Urban poor in China: A case study of Changsha.

摘要

Since the late 1970s, more and more rural people have migrated to urban areas. This rural-urban migration has become a prominent phenomenon in China, especially in recent years. In this massive migration process, most migrants have improved their well-being while some become urban poor. Using data collected from a survey on about 1600 low-income households in Changsha in January 2007, this thesis compares migrant workers with their city counterpart regarding income, employment, education, and social support. Based on qualitative and regression analysis, we found age, Hukou, education level and other factors are significantly affecting the annual income; coverage of social security of urban population and different requirement between urban and floating population. This thesis ends with making policy recommendations such as minimizing the differences created by residential registration and more. Those recommendations will help the government to mitigate the urban poverty problem and further help the urban poor.