The Impact of Program Participation on Rural Household Income: Evidence from China’s Whole Village Poverty Alleviation Program

Junying Lin, Zhonggen Zhang and Lingli Lv
Additional contact information
Junying Lin: School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Zhonggen Zhang: China Academy for Rural Development, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Lingli Lv: Business School, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Villagers’ participation in poverty alleviation programs has received considerable attention, especially with regard to the poor. However, not much is known about the welfare effect of villagers’ program participation. This paper analyzes the impact of villagers’ program participation on their incomes. We used household data from 529 villagers in China’s Whole Village Poverty Alleviation Program. We focused on two types of program participation—discussion and voting. Using the propensity score matching approach, we estimate the impact of rural households’ program participation on their income. The results show that the education and the political career of the household head determine program participation. Households participating in discussion and voting have a positive and significant effect on household income. Richer households benefit more from the program. However, the poor receive less benefits. We conclude that broadening villager’s participation can boost the effectiveness of China’s poverty alleviation program.

Keywords: poverty reduction; propensity score matching; poor households (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/6/1545/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/6/1545/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:6:p:1545-:d:213733

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().