ——以河北工程大学为例

党的十八大报告明确提出到2020年全面建成小康社会的宏伟目标,十九大报告指出要坚持精准扶贫、精准脱贫。精准扶贫,是新形势下打赢脱贫攻坚战的战略指引。高校学生资助工作作为教育扶贫的重要组成部分,应该和国家扶贫开发中的精准扶贫思想相结合。文章从精准扶贫的提出背景出发,以河北工程大学为例,分析我国高校学生资助工作发展现状和存在的问题,并从精准扶贫的角度提出高校学生资助工作的提升策略,以期对我国教育扶贫工作提供有益参考。     

精准扶贫视阈下河北省贫困地区妇女多维贫困研究

随着精准扶贫工作进入关键时期,河北省扶贫工作取得了很大的成果。而当前仍然存在着许多妇女贫困的问题,这严重影响了其脱贫工作的快速推进。本文在系统梳理国内外文献的基础上,通过对河北贫困地区妇女进行问卷调查,基于Alkire-Foster多维贫困测度模型,甄选出了导致妇女贫困的主要因素即教育、就业和健康。并在此基础上提出了解决河北贫困地区妇女贫困的路径。     

凉山彝族地区反贫困研究

因地理生态和历史文化原因,凉山彝族地区长期处于深度贫困状态。凉山彝族地区的贫困治理是我国反贫困实践的重要组成部分,凉山扶贫起点比全国整体意义上的扶贫开发要早,其发展进程得益于我国扶贫政策、理论体系和实践探索的不断完善。在脱贫攻坚和精准脱贫时代,民族地区已成为国家贫困治理的主战场,相关经验对于全国和全世界反贫困具有重要的理论和实践价值。当前,民族地区脱贫攻坚正处于关键时期,需要尊重民族群众的主体地位,增强扶贫政策的有效落地性,处理好现代性与地方性的关系。