To many people, the problem of poverty in China was confined mainly to the rural areas, and the situation of urban poverty was regarded as insignificant. Yet in fact, market‐orientated economic reforms have created an urban underclass, made up of poorly paid state workers, the unemployed, and migrants from the countryside. In attempting to respond to the mounting needs of the urban poor, the Chinese government has introduced a means‐tested social assistance programme in the cities since the mid‐1990s. This paper describes the basic philosophy, structure and operation of this programme, and provides a general assessment of its functions and shortcomings.
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Leung et al. (1999) studied this question.