The poverty problem of Chinese youth has been basically resolved. However, as China is in the period of social transition, new groups of poor youth have appeared in rural areas, cities and schools in the course of differentiation of the social structure. It is the common duty of governments, social organizations and all sectors of society to support them, protect their legal rights and interests, and enable them to gain equal development opportunities as other members of the society.

The poverty problem of Chinese youth has been resolved basically

The Chinese government has always included the elimination of poverty in its national economic and social development planning. China is the largest developing country in the world, which has a population accounting for about 22% of the world’s total. The nation used to be plagued by poverty over a very long period of time due to a number of reasons. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and particularly since the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy at the end of 1970s, the Chinese government has implemented large scale of planned and organized poverty alleviation programs on a nationwide basis to solve the problem of food and clothing of the poor. The Chinese government enacted the National Plan for Tackling Thorny Problems in Poverty Alleviation for the Eighth Seven-year Period in 1994 and the ‘Chinese Poverty Alleviation Development Programme for Rural Areas (2001-2010)’ in 2001 in order to solve the problem of food and clothing of the poor population. The central government has expanded the investment in poverty alleviation year over year. The funds for poverty-alleviation has increased to about RMB￥30 billion each year in 2003 to 2006 from nearly RMB￥9.8 billion in 1994. Local governments at all levels have also enlarged their input in the work.

China has achieved remarkable outcome in eliminating poverty. By the end of the 20^th century, the nation had smoothly realized the goal of doubling its GDP and the strategic objectives of Stage I and II of its modernization. The overall living standard of the Chinese people had reached a better-off level. By the end of 2000, poor population in rural areas in China had decreased to 30 million and the percentage of poor population had fallen down to 3%, basically reaching the strategic goal of solving the food and clothing problem of poor rural population by the end of the 20^th century as set by the government. In 2006, China’s GDP amounted to US$2.65 trillion. Per-capita GDP historically exceeded US$1,000 and reached US$1,090. By then, most of the population still faced with the problem of food and clothing were old, weak, sick and disabled people, and women or children. Majority of the youth of China has basically got rid of poverty and thus solved the poverty problem.

However, some young people are still in poverty while the majority of the youth has eliminated the problem. The nature of their poverty is relative not absolute poverty. It is becoming increasingly difficult to lift this part of young people out of poverty.

Poor Young People in Rural Areas, Poor Young Migrant Workers, Poor Young People in Towns and Cities, Young Disabled People, Homeless Children and Poor College Students are Major Groups of Poor Youth in China

The current situation of poor Chinese youth is very special. Poor youth in China mainly include poor young people in rural areas, young migrant workers, young disabled people, poor young people in cities and towns, young homeless children and college students. However, poverty of the youth is temporary and congenital.

Poor young people in rural areas and migrant workers are the core part of the poor youth in China. Most of them are in absolute poverty. By 2006, the rural population in absolute poverty had decreased to 21.48 million from 80 million in 1993. The percentage of poor people in rural population dropped to 3% from 8.7%. By the end of 2006, there were still 21.48 million poor people in rural areas that were still faced with the problem of food and clothing. Accordingly, lifting young people in rural areas out of poverty is the key to solve the poverty problem of Chinese youth. Poor young migrant workers are a special group of the poor young population in rural areas. Out of the 200 million migrant workers flowing into cities for job, 85% are young people. A considerable percentage of young migrant workers are easily to fall in temporary poverty due to expanding income gap in society, poor vocational skills and defaulted payment of salaries in some circumstances.

Poor young unemployed people and children of the laid-off and unemployed families in towns and cities are the main body of poor young population in towns and cities, and are “new” poor population. Since 1994, the number of jobs from State-owned and collective enterprises in China has been declining quickly, while the unemployed population and registered unemployment rate have been rising continuously. From 2001 to 2005, state-owned enterprises had laid off 27 million employees in cumulative. Among registered unemployed people in towns and cities, about 70% were aged below 35. In 2006, nearly 23 million people in towns and cities were below the minimum livelihood security line. As China has a huge young population, new labor force comes forth by tens of millions every year, and employment difficulty and unemployment problem of the youth are becoming increasingly significant, which have resulted in some increase of the poor young population in towns and cities in recent years. Majority of the unemployed in towns and cities are young people and junior or senior high school graduates, who are unable to find a job due to insufficient supply of jobs and their poor educational level, and thus get into relative poverty. Besides, young people in families whose actual income level is below that of the families eligible for the local “minimum livelihood security” are also a major part of the poor young population in cities and towns.

The disabled youth and migrant poor children are the disadvantaged group among poor young people. In 1998, there were more than 60 million disabled people in China, and 13.72 million of them were poor. Poor disabled people account for about one third of the total Chinese population in poverty. By the end of 2000, the disabled population in poverty was 9.79 million.

The problem of homeless children is a global problem. There are approx 150,000 homeless children in China, with the majority aged between 10 and 15 and from economically undeveloped regions, especially from rural areas. Most of them live an unsecured life and are unable to receive compulsory education, planned immunization and other basic medical services. And diseases and hunger have severely affected their physical, mental health, survival and development.

Poverty of college students is a social phenomenon associated with the reform of the tuition system and the expanded enrollment of colleges and students. At present, college students that are financially difficult amount to 3.6 million or so, accounting for about 20% of total college students at school; and the figure of college students that are extraordinarily poor is about 1.6 million, representing 8% of the total at school. 

Assistance has been offered in helping various groups of the poor youth get out of poverty

The Chinese government has paid huge effort to solve the poverty of the poor youth in rural areas. In 1994, the State Council enacted the National Plan for Tackling Thorny Problems in Poverty Alleviation for the Eighth Seven-year Period (1994-2000). To ensure implementation of the plan, the State injected additional RMB￥1 billion respectively to support the provision of job opportunities rather than relief and to provide subsidized loans for poverty alleviation purpose. At the same time, a series of preferential policies were promulgated. The presentation of the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, i.e. the ‘Three Agricultural Problems’, and the execution of relevant policies have created effective channels and policy guarantee for the youth in rural areas to get rid of poverty. The difficulty of farmers to increase income is the most typical reflection of the “Three Agricultural Problems”. In February 2004, the Opinion of the State Council on Policies Accelerating Income Increase of Farmers was officially promulgated, which is of great realistic significance to further promoting farmers’ income increase and speeding up reforms and development of rural areas.

All sectors of society have fully collaborated with each other to actively support poor young migrant workers. In 1997, All-China Youth Federation started implementation of the  ‘Plan of One Thousand Schools to Train A Million Young Migrant workers in Cities’. So far, more than 3,200 training schools have been established around China to offer pertinent and highly practical training to over 30 million young migrant workers in cities. Specific to the phenomenon that some enterprises default or embezzle part of salaries payable to young migrant workers and to infringements of other legal rights and interests of the laborers, 10 governmental departments and ministries including the All-China Youth Federation and the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labor and Social Security have jointly established ‘Safeguard-youngster-rights Check Posts’. All parties have attended to their respective duties and fully cooperated with each other to protect the legal rights and interests of young migrant workers working in cities, and their efforts have achieved excellent results. Nearly 4000 outstanding ‘Safeguard-youngster-rights Check Posts’ have been appraised around China.

The Chinese government has made active effort to establish the mechanism of poverty alleviation in cities and help the poor youth in towns and cities to get out of poverty. By the end of 2006, there were 22.41 million people in China that were granted minimum livelihood insurance and 9.68 million households were offered minimum livelihood security. By the end of 2006, unemployment insurance had covered 111.87 million people and 3.27 million had been granted unemployment compensation.

The Chinese government has always attached importance to the poverty alleviation of the disabled, and has taken a series of effective measures, which have seen obvious effects. At the end of 2005, the population of employed disabled people in towns and cities was 4.636 million, that of disabled people taking part in production activities in rural areas was 18 million, and the employment rate of the disabled was 85%. Livelihood security has been issued for 5.16 million disabled people in poverty. Temporary relief, regular aid and special allowance have been granted to 6.429 million of the disabled. Totally 7 million poor disabled people have been supported to basically solve the problem of food and clothing. Major measures that China has taken for poverty alleviation of the disabled are as described below. First, the State has included the disabled population into the national poverty alleviation plan. In 2005, 6.438 million poor disabled people enjoyed preferential tax treatments including tax reductions and exemptions amounting to RMB￥332.772 million. The number of institutions and individuals offering peer-to-peer support to the disabled in poverty reached 306,000 and 1,785,000 respectively. The value of materials and funds donated totaled RMB￥213.45 million. Secondly, earmarked loans have been arranged for poverty alleviation of the disabled. In 1992, the State initiated the earmarked loan for rehabilitation and poverty alleviation. The loan input reached RMB￥2.6 billion in 2000. In 2003, governments at all levels arranged RMB￥1.5 billion funds supporting the disabled, and raised nearly RMB￥100 million social welfare funds. In 2005, the disabled peoples’ federation at all levels raised RMB 98.388 million financial support for poverty alleviation and RMB 5.612 million special funds for poor people with disabilities. Thirdly, the poverty alleviation service systems of federations for the handicapped at grass-roots levels have been improved to provide timely and effective services to the disabled in rural areas. By the end of 2006, 1,865 county-level service societies for the handicapped had been founded across China, covering 65% of the total number of counties (cities, prefectures), 18,724 service-delivering organizations had been established at town level, covering 42.5% of the total of towns.

In order to effectively solve the poverty problem of homeless children in China, the Chinese government promulgated in 1995 the Notice for Forwarding the Opinion of the Central Committee for Comprehensive Governance of Social Security Concerning Strengthening the Administration of Mobile Population, requesting establishment of homeless children’s protection and education centers on a trial basis in cities with huge number of homeless children.  Civil affairs authorities of China have worked actively to help, protect and educate homeless children, and to protect their legal rights and interests. In August 2003, the Measure for Administering Relief and Aid to Homeless People and Beggars in Cities without Income Source was promulgated and took effect.  In 2004, the Ministry of Civil Affairs enacted the Measure for Financing Assistance and Educational Projects for Homeless Children and allocated RMB￥30 million to support the implementation of such projects by institutions who help and protect homeless children. 84 projects were financed by the funds in the year. At the end of 2003, the Ministry of Civil Affairs had made put more than RMB￥20 million of public welfare funds from welfare lottery, and over one hundred million yuan of matching funds from local governments, to complete 130 protection and aid centers focusing on the provision of emergency shelter to homeless children. 909 relief stations had been founded around China, which helped more than 210,000 homeless people and beggars without income source. At the end of 2006, all the cities over prefecture-level own homeless children relief center. Meanwhile, the Chinese government carried out the preparation work for the enactment of policies, laws and regulations on aid and protection of homeless children. The policy system and the mechanism for solving the problem of homeless children have basically taken shape.

To alleviate poverty of college students, the Chinese government and its educational administrations have taken a variety of measures. First of all, the government has provided guarantee in terms of system and finance. In 1996, the Ministry of Education launched the Temporary Measure for the Administration of Fees by Colleges and Universities, stating that the percentage of college tuition per student should not exceed 25% of the per capita educational cost. In 1999, colleges and universities were informed and required to draw 10% of the tuitions they collected and use it to support financially difficult students. In 2002, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance jointly implemented the national scholarship programme. The college or university whose student wins the national scholarship is required to exempt that student from full tuition of the year concerned. In the meantime, the Ministry of Education will bring into practice the policies for supporting students from poor families, and will go all out to ensure that they, who account for 20% of total college students, can obtain national loans for students. Colleges and universities have fully cooperated with banks to improve the measures for administering national scholarship and grants-in-aid, and ensure that each of the students from extraordinarily poor families can get grant-in-aid in the amount of RMB￥150 each month. Since June 2004, when the State Council issued the Views on Further Improving the Work on National Student Loan, new policy and mechanism on student loan has established with risk compensation as its core. By the end of June 2006, 2.405 million college students obtained the loan, with a total contracted value of 20.14 billion. From 1994 to 2000, China had invested RMB￥945 million in supporting poor students in colleges and universities affiliated to central departments and ministries of the government. Since the national student loan policy was implemented in 1999, applications from 1.15 million students have been approved for a total contracted value of over RMB￥9.6 billion.  RMB￥6.98 billion loans have been successively released to 1.08 million students.

Colleges and universities in China have established sound policy systems for supporting poor college students. The policy system has basically taken its shape for supporting poor college students through diversified channels, mostly scholarship, student loan, part-time working fund, allowance and tuition reduction or exemption for extraordinarily poor students, and national grant-in-aid loans. These supporting policies have led to the significant achievements in supporting college students in extraordinary poverty.  Further more, the All-China Youth Federation have also founded a number of scholarships and awards to support poor college students. And the part-time job activities organized by student unions in colleges and universities have relieved to some extent the financial difficulty of some poor college students. In addition, donations from society have become an effective way to solve the poverty problem of college students. Examples include the New Great Wall—Self-support Project for Extraordinarily Poor College Students initiated by China Poverty Alleviation Foundation and the RMB￥10 million of CNOOC Stipend Fund for Poor College Students by Song Qingling Fund, which aim at helping college students who are in severe poverty and are morally and academically outstanding. The projects not only pay attention to financial support to the students, but also to their mental health and the improvement of public ethics. All these efforts provide the students with financial assistance and support for further development. 

Youth organizations participate in the poverty alleviation work

Taking the advantages of their broad network, the Chinese youth organizations widely mobilize associated youth groups and other social sectors to join the undertakings of poverty alleviation. Based on the principle of putting the human fundamental, the youth organizations combine the poverty alleviation with youth education and various projects serving youth, and have achieved fruitful results. The major measures are:

1. Improve youth quality and alleviate poverty by science and technology education. In order to help rural young people, particularly those in poverty-stricken areas, to get out of poverty by learning and practicing science and technology, the All-China Youth Federation (ACYF) launched the Cross-Century Science and Technology Training Project for Rural Youth in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance, which directly trained over 2 million rural youth in 747 counties. In cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology, the ACYF implemented the Youth Sparkle Project and established 37 Sparkle Bases in eastern part of China, which provide directional support for 20 poverty-stricken counties in western part of China. By now, the Sparkle Project has trained 5100 rural youth and introduced over 200 projects for those poverty-stricken counties in western part of China.

2. Serve the youth needs for income increase and alleviate poverty through employment. The youth organizations at various levels try to help rural young people to be employed in other industries and urban areas by providing vocational skills training, promoting role models in youth business start-ups, supporting the development of intermediary service institutions for youth employment and other measures. According to the incomplete data, since 2002, youth organizations at various levels have trained over 800,000 rural youth, developed 167,000 role models in youth business start-ups, organized over 290 job markets at the scale of over 1000 participants, helped almost 1 million rural youth to be employed in other industries and urban areas, and provided practical training for over 30 million migrant young workers.

3. Take advantage of the network and alleviate poverty of the paired county. Making full use of its human recourses network, the ACYF tried to help Lingqiu County in Shanxi Province to get out of poverty by various measures, including human resources development, supporting the leading agricultural industries and helping enterprises get out of difficulties by science and technology. In the past 8 years, the ACYF invested capital and materials valued at 25 million RMB yuan, and implemented 312 poverty-alleviation projects in the fields of industry development, human resources development, basic education, social public undertakings and donations, which effectively promoted the sustainable and steady development of Lingqiu county’s economy and continual improvement of people’s living standards.

4. Promote the brand project and alleviate poverty by education. Project Hope, which aims to help school dropouts in poverty-stricken areas, continues to develop. Since 2000, Project Hope received more than 600 million RMB yuan from domestic and overseas donation, helped over 290,000 poor students in rural areas, built over 3400 Hope primary schools, established over 3000 Hope libraries and trained thousands of rural teachers.

5. Expand the service and alleviate poverty by voluntary service. Making voluntary service an important approach for poverty alleviation, the ACYF launched the Young Volunteers’ Poverty Alleviation Relay Project, which since 2001 has sent 7610 young volunteers to provide half-year to two-year voluntary service in basic education, medical service and agricultural science and technology in over 200 poverty-stricken counties in the central and western part of China; conducted the Young Volunteers’ Computer Skills Training Project, which mobilized all social sectors to donate over 4000 computers, established 105 training centers in 38 poverty-stricken counties in the central and western part of China, and provided training for over 300,000 local people; and launched Go West University Students’ Voluntary Service Project, which annually sent 10,000 university graduates to provide one-year to two-year voluntary service in education, public health, agricultural skills, poverty alleviation and the building and management of youth centers in towns of 191 poverty-stricken counties in the western part of China.

6. Create new platforms and alleviate poverty by culture. By organizing various cultural activities, such as Rural Youth Cultural Festival, youth organizations at various levels developed a series of rural youth cultural activities, widely established rural youth activity centers and brought up a group of rural youth celebrities of culture. The activities covered over 60% of all the towns and impacted great influence in the countryside, thus realized the goal of alleviating poverty by culture.

7. Combine poverty alleviation with environmental protection. Considering the environment in poverty-stricken areas is always deteriorated, youth organizations at various levels actively conduct the Mother River Protection Operation, particularly the planting of ecological economic forests, which not only improves the ecological environment but also helps a group of rural youth get out of poverty. At present, there are 21 national projects and 241 local projects of ecological economic forests, with a planned area of over 1.3 million mu. According to data, 1 mu of ecological economic forests can generate income of over 1000 RMB yuan.