Measuring Child Poverty Using Rothbarth Scales: Estimates for an East Coast Province in China

Abstract

This study employs Rothbarth's method of estimating adult equivalence scales to construct poverty thresholds for different types of households and to measure child poverty rate in the urban sector of a province in China. The major finding is that there is a significant drop in child poverty headcount between 2002 and 2009. This decrease in poverty headcount implies that families previously in relative and extreme poverty have benefited from the rapid economic growth in China during these 8 years.