Center for China Public Sector Economy Research, Economics School, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China.
School of Business and Law, University of Agder, 4630 Kristiansand, Norway.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Feb 11;18(4):1747. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18041747.
Although China is experiencing a transition from a relation-based society to a rule-based society, relationships among acquaintances still play an important role in resource allocation, such as the allocation of policy resources. This is particularly true in rural China, where targeted poverty alleviation is prevalent and a relation-based social structure still dominates. However, it is still unknown how relationships affect the livelihood strategy of households in rural China and how poverty alleviation policies plays a role between them. Therefore, this paper embeds poverty alleviation into the relation-based society and explores how households respond to the policy in this specific context. Using grounded theory research method and the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) framework, this paper contains in-depth interviews and field observations from three poverty-stricken villages in Northeast China. The results show that relationships have a significant impact on the households' livelihood strategy. In other words, the households' livelihood strategy is embedded in the relation-based society. The types of relationships induce households to choose maintained or developmental type livelihood strategies, while relationships influence how the poverty alleviation policies affect the livelihood strategy. This study is not only an extension of the SLA in the research context, but also provides a significant perspective for enriching the long-term mechanism of targeted poverty alleviation by building a theoretical model of the relationships between a relation-based society, targeted poverty alleviation and the livelihood strategies of households.
尽管中国正在经历从关系型社会向规则型社会的转型，但熟人关系在资源分配中仍然扮演着重要角色，例如政策资源的分配。在农村地区，这种情况尤其明显，因为精准扶贫普遍存在，关系型社会结构仍然占主导地位。然而，目前尚不清楚关系如何影响中国农村家庭的生计策略，以及扶贫政策在其中起到了怎样的作用。因此，本文将扶贫纳入关系型社会，并探讨家庭在这种特定背景下如何对政策做出反应。本文运用扎根理论研究方法和可持续生计框架，对中国东北地区的三个贫困村进行了深入的访谈和实地观察。结果表明，关系对家庭的生计策略有重大影响。换句话说，家庭的生计策略嵌入在关系型社会中。关系的类型促使家庭选择维持型或发展型生计策略，而关系则影响扶贫政策如何影响生计策略。本研究不仅拓展了可持续生计框架在研究背景下的应用，还通过构建关系型社会、精准扶贫与家庭生计策略之间关系的理论模型，为丰富精准扶贫的长效机制提供了一个重要视角。
