Poverty in Urban China 2012–2020: Applying an Income-Asset Joint Framework

Despite China’s remarkable poverty reduction, policy debates and empirical research have focused largely on rural areas, leaving urban poverty comparatively understudied. Using five waves of the China Family Panel Studies (2012–2020), this study applies an income-asset joint poverty framework to examine trends, correlates, and public subsidy coverage across protected poverty (income poor only), vulnerable poverty (asset poor only), and twice poverty (both income and asset poor). Absolute protected and twice poverty declined markedly, whereas absolute vulnerable poverty and all three forms of relative poverty remained substantial. The vulnerable poor were less likely than the protected or twice poor to receive public subsidies. These findings call for differentiated, inclusive interventions across poverty categories, especially for the vulnerable poor underserved by current support systems.