Identifying vulnerability to poverty and its determinants among older adults in empty-nest households: an empirical analysis from rural Shandong Province, China

Abstract

Although extreme poverty has been eradicated in China, older adults in empty-nest households may risk falling into or returning to poverty in the future. Previous studies on poverty alleviation had focused on the measurement of ex-post poverty at a particular time. Few studies have assessed households’ vulnerability to poverty from a forward-looking perspective. This study aims to identify the vulnerability to poverty and its determinants among rural empty-nest households with older adults. A total of 1,951 rural empty-nest households with older adults followed for one year were included in the analysis. The Three-stage Feasible Generalized Least Square method was used to estimate the vulnerability to poverty in 2019 and 2020. A regression model was used to explore the effect of different factors on vulnerability to poverty, and Shapley values were used to decompose each factor’s contribution and the attributable percentage. With the increase of the poverty threshold, the success rate of predicting poverty status in 2020 based on poverty vulnerability in 2019 increased from 33.00% to 63.71%. Regardless of the poverty threshold, the vulnerability to poverty incidence decreased from 2019 to 2020. For example, under the Shandong province poverty line, the estimated proportion of rural empty-nest households with older adults vulnerable to poverty had decreased from 15.63% in 2019 to 11.17% in 2020. The Shapley decomposition results suggested that the number of the household labor force, the interviewees’ education and age, and household size were the four most influential factors that contributed significantly to the poverty vulnerability. This study reveals that a portion of rural empty-nest households with older adults are still vulnerable to poverty. The formulation of future anti-poverty policies should prioritize these groups and adopt targeted poverty prevention and poverty alleviation measures based on the driving factors of poverty vulnerability among rural empty-nest households with older adults.

Relationship between the health poverty vulnerability and multimorbidity patterns identified with latent class analysis aged 45 years or more adults in Northwestern China: A cross-section study

“…[54] Registered poor households and catastrophic medical expenses increased HPV, consistent with a previous study. [16] The number of adults with chronic disease in households was a protective factor in this study, slightly different from our findings. A possible reason was that the relationship between the number of adults with chronic conditions and HPV decreased before increasing curvilinearly, [56] with the presence of over 3 adults with chronic disease in the household as a risk factor.…”

Determinants of health poverty vulnerability in rural areas of Western China in the post-poverty relief era: an analysis based on the Anderson behavioral model

“…In this study, the vulnerability of the rural areas of Ningxia based on the VEP theory, using 60% of Ningxia’s per capita disposable income as the poverty line, is higher than the 2015 China Financial Survey data and the health poverty vulnerability of empty-nester households in Shandong Province [ 36 ]. The reasons for the analysis are as follows, First, the subjects selected in this study are located in the former poverty zone in the rural areas of southern Ningxia, although all of them have been lifted out of poverty.…”

“…Therefore, this study selects 60% of the per capita income in Ningxia in 2022 as the standard for the relative poverty line [ 27 – 30 ]. In 2022, 60% of the per capita disposable income in the rural areas of Ningxia is 9202 yuan [ 31 – 33 ]. The data are from the Ningxia Statistical Yearbook 2022 [ 34 ] The value of health poverty vulnerability was distributed between 0 and 1.…”

Manifestations of Sustainable Development in China: Based on Policy Study

“…It not only takes the lead in issuing country plans and progress reports but also organically integrates them with medium and long-term development strategies such as the 13th Five-Year Plan and has achieved remarkable results. In the field of poverty alleviation, from the end of 2015 to the end of 2018, China's rural poverty-stricken population decreased by 39.15 million in three years and will be fully lifted out of poverty by 2020 (Jing, Z., et al, 2022), completing the primary goal of the Sustainable Development Agenda ten years ahead of schedule. Significant progress has also been made in areas such as health, education, and public services.…”