Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. xv, 315 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$95.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5381-5495-3.
During the latter part of the 1990s, workers in urban areas of China were significantly affected by the restructuring of the economy. In contrast to previous conditions, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and collective firms faced stringent budget restrictions. As a result, many workers were laid off. One policy response was to introduce a system of means-tested benefits. After application, households in possession of an urban hukou (residence permit) could receive a benefit called Dibao. The number of individuals living in households receiving Dibao increased for some years, with the highest numbers reached in 2003, when 4.3 percent of the urban population lived in a household receiving Dibao; subsequently, the number of recipients declined. For example, in 2019, recipients made up not more than 1.0 percent of those living in urban China having an urban hukou.
Poverty and Pacification by Dorothy J. Solinger aims to better understand the realities and problems faced by households receiving Dibao. It builds on many interviews, most but not all conducted with members of Dibao-receiving households. The book also relates to regulations and discusses the relevant literature in Chinese and English. It includes a lengthy collection of footnotes and references. Much of the content of the book is new, with only minor parts having been previously published as articles.
Poverty and Pacification is organized into four sections and a short concluding chapter. The first section sets the stage. Solinger describes how changed state policies made enterprises lay off many workers. She discusses urban poverty in China, and how it was previously combatted. The chapter introduces the provision of Dibao, and Solinger explains who was most most likely to receive the benefit. The second section of the book deepens the understanding of circumstances leading to the receipt of Dibao and the life of the recipients. Although the Chinese state took several steps to help those affected by structural change, Solinger concludes that the measures were far from adequate. The author discusses in detail the provision of Dibao, and portrays how recipients felt about the benefit. Such views are complemented by material based on interviews with cadre members and official state media.
The third section of the book covers two different aspects of receiving the Dibao benefit. First, the author places the Chinese experience in an international perspective. Second, the author compares Dibao provision across cities in China. This comparison is motivated by findings from visits to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, and Lanzhou, the capital of Hubei Province. The author finds that those two cities adopted very different strategies in managing poverty. Lanzhou, with the lower income of the two cities, was lenient toward its poverty-stricken residents. For example, the authorities allowed Dibao recipients to engage in sidewalk businesses. Similar leniency was not found in Wuhan. The author provides results from a regression analysis using cross-section data for 63 cities, including all of China’s provincial capitals.
The fourth section of the book addresses changes during the time period when the number of Dibao recipients decreased. In one chapter, the author discusses policy changes and new restrictions and regulations that made it more difficult to receive Dibao. Another chapter poses the question: When new pension programs were created, did pensions largely substitute for Dibao? The answer is no.
As should have become clear from this description, the book covers many aspects of Dibao and Dibao receipt. A reader learns much about the experiences of the benefit’s applicants and recipients. However, the book has little to say about Dibao issues in rural China, where at the time of the book’s publication most households in China receiving Dibao lived. A limitation of the research as reported is that it does not address questions on what happened to members of the Dibao-receiving households later in their lives. The author did not use a research design in which she followed recipients over a period of time.
A reflection after having read the book is that the burden of urban China’s retrenchment from full employment during the second half of the 1990s was not gender neutral. Female workers were more likely to drop out of the labour force than their male counterparts. In addition, female workers were more likely than male workers to become unemployed. Therefore, a fuller account of the social consequences of China’s restructuring should also cover how gender inequalities increased among adult urban residents of working age.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in China’s Dibao system, particularly to those interested in the problems faced by urban Dibao recipients.
Bjorn A. Gustafsson
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg