User:Xiyuanwu/Poverty in China

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Women In Poverty

In China, women are more vulnerable to suffer from severe poverty than men. More women experience multidimensional poverty (38.9% compared to 25.2%). Many individual and social characteristics shape women's experiences on poverty, such as age, education, employment, family structure, family size, urban or rural areas, etc.

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In terms of individual factors, women are less likely complete their primary education, have worse health and nutrition, and more likely to enduring chronic diseases, hospitalization and low income. As daughter, women's education is less valued by their parents. As mothers, women are expected to value their children's care work more than their own career. In addition, the gender inequalities in the labor market is pervasive. The labor force participation rate of women are been declined since the economic reforms and financial hardship was severe among women. In terms of marital factors, research shows that single mothers are the suffer the most from poverty. On the one hand, social and public policies are usually inadequate for single-parent families, especially families headed by women. On the other hand, Chinese traditional belief on family see divorce as negative, and often push mothers to sacrifice themselves to fulfill their children. Age is also a factor that contribute to women's poverty. Research shows that women are in lower chance to receive less occupational pension and receive less benefit (women receive 595 yuan per month whereas men receive 1,105 yuan). Also, women in their 50s are more likely to take the responsibility of caring their elderly parents and grandchildren, therefore more likely to retire earlier and receive less money in pension.

In terms of regional factors, women who live in remote and less developed western region are more likely to live in poverty than eastern area. For example, women live in Guizhou and Gansu provinces have the highest multidimensional poverty rate. Many women in poverty immigrant from their hometown to another province for improving their living situation, and many use marriage as the approach. (Research shows much more women migrated from relatively less developed regions to more developed regions through marriage than men ). Some women did get out of absolute poverty through marriage, however, because of limited opportunities, they are likely to fall into relative poverty soon after relocation. Also, migrant wives often suffer from perpetuated poverty after marriage.

In the state level, it is hard to find official data on women in poverty and poverty reduction programs tend to focus more on men, which widen the gender inequality. A research focus on a poverty reduction program in the Inner Mongolia shows that women's empowerment program can make positive effects on poverty reduction. It suggest that if poverty program can be more gender-focus, women and their household in poverty can benefit more from intervention such as training, cooperatives, and credit.