Poverty profiles and poverty determinants of different social groups in Nanjing
南京市不同社会群体的贫困集聚度、贫困特征及其决定因素

Based on a large-scale household survey conducted in Nanjing in 2005, this study aims to provide a better understanding of poverty incidence in a contemporary Chinese city and poverty concentration in different social groups, and also profiles poverty groups. Covering not only urban working residents, but also urban unemployed/laid-off residents and rural migrants, this study reveals a more realistic poverty incidence than the official figure would suggest. To understand poverty concentration in different social groups, a total of 1370 cases are categorized into urban households without unemployed, urban households with unemployed, and rural migrants. Two types of poverty measures, poverty line and the sense of deprivation, are compared across different social groups to show different patterns of poverty concentration, in particular the variation in three types of households. To capture an initial portrait of the urban poor, the Nanjing study focuses on the most essential elements of their daily lives, i.e. demographic characteristics, access to social entitlements, housing conditions, neighbourhood interactions and social networks. Urban households with unemployed have a similar poverty incidence to rural migrants; and the latter suffer a series of interrelated disadvantages. There are distinct groups of urban poor, each being affected by a particular set of impoverishing factors. Poor urban-registered households are typically characterised by unfavourable personal or household characteristics, such as a large number of dependent household members and prior employment in a state owned enterprise. The impoverishment of rural migrants is largely connected with institutional discrimination such as lack of rights to social security benefits and unfavourable employment opportunities, rural migrants remain as outsiders of the urban society in terms of both living conditions and social welfare provision on the other.