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The Capability Approach to Adolescent Poverty in China: the Profile, Decomposition and Predictors of Deprivation

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Abstract

In response to the government’s policy to reduce child poverty, there has been a decade-long wave of child poverty measurement in China, with the majority of this work having considered the matter in terms of material life conditions. However, from the viewpoint of capability theorists, material affluence cannot guarantee human well-being alone. They argue for a more comprehensive poverty analysis in terms of freedom, opportunities and development. Accepting this idea, we decided to apply the capability approach to analyze the 2014 adolescent sample within the Chinese Family Population Study. Through the capability lens, we mapped various profiles of functionings and capabilities poverty, according to the features of these adolescents. Also, through poverty decomposition analysis, physical ill-health and severe lack of participation were found to be the major contributors to the distinct forms of adolescent poverty. Moreover, regression analysis helped us to identify four types of factors exhibiting a significant relationship with the development of adolescents, namely: geographical location, adolescent romance, pocket money and parental involvement in children’s education. It is anticipated that the findings will advance our understanding of adolescent poverty in China, thus allowing for a more empowering policy approach to expand the capabilities and freedoms for this age group.

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Notes

  1. Both child groups accounted for 38% of total child population in 2015 ( UNICEF 2016).

  2. In addition, there is growing opinion that childhood has the value in itself rather than a merely preparatory period for adulthood. Due to this consideration, some researchers have prioritized functiongings over capabilities for child poverty measurement (Graf and Schweiger 2015).

  3. We have engaged in consultation with three Chinese researchers of different professional backgrounds, including demographics, social work and child laws. Also, because of their cultural background, this ensured that they were able to make helpful suggestions as to the measuring dimensions of Chinese child well-being.

  4. Adolescents’ participation in school clubs will help their positive engagement and connection with diverse school community (Blackwood and Friedman 2015).

  5. Recreational book reading reflects more freedom of choice regarding reading materials than textbook reading does. Also, this can facilitate adolescent development, especially in terms of mentality (Majid 2018).

  6. Extant well-being indexes often adopt the intermediate approach to set poverty thresholds (e.g. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)). Also, these indexes often identify multidimensional poor as individuals suffering deprivation across one-third or more of the measuring dimensions or indicators (Alkire and Roche 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Institute of Social Work, National Chengchi University, No. 64, south building, Sec. 2, ZhiNan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City, 11605, Taiwan

    Yei-Whei Lin

  2. Department of Economics, National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan

    Chih-Nan Chen

  3. School of Public Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China

    Kunpeng Zhao

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  1. Yei-Whei Lin
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  2. Chih-Nan Chen
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  3. Kunpeng Zhao
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Correspondence to Yei-Whei Lin.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 The result of post-hoc Bonferroni test
Full size table
Table 6 The ranking of adolescent subgroups in terms of functionings poverty rates (H) for those above average (sample size ≥10)
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Table 7 The ranking of adolescent subgroups in terms of capability poverty rates (H) for those above average (subsample size ≥10)
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Lin, YW., Chen, CN. & Zhao, K. The Capability Approach to Adolescent Poverty in China: the Profile, Decomposition and Predictors of Deprivation. Child Ind Res 13, 255–277 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-019-09709-4

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