Let the Poor Talk About “Poverty”: Revisiting Poverty Alleviation in Rural China With Machine Learning

作者：Lisa Hoeschle, Shuang Liu, Xiaohua Yu · 发表于：Poverty & Public Policy · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/pop4.70005 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Income, Poverty, and Inequality、China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance、Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

ABSTRACT To tackle lasting rural poverty and fully eradicate absolute poverty by 2020, the Chinese government introduced the “targeted poverty alleviation” (TPA) policy in 2013. Quantitative assessments prove the policy's success; yet multidimensional aspects and subjective perceptions of rural poverty are insufficiently accounted for. This study identifies discrepancies between the official eradication of poverty in China and households' subjective perceptions of the remaining dimensions of rural poverty through a qualitative analysis of the voices of rural residents. Drawing on data from focus group interviews in Hebei province, we employ a mixed‐method approach combining computational text mining and diagnostic qualitative data analysis. Identified key dimensions of rural poverty are insufficient income owing to the lack of ample employment opportunities, limited possibilities of income diversification, and the overall lag of rural economic development in the area of investigation; the shortage of supply of social security services, such as health care and pensions; and induced urban migration. Subjective perceptions of poverty entail components of absolute and relative poverty. The potential of the TPA to achieve long‐term and sustainable poverty alleviation is called into question, as structural root causes of rural poverty are insufficiently addressed.