Eradicating poverty, improving living standards, and achieving common prosperity are essential tasks of socialism. China has made continuous efforts to ensure people's access to childcare, education, employment, medical services, eldercare, housing, and social assistance, meeting women's expectation for a better life.
1. Elimination of Absolute Poverty
China has organized the largest and most intensive poverty alleviation campaign in human history, benefiting the greatest number of people. By the end of 2020, it had successfully eliminated absolute poverty throughout the country, meeting the poverty reduction target of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule. On this epic journey of poverty reduction, China has honored its solemn commitment that no one should be left behind, specifically targeting women as a key group to widen their path towards prosperity.
Taking targeted measures to guarantee basic living needs. China has adopted a targeted strategy in poverty alleviation. Under this framework, it maintains detailed records on the distribution of impoverished populations, the underlying causes of poverty, the specific categories of poverty, and the expectations of the poor. This approach guarantees the implementation of targeted efforts in six areas: identification of those in need, project arrangement, capital utilization, the introduction of household-specific measures, the dispatch of officials to villages based on local conditions, and the achievement of set goals. As a result, women, who comprise approximately half of the impoverished population, have benefited from targeted resource allocation.
The Health Program for Poverty Alleviation and its health promotion campaigns have guaranteed access to basic medical and health services for impoverished rural women.
Through education initiatives for poverty alleviation, compulsory education in impoverished areas has been steadily improved, ensuring that no school-age girls from poor families drop out of school due to poverty.
Social security systems have been strengthened to ensure eligible women on the list of the registered poor receive subsistence allowances or assistance and support for the extremely poor.
Renovation of dilapidated houses in rural areas, particularly in severely impoverished areas, has been subsidized by the government. Relocation projects have helped over 9.6 million people, who originally lived in inhospitable areas, to emerge from poverty and seek development.
The basic food and clothing needs of impoverished women have been guaranteed, and their access to compulsory education, basic medical services, and safe housing has been ensured.
After winning the battle against absolute poverty, the country initiated a five-year transition period during which poverty alleviation support policies remained in effect to buttress areas and populations that had recently emerged from poverty. Based on the stable operation of such policies, a robust dynamic monitoring and assistance mechanism has been established to prevent any relapse into or occurrence of poverty, and support remains in place for women lifted out of poverty and those in low-income areas to participate in the local economy, seek more employment opportunities, and increase incomes.
Boosting the economy to create job opportunities for women and raise their income. China is committed to the policy of development-driven poverty alleviation to empower impoverished women.
It has strengthened industrial support by facilitating the gradient transfer of labor-intensive industries such as food processing and clothing manufacturing, benefitting 98.9 percent of poor households. By advancing east-west cooperation in labor services, setting up poverty alleviation workshops, and creating public-interest rural jobs, the country has provided job opportunities for poor women with the will and ability to work. In its efforts to alleviate poverty, China has leveraged new forms of business and industries such as e-commerce programs, photovoltaic technology, and tourism to help impoverished women find good jobs within their local communities. In ethnic minority areas, the transition of the hand-knitting business from a purely traditional craft to a driver of the local economy has transformed the lives of the women embroidery artisans in the Miao and Yi communities.
China has increased fiscal and financial support. In the critical battle against poverty, special supportive polices such as offering subsidized loans requiring no collateral or guarantee and tax reductions or exemptions were introduced. Cumulatively, over RMB450 billion in guaranteed microloans and poverty alleviation microcredit were disbursed to women in need, and 8.7 million impoverished women saw their income increased through entrepreneurship. From 2021 to 2024, the country sustained a flow of microcredit designated for people recently lifted out of poverty, of which RMB76.83 billion were offered to nearly 1.93 million women.
Efforts in skills training have been strengthened, with training courses on vocational skills, entrepreneurship, and practical agricultural technology being held through multiple channels, at multiple levels, and in multiple forms. As of 2020, training programs had been organized for a total of 10.21 million impoverished women and female technicians. From 2023 to 2024, the Rain and Dew Program sponsored 632,000 women to receive vocational education, allowing them to continue their march out of poverty.
Increasing input to break the bottlenecks constraining women's development. China has advanced infrastructure development, fundamentally solving many of the issues impeding women's development in impoverished areas, such as insufficient access to transport, electricity, water and communications. Where conditions permit, all towns, townships, and administrative villages have been connected to paved roads and provided with bus and postal services. Full coverage of reliable power supply has been largely realized in rural areas. All counties have access to gigabit internet, all townships to 5G services, and all villages to broadband connections. By the end of 2024, 94 percent of the rural population had enjoyed access to tap water.
(Source: SCIO White Paper China's Achievements in Women's Well-Rounded Development in the New Era)
Editor: Cui Rui
