The Dynamics of Relative Poverty in China in a Comparative Perspective

Tak Wing Chan
Additional contact information
Tak Wing Chan: Social Research Institute, University College London

No 21-01, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: I use household panel data to study the dynamics of relative poverty in China, Germany, the UK, and the US. Compared to the three Western countries, not only is relative poverty more common in China, it is also deeper and more severe. Transient poverty accounts for less than half of the total poverty in Germany or the US, but about two thirds of that in China or the UK. Over three waves, 87 percent of Germans, 78 percent of Brits, 71 percent of Americans, but only 46 percent of Chinese were never poor. Using a multinomial logistic regression model, the determinants of poverty are found to be very similar across the four countries. But the variance explained of that model is much smaller for China than for the three Western countries. The results also raise questions about some regularities reported in previous research on poverty dynamics.

Keywords: relative poverty; panel data; cross-national comparison; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://repec.ioe.ac.uk/REPEc/pdf/qsswp2101.pdf (application/pdf)

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:qss:dqsswp:2101

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London Quantitative Social Science, Social Research Institute, 55-59 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0NU. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dr Neus Bover Fonts ().