Abstract
China’s complicated and diverse poverty problems gradually emerged as poverty alleviation efforts deepened and rural urbanization progressed. Among these problems, the intergenerational transmission of poverty (ITP) is the most prominent and is an entrenched issue in rural China. This study selects six typical poverty-stricken counties in the eastern, central, and western regions of China on the basis of geography and uses the transformation matrix method and a regression model to analyze the regional differentiation characteristics of ITP. We further explore its impact mechanisms based on a sustainable livelihood analysis framework with the following results: (1) ITP in rural China exhibits the phenomenon of income-stratified transmission, and the groups at both ends of the low-income spectrum are more prone to having ITP; (2) ITP and the intergenerational mobility of income for different income levels have different spatial distribution characteristics, with these intergenerational relationships exhibiting a reverse variation trend in the eastern region, while exhibiting a codirectional variation trend in the central and western regions; (3) there are differences in the subsistence livelihood capital, which affect ITP in different regions. Financial capital has a significant impact on ITP across all of China. Natural capital has a significant impact on the eastern region, and physical capital plays a significant role in the central region, while the western region is greatly affected by both human and physical capital. In view of the differences in the influence of livelihood capital on ITP in different regions, China should formulate policies to accurately address ITP in order to narrow regional differences and accelerate the comprehensive construction of a financially affluent society.
Highlights
Throughout the history of human development, poverty is consistently one of the problems plaguing all countries of the world
The six typical counties mentioned above have the basic characteristics of rural poverty in the eastern, central, and western regions, and they can adequately reflect the current situation of rural poverty in their respective regions and have certain representativeness (Figure 2)
The population segment analyzed in this study was mainly the rural poor, whose income intergenerational changes mainly consist of three types: when the income of the father is fixed and the income of children is lower than that of parents, that is identified as the intergenerational downward mobility of income; when the income of children is higher than that of their parents, that is identified as the intergenerational upward mobility of income; and when the income level of children and parents is the same, that is identified as the intergenerational transmission of income, which is the most direct and fundamental manifestation characteristic of intergenerational poverty transmission (Figure 3)
Summary
Throughout the history of human development, poverty is consistently one of the problems plaguing all countries of the world. It is worth mentioning that China’s research on ITP pays more attention to the transmission of the economic level It indicates that the income of rural residents in China exhibits weak intergenerational mobility and strong inheritance, and that the economic situation of offspring is Sustainability 2019, 11, 2341 vulnerable to economic disadvantages of their parents [34]. Due to the differences in observations data and processing methods, there are often a number of data errors, leading to inconsistent results [42,43,44] These researchers did not clearly delineate which income class is involved in ITP or how to focus on solving the problem of intergenerational transmission for this class. Based on the sustainable livelihood analysis framework, this study analyzes the impact mechanisms of ITP in China using multiple logistic models and suggests policy recommendations designed to accurately block ITP
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