1 Multidimensional Poverty in China: Some Preliminary Findings Based on CHNS 2000-2009

(Draft, comments are welcome) Abstract This paper estimates multidimensional poverty in China by applying Alkire and Foster’s methodology using the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2000-2009 data. Five dimensions are included: income, education, health, social security and living standard. Results show that economic growth did not have a uniform pro-poor effect across provinces, which further demonstrates that economic growth does not automatically transfer into poverty reduction. It is also found that the dimension-adjusted head count ratio of multidimensional poverty in rural areas is 1.4~1.5 times of that in urban areas. Moreover, the contribution of the rural areas to overall multidimensional poverty is about 8 percentage points higher than its share of population. Dimension-break down suggests that deprivation in social security was the major sources of multidimensional poverty before 2006, and its contribution to overall poverty measure decreased dramatically during 2006~2009. Finally, province-decompositions suggest Henan, Hunan and Guangxi should be provinces on which poverty alleviation policies focused more