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Case Study: China
China’s national poverty line, converted into a per capita per-day basis is CNY 3.28, or USD 0.49 or EUR
0.37. This is based on China’s national poverty line of CNY 1,196 per capita annual income; standard and
exchange rates were taken as of December 2010, when the photography was undertaken.
China has seen an unprecedented number of people within a country who have moved across the official
poverty line over the past 30 years. There were 26.88 million rural poor in 2010. 85% of the poor in China are
from rural areas, and the national poverty line is largely used to monitor rural poverty, though it also affects
the large number of migrant workers in urban areas, and thus has wide-spanning influence across the
country.
China’s standard is an absolute poverty line, using income and consumption aspects with food and nonfood
expenditures. Since the earliest line of CNY 100 in 1978, China’s poverty line has been adjusted over
20 times, mostly due to inflation adjustments. For food expenditure, a basket of foods which could achieve
2,100 calories per day is used, with proportions spread amongst various locally consumed grains,
vegetables, meat, rice/noodles etc. For the CNY 1,196 standard, a pre-determined Engel’s coefficient (ratio
of food expenditure to total expenditures) of 0.6 was used. Poverty line and poverty rate calculations are
done by the National Bureau of Statistics, which conducts the National Rural Household Income Survey and
the National Poverty Monitoring Survey annually.
About the Winning Artists
Stefen Chow - Born in Malaysia, a self taught photographer, Stefen has been awarded by PDN, International
Photo Awards, PX3 while his works have been exhibited in cities including Los Angeles, Paris, Milan, Beijing
and Singapore. Stefen has lived in New York City, different parts of Asia and currently shuttles between
Singapore and Beijing for work. Stefen is considered the 7th Malaysian to ever summit Mount Everest.
HY Lin - is an economist by training and is in the profession of market research. She has a background in
economic policy and has experience in public policy making in the Singapore government. She holds an
MBA from the MIT-Tsinghua University International MBA Program. Currently based in Beijing, HY seeks
solutions that make social, environmental and commercial sense.