Poverty and quality of life of Chinese children: From the perspective of deprivation

Abstract

Using data from the <i>Family and Children Survey of Beijing 2011</i>, the authors constructed a child poverty measure – Child Deprivation Indicators (CDIs) – and explored the relationship between poverty and children's quality of life. The CDIs were found to be a more valid child poverty measure than the conventional measure which is based mainly on individuals' social assistance status. The findings show that deprived children are worse off in terms of living conditions. Furthermore, deprived boys and girls are disadvantaged differently; boys in self-efficacy and girls in physical development. The findings have four important implications: (i) policy makers should look beyond those on social assistance; (ii) more public funding should be invested in deprived children's informal education and social interaction; (iii) dealing with structural problems relating to parents' socioeconomic status (SES) would be helpful to alleviate child deprivation; (iv) different types of support should be provided to deprived boys and girls for their disadvantages are not identical.