IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i1p134-152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Path Dependency and the Neighbourhood Effect: Urban Poverty in Impoverished Neighbourhoods in Chinese Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Fulong Wu
  • Shenjing He
  • Chris Webster

Abstract

In this paper we examine poverty concentration in Chinese impoverished neighbourhoods and estimate the effects of household characteristics and neighbourhood types on social deprivation. We find that unemployed households in old neighbourhoods are among the most deprived. The Chinese case suggests that urban poverty is concentrated by particular social groups living in specific neighbourhoods. We find a small but not insignificant neighbourhood effect on poverty generation in China. Living in impoverished neighbourhoods increases the probability of becoming poor by a steady percentage. For every 1% increase in poverty rate, the chance is raised by 4.4%. Living in old neighbourhoods and being unemployed raises the chance by 4.7 times with demographic and socioeconomic attributes controlled for. The neighbourhood effect in the Chinese case is linked to path dependency of institutionally derived inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Fulong Wu & Shenjing He & Chris Webster, 2010. "Path Dependency and the Neighbourhood Effect: Urban Poverty in Impoverished Neighbourhoods in Chinese Cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(1), pages 134-152, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:1:p:134-152
    DOI: 10.1068/a4264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a4264
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a4264?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shujie Yao, 2004. "Unemployment and urban poverty in China: a case study of Guangzhou and Tianjin," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(2), pages 171-188.
    2. Fang, Cheng & Zhang, Xiaobo & Fan, Shenggen, 2002. "Emergence of urban poverty and inequality in China: evidence from household survey," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 430-443, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Webster, Chris & Wu, Fulong & Zhang, Fangzhu & Sarkar, Chinmoy, 2016. "Informality, property rights, and poverty in China’s “favelas”," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 461-476.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shenjing He & Fulong Wu & Chris Webster & Yuting Liu, 2010. "Poverty Concentration and Determinants in China's Urban Low‐income Neighbourhoods and Social Groups," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 328-349, June.
    2. Zan Yang & Songtao Wang, 2011. "The impact of privatization of public housing on housing affordability in Beijing: An assessment using household survey data," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 26(5), pages 384-400, August.
    3. Bjorn A Gustafsson & Deng Quheng, 2011. "Di Bao Receipt and Its Importance for Combating Poverty in Urban China," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(1), pages 1-32, March.
    4. Jing Li & Tsun Se Cheong & Jianfa Shen & Dahai Fu, 2019. "Urbanization And Rural–Urban Consumption Disparity: Evidence From China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(04), pages 983-996, September.
    5. Janz, Teresa & Augsburg, Britta & Gassmann, Franziska & Nimeh, Zina, 2023. "Leaving no one behind: Urban poverty traps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. Farhat Yusuf & Gordon Brooks, 2010. "Demographics and Consumption Patterns in Urban China," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(1), pages 5-17, February.
    7. Björn Gustafsson & Li Shi & Hiroshi Sato, 2004. "Can a subjective poverty line be applied to China? Assessing poverty among urban residents in 1999," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(8), pages 1089-1107.
    8. Gustafsson, Björn & LI, Shi & Sato, Hiroshi, 2014. "Data for studying earnings, the distribution of household income and poverty in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 419-431.
    9. Zhang, Chunni & Xu, Qi & Zhou, Xiang & Zhang, Xiaobo & Xie, Yu, 2014. "Are poverty rates underestimated in China? New evidence from four recent surveys," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 410-425.
    10. GOH, Chor-ching & LUO, Xubei & ZHU, Nong, 2009. "Income growth, inequality and poverty reduction: A case study of eight provinces in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 485-496, September.
    11. Meng, Xin & Shen, Kailing & Xue, Sen, 2013. "Economic reform, education expansion, and earnings inequality for urban males in China, 1988–2009," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 227-244.
    12. Gustafsson, Björn Anders & Yue, Ximing, 2006. "Rural People’s Perception of Poverty in China," IZA Discussion Papers 2486, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Xin Meng & Xiaodong Gong & Youjuan Wang, 2009. "Impact of Income Growth and Economic Reform on Nutrition Availability in Urban China: 1986-2000," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 261-295, January.
    14. Shenggen Fan & Ravi Kanbur & Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2013. "The Economics of China: Successes and Challenges," NBER Working Papers 19648, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bjorn Gustafsson & Sai Ding, 2017. "Unequal Growth: Unequal Growth: How Household Incomes and Poverty in Urban China Have Developed since 1988, with an Emphasis on the Period from 2007 to 2013," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 201718, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    16. Fei Yan, 2018. "Urban poverty, economic restructuring and poverty reduction policy in urban China: Evidence from Shanghai, 1978–2008," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(4), pages 465-481, July.
    17. Zhou Xun, 2015. "Preference for Redistribution and Inequality Perception in China: Evidence from the CGSS 2006," AMSE Working Papers 1518, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    18. Femenia, Fabienne, 2019. "A Meta-Analysis of the Price and Income Elasticities of Food Demand," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 68(2), June.
    19. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Xia, Qingjie, 2010. "Growing out of Poverty: Trends and Patterns of Urban Poverty in China 1988-2002," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 665-678, May.
    20. Chang, Gene H., 2002. "The cause and cure of China's widening income disparity," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 335-340, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:1:p:134-152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.