China is undergoing a campaign which is called “The Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy” to eradicate extreme poverty from rural China until 2020. Though poverty in rural China has been studied intensively in different objective dimensions, little attention has been paid to poverty line settings and subjective poverty, which are hinged to the policy effects. In order to fill in the research gap, this study employs a nationally representative survey of rural households in 2016, to measure subjective poverty in rural China, and analyze the determinants as well. Our results indicate that the mean subjective poverty line of the rural households is 8297 yuan per capita, which is far higher than the national poverty line (2800 yuan). Statistically, 29% of the surveyed rural households who are not objectively poor feel subjectively poor. The objective poverty line cannot fully reflect the subjective poverty perception. Thus, how to reduce the subjective poverty perception could be a major policy agenda in rural China after 2020, when extreme poverty is no longer a problem.

A substantial amount of China's rapid economic growth in has been attributed to its large proportion of rural-urban migrants, but more than 80% of these migrants' children are still left in rural areas mainly due to China's household registration system. Identification of the impact of parental migration on children's school performance may encounter the problem of endogeneity. Using unique survey data collected from Qinghai Province and the Ningxia Autonomous Region in Northwestern China where more than 7,100 Grade 4 & 5 students from 74 rural elementary schools participated and by the instrumental-variable estimation, our results indicate that parents' decisions to migrate are exogenous to their children's schooling performance, and one more migratory parent can marginally reduce their child's math score by 1.73 percent in percentile rank, which implies that the current economic growth in China partially jeopardizes the future of the next rural generation. In addition, we find a causal relationship between the poor performance of ethnic minorities and both geographical and social disadvantages.

Objectives To test the impact of provider performance pay for anaemia reduction in rural China.Design A cluster randomised trial of information, subsidies, and incentives for school principals to reduce anaemia among their students. Enumerators and study participants were not informed of study arm assignment.Setting 72 randomly selected rural primary schools across northwest China.Participants 3553 fourth and fifth grade students aged 9-11 years. All fourth and fifth grade students in sample schools participated in the study.Interventions Sample schools were randomly assigned to a control group, with no intervention, or one of three treatment arms: (a) an information arm, in which principals received information about anaemia; (b) a subsidy arm, in which principals received information and unconditional subsidies; and (c) an incentive arm, in which principals received information, subsidies, and financial incentives for reducing anaemia among students. Twenty seven schools were assigned to the control arm (1816 students at baseline, 1623 at end point), 15 were assigned to the information arm (659 students at baseline, 596 at end point), 15 to the subsidy arm (726 students at baseline, 667 at end point), and 15 to the incentive arm (743 students at baseline, 667 at end point). Main outcome measures Student haemoglobin concentrations.Results Mean student haemoglobin concentration rose by 1.5 g/L (95% CI -1.1 to 4.1) in information schools, 0.8 g/L (-1.8 to 3.3) in subsidy schools, and 2.4 g/L (0 to 4.9) in incentive schools compared with the control group. This increase in haemoglobin corresponded to a reduction in prevalence of anaemia (Hb <115 g/L) of 24% in incentive schools. Interactions with pre-existing incentives for principals to achieve good academic performance led to substantially larger gains in the information and incentive arms: when combined with incentives for good academic performance, associated effects on student haemoglobin concentration were 9.8 g/L (4.1 to 15.5) larger in information schools and 8.6 g/L (2.1 to 15.1) larger in incentive schools.Conclusions Financial incentives for health improvement were modestly effective. Understanding interactions with other motives and pre-existing incentives is critical.Trial registration number ISRCTN76158086.