Poverty alleviation for people with disabilities in China: policy, practice, exclusionary effects, and ways forward

Abstract

Adopting an approach that differs from practices in other countries, China has made many achievements in reducing poverty for people with disabilities using two successful types of policies and a unique political mobilization mechanism. However, inconsistencies between the policies and their implementation in the Chinese policy environment has produced new exclusionary effects, hindering the process of social integration for people with disabilities. These obstacles need to be addressed.

Keywords:

• poverty alleviation policies
• people with disabilities
• political mobilization model
• exclusionary effects

1. Introduction

Disability and poverty are important current research topics. It is known that they have a strong correlation—households with people with disabilities may be vulnerable to poverty due to limited employment opportunities and extra living expenses (Mont and Viet Cuong 2011). Statistics indicate that the incidence of poverty among disabled people globally is more than twice that among nondisabled people (WHO and World Bank 2011). Consequently, people with disabilities are increasingly being mainstreamed into national poverty reduction programs, and disability is becoming a critical and difficult issue in the global fight against poverty (Palmer 2011).

In contrast to the practical failures of many other countries, such as conflict, unemployment, rising poverty and inequality (Grech 2009), China has made many achievements in reducing poverty among disabled people through a top-down political mobilization model and is paying attention to alleviating relative poverty (Zhang and Ding 2020; CDPF 2020). It is well understood that economic distress severely limits market opportunities and leads to the cumulative disadvantage in terms of social capital, while reducing poverty can provide opportunities for social inclusion (Yu, Qi, and To 2020). However, despite China’s success in reducing poverty among persons with disabilities, their marginalized status has not changed and has even been aggravated. This serious issue deserves more attention.

In attempting to explain the barriers experienced by people with disabilities, some scholars use an approach that takes into account the stigma relating to both the individual and the claims system (Liao, Zhang, and Zhang 2020). Individual stigma conveys a person’s own feeling that applying for social welfare suggests a devalued identity. Disabled welfare recipients in China often consider welfare to be symbolic of personal failure and incompetence. Claim stigma refers to the objective process of stigmatization, generated by rules and behavior of policy implementation. For example, claimants may encounter suspicion and disrespect during means-tested and home visits (Liao, Zhang, and Zhang 2020). However, these studies have focused more on the social assistance system and less on the whole poverty alleviation policy within China’s micro policy environment. Therefore, this article introduces China’s anti-poverty policy and practice for disabled people and examines the obstacles by critically exploring the gap between policy implementation and enactment. In addition, this paper proposes feasible approaches to promoting social inclusion.

2. Poverty alleviation policies for people with disabilities in China

According to the Action Plan for Poverty Alleviation for Poor Persons with Disabilities (2016-2020), there are essentially two types of poverty alleviation policies for disabled people.

The first type of policies provides survival-oriented policies for severely disabled people living in adversity, especially those who do not have jobs, including:

• Cash allowances, such as the minimum living allowance, the nursing allowance for severely disabled people, and the living allowance for impoverished disabled people.

• Insurance subsidies – pension insurance and medical insurance expenses are paid by the local finance bureau to reduce family expenditure.

• Social services, such as free medical examinations, drug treatments, rehabilitation services, education services, care services, and renovation of dilapidated buildings.

The second type of policies are development-oriented policies aimed at disabled people who are employed, enabling them to obtain income independently. The main policies are as follows:

• Employability training, including literacy, vocational education, practical technical training, and other employability supports.

• Job support, such as e-commerce, tourism for rural villages, women’s weaving, and other jobs.

3. The practice of poverty alleviation policies

Successful practice of poverty alleviation policies has benefited from the political mobilization model initiated by the Central Committee of CPC. This model gives rewards (bonus, praise, merit recording, promotion, etc.) or punishments (criticism, demotion, suspension, dismissal, etc.) to grassroots officials implementing disability policies, based on the results of their policy assessment, thereby directly affecting their career prospects. Therefore, grassroots officials work hard to get rewards and avoid punishments. Through extensive top-down mobilization, the per capita net income of households with impoverished disabled people increased from 2,776 yuan in 2015 to 8,726 yuan in 2019, representing an annual growth rate of 33.2%. China has also reduced the number of impoverished disabled people by over a million every year (based on China’s current poverty line) (CDPF 2020).

Unfortunately, we identified a negative issue in policy practice that has led to new forms of exclusion for people with disabilities. The government’s management strategy from incentives to punishments focuses on shaping grassroots officials into strict and efficient official discourse executors, but this aim has not been realized due to the stigma of disability, welfare competition, grassroots officials’ improper use of their discretion, and stakeholders using their power for the personal profit of relatives, friends and associates.

4. The exclusionary effects of poverty alleviation practice

4.1. Stigma due to disability license rule

Strict diagnostic identification and the disability license (the official documentation for disabled people in China) strengthens the stigma. Indeed, under the longstanding socio-cultural environment of ‘disablism’ in China, disabled people are seen as inferior and fragile, and as requiring additional support (Ge 2015). State-led social assistance programs treat the diagnosis rather than the need as the prerequisite for welfare for people with disabilities. Through a method that focuses on labelling and categorizing, impoverished disabled people are further distinguished from others, strengthening the idea of disabled people as ‘inferior’. People with disabilities receiving welfare have a sense of humiliation and a negative self-identity that inhibits their participation and integration in social and political activities due to a fear of how they are seen in the ‘eyes of other people’ (taken from an anecdotal discussion).

4.2. Unequal status due to welfare competition and improper use of grassroots officials’ discretion

Disabled people deserve and need social welfare, and this should not be linked to competition with other marginalized groups. However, due to the limited coverage of China’s poverty alleviation policies, there are occasions when multiple claimants compete for benefits eligibility. The physical characteristics of disabled people are in line with the preferences of the policy assessment criteria. Therefore, grassroots officials use discretion, that is, the right to interpret welfare qualifications, formulate new rules for policy implementation, and determine support allocation (Liao, Zhang, and Zhang 2020), making ‘disability’ a symbol of priority in obtaining benefits. This has the effect of allowing other poor groups to believe that the disabled use ‘disability’ to deprive of them of their welfare rights, thus causing dissatisfaction and resentment. Welfare competition and inappropriate use of grassroots officers’ discretion have increased the gap between disabled and non-disabled groups, resulting in the exclusion of people with disabilities from many aspects of social life.

4.3. Deprivation of employment rights for personal interest

Poverty alleviation projects for disabled people include multiple stakeholders, such as township governments, villagers’ committees, markets, and vulnerable groups, among which the township governments and villagers’ committees are the most powerful. They often use their power to obtain internal information and resources to help relatives and friends for profit, depriving disadvantaged disabled people of their social rights. For example, industrial development programs are designed to provide employment opportunities for disabled people, but most of this welfare is divided between local elites and their associates, with only a small amount of cash or in-kind subsidies being given to the targeted people. In other cases, many companies deprive disabled people of their employment rights for their own self-interest: for example, by offering ‘empty positions’ that pay the minimum salary to youth with disabilities in order to complete the quota of employment for disabled people (at least 1.5% of working employees) and thus avoid heavy fines (Liao 2021).

Consequently, we found that the inclusive poverty alleviation policy framework faces exclusive practices, leading to exclusionary results. The practices of grassroots officials and companies make it easier for people with disabilities to obtain cash and in-kind benefits instead of employment opportunities. However, this form of welfare arouses dissatisfaction among others: ‘The most comfortable people in present-day China are the disabled. As long as they lie down and do nothing, they will have a lot of money’ (taken from an anecdotal discussion). Such discourse highlights the opposition and estrangement between disabled groups and nondisabled groups. The continuous production and reproduction of this discourse has aggravated social exclusion, and to reduce this conflict, some disabled people would rather refuse such welfare to achieve normal interaction with other social groups.

5. Approaches to promote social inclusion

First, we argue that grassroots officials need to pay attention to social barriers of people who use the disability label and to protect them more carefully from the psychological trauma and self-exclusion associated with stigmatization.

Second, provision of generous welfare policies and expansion of financial support would reduce welfare competition. Also, the eligibility criteria related to poverty should be clarified and refined, with poverty alleviation designed through analysis of the actual needs of disadvantaged candidates, rather than their physical characteristics, to better respond to public concerns.

Finally, strengthening bottom-up social supervision would be valuable. Top-down supervision and bottom-up social supervision should be fully combined by giving full play to the role of a public complaints and proposal administration, follow-up phone calls, and a web monitoring service.

6. Conclusion

The driving force of the practice of reducing poverty for disabled people in China is through the top-down political mobilization mechanism, a practice that differs from that in Western countries. Through the dual guarantee of social assistance policies and capacity-building policies, China has achieved remarkable results in poverty reduction. However, the fact that the various forms of exclusion of disabled people have not been improved by the increase in their income cannot be ignored. The way welfare for disabled people is administered in practice in the welfare supply system has had profound exclusionary effects. The solution is not one of reducing support for disabled people to curb resentment. Rather, it requires more inclusive policies and social environments, expansion of the range of benefits, and provision of universal and generous support for all marginalized groups. At the same time, it is important to regulate the use of grassroots officers’ discretion and to strengthen bottom-up social supervision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research received no external funding.