Do Social Pensions Help People Living on the Edge? Assessing Determinants of Vulnerability to Food Poverty Among the Rural Elderly

Zhaohua Zhang (), Yuxi Luo () and Derrick Robinson ()
Additional contact information
Zhaohua Zhang: Shandong Agricultural University
Yuxi Luo: Guangxi Normal University
Derrick Robinson: University of California

The European Journal of Development Research, 2020, vol. 32, issue 1, No 8, 198-219

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates the effect of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) on the ex post food poverty and ex ante vulnerability of the rural elderly across different regions, by applying a nationally representative survey dataset. Using province-specific food poverty lines calculated by a least-cost linear programming approach, the overall estimated vulnerability to food poverty in rural China is 28.7%, with a majority of them being vulnerable due to low expected food expenditure. Regional analysis indicates that more developed regions experience lower food poverty incidence and vulnerability compared with less developed regions. To address the endogeneity of pension payment, a fuzzy regression discontinuity design finds that pension income significantly increased the expected food expenditure amongst the elderly, thus decreasing the vulnerability. Estimation results for heterogeneous groups suggest that the NRPS worked better for the elderly who are chronically poor and those who are vulnerable due to low expected food expenditure.

Keywords: Social pension; The New Rural Pension Scheme; Food poverty; Vulnerability; Elderly (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 I32 J14 R28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41287-019-00226-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:pal:eurjdr:v:32:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1057_s41287-019-00226-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41287/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41287-019-00226-2

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of Development Research is currently edited by Spencer Henson and Natalia Lorenzoni

More articles in The European Journal of Development Research from Palgrave Macmillan, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().