Poverty
China has worked hard to reduce the number of citizens who live in poverty.
The number of people in China who earn less than $1.90 (£1.25) per day, which is the line the World Bank uses to measure extreme poverty, has gone down by nearly 800 million. According to the World Bank, 88.1 percent of Chinese people lived on less than this in 1981. This had fallen to 0.3 percent by the end of 2018.
Around 40% of Chinese people live in the countryside. For most, life has improved with economic reform.
Although many people remain living in extreme poverty, life expectancy has risen and death rates have fallen. Today, most rural Chinese have better diets, clothing and housing. More have access to electricity and the number with televisions, fridges and other consumer goods has increased.
Much of this is down to economic growth and the relocation of people living in remote villages to towns and cities.
In, 2020 in China’s Sichuan province, villagers who lived on an 800 metre cliff top, were moved to an urban housing estate as part of the nation’s campaign to end poverty. (Source: BBC News)
Despite this huge progress, millions of poor people in China struggle to meet their needs.
In 2016 - the most recent year for which World Bank figures are available - China had 7.2 million people (0.5% of the population) living in extreme poverty (on less than $1.90 per day, based on 2011 prices).
The World Bank draws a higher poverty line of $5.50 per day for upper-middle-income countries. China is now an upper-middle-income country, says the bank. By this measure about a quarter of China's population is living in poverty.
In 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China still had 600 million people whose monthly income was barely 1,000 ¥ (£125). He said that was not enough to rent a room in a city.
