Poverty alleviation, inequality and welfare in rural China

China has made significant gains in reducing rural poverty as a result of e xtensive and rapid growth supplemented by the poverty alleviation programme s in major rural backwaters. Yet, recent decades have also brought dismantl ing of community-based health and welfare programmes, with no discernable p rogress in extension of universal social security to the to the countryside . Rapid increases in absolute and relative population above age of 60, risi ng dependency ratios in which a shrinking labouring class mist support the aged and infirm, and galloping inequality that threatens to make China's in come distribution the most unequal in the world, all highlight the importan ce of effective and reliable welfare and pension programmes. The paper conc ludes that social welfare, poverty and inequality, slighted in China's race to growth, will confront it in the years to come.