UNICEF ‘Child Poverty in Perspective’ Report: A View from the UK

In February 2007, UNICEF launched the latest in a series of reports comparing the conditions of young people's lives across the world's more industrialised countries. The report ranked the UK as the lowest of the countries investigated. We give a critical overview of the report, identifying its limitations as well as some of the trends it reveals. We also discuss the poor placing of the UK in relation to current broader political and public debates.     

HEALTH OF HOME-BASED SEX WORKERS AND THEIR CHILDREN IN RURAL ANDHRA PRADESH,INDIA

This study uses secondary data from 2006 to assess the physical and mental health of rural, home-based sex workers and their young children in rural Andhra Pradesh state of India. The analyses of survey and clinical data show a high level of morbidity amongst sex worker women and their children. Women show high levels of nutritional deficiencies, anaemia, weight loss and hospitalisation. Women's mental health is particularly serious, with 92 per cent being depressed and 57 per cent having attempted suicide. The majority have experienced domestic and work-related violence, including rape. Clinical assessments of sex workers’ children show that most have received vaccinations, but almost half have parasites, dental problems and nutritional deficiencies. Both the physical and mental health of sex worker mothers are associated with the health of their children. Therefore, health interventions focusing on sex worker mothers have the potential to improve the health of their children.     

Child Poverty in the American States: The Impact of Welfare Reform,Economics, and Demographics

This article identifies the predictors of child poverty rates at the state level before and after the adoption and implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The analysis shows that the most important state‐level factors that influence child poverty rates are demographics, the health and viability of the state economy, and often the generosity, inclusiveness, and quality of state welfare programs. States with large numbers of black citizens, and those that score highest on infant mortality, teen births, births to unmarried women, children living with a parent without a high school degree, and children living with a single parent have the highest rates of child poverty. Child poverty rates are lowest in states that suffer less unemployment, and in wealthier states. States that score higher on per capita personal income, tax revenues, and taxable resources have lower child poverty rates. While specific “tough” welfare policies adopted by some states seem to have no impact on child poverty rates, we tested for the first time a sophisticated measure of the overall quality of state welfare programs. The analysis reveals that the global quality of a state's welfare programs is often an independent predictor of child poverty. States with the most generous, inclusive, and supportive welfare programs have done the best job of lowering and containing child poverty.     

国外学者对中国消除农村绝对贫困的研究

自20世纪90年代以来,国外学者从反贫困的视野出发,对中国消除农村绝对贫困的政策、实践与经验进行了比较全面的研究。他们分析了中国农村绝对贫困的状况和发生的原因,跟踪研究中国消除农村绝对贫困的历程和所取得的成就,注重用国际减贫理论分析中国消除农村绝对贫困的措施,用中国减贫实践验证国际减贫理论的有效性,总结中国减贫经验为世界其他贫困地区提供借鉴。在中国完成脱贫攻坚任务、整体消除农村绝对贫困之际,梳理国外学者对中国消除农村绝对贫困的研究,对于国内学界全面准确地总结中国消除农村绝对贫困的实践经验有一定的参考价值。     

中国大城市贫困研究的多种测度与多层模型分析

基于六大城市住户调查数据,采用多种贫困测度和多层模型分析的方法,探讨中国大城市居民贫困状况及其影响因素。研究发现,大城市低收入邻里的贫困状况存在较大差异,其中广州、西安的相对丢失(relative deprivation)严重且低收入群体层级结构复杂,昆明的贫困深度大,而武汉财富集聚相对明显。贫困多层模型表明低收入邻里贫困的主要影响因素仍存在于个体层面,个体在家庭制度、市场制度、国家福利供应中所表现的特征影响了贫困发生率;城市贫困同时存在邻里效应,主要体现在邻里经济状况和贫困文化的影响作用;而城市间的贫困差异亦不可忽视。     

Rethinking ‘Global Dickens’: The Case of the Cross-Cultural Transfer of David Copperfield

This article revisits and challenges some of the presumptions and methodologies pertaining to the current ‘global’ turn in Dickens scholarship, and Victorian studies in general. It uses the case of the cross-cultural transfer of David Copperfield from Britain to China in the early twentieth century to demonstrate the importance of attending to local differences and cultural specificities when examining cross-cultural interactions. This article investigates the influence of the Chinese life-writing traditions on the way in which the text was adapted and translated for the Chinese readership, and explores the relationship between self and society as manifested in the adapted work at a specific historic moment. It reveals the complexities surrounding cross-cultural interactions and demonstrates the intricate relationship between the global and the local, thereby challenging any simplified pursuit of the concept of ‘Global Dickens’.     

西安市新城市贫困多维评估

本文运用FGT指数法和AF多维贫困测度法对西安市主城区收入贫困和典型贫困区多维贫困特征进行研究。主要结论:(1)主城区收入贫困空间与城市发展相对较晚的地区、城乡交错的边缘区、内城衰退区、城中村及老工业区耦合;(2)住房维度的贫困发生率最高,其次依次为暖气、电器资产、教育、职业、给排水、卫生设施维度;教育指数对多维贫困的贡献度最大,是主要的致贫因素;(3)老城衰退区(解放门)和外来人口聚集区城中村(鱼化寨)是多维贫困最严重的地区,退化的国企老工业区(纺织城)相对较轻。经济发展历史格局、城市发展政策导向、转型期社会制度变迁等是贫困形成的主要原因。     

The Historical Impact of Welfare Programs on Poverty: Evidence from the American States

Over the years, there has been a spirited debate over the impact of the welfare expansion associated with the War on Poverty. Many analysts have maintained that public assistance expansion during this period decreased poverty by raising the incomes of the poor (an income enhancement effect), while others have contended that welfare expansion increased poverty by discouraging the poor from working (a work disincentive effect). There has been considerable empirical research about the historical effect of welfare on poverty, nearly all of which relies on the poverty rate (i.e., the percentage of persons with income less than the “poverty threshold”) as an indicator of the extent of poverty. However, this work has not employed designs that allow researchers to sort out distinct income enhancement and work disincentive effects. We develop a model of poverty rates in the American states that permits estimation of these distinct effects—based on state‐level time‐series data observed annually for the years 1960–90—and we find that welfare had both effects during our period of analysis. We also calculate the net impact of increases in welfare benefits on the poverty rate—taking into account both work disincentive and income enhancement effects. Our results indicate that this net impact is dependent on three variables: the initial level of cash benefits, wage levels for unskilled workers, and the share of the benefit increase provided through cash rather than in‐kind assistance. Because of historical trends in these variables, since the 1970s welfare spending has become increasingly less effective in reducing the poverty rate. However, the significance of this result for policymakers must be tempered by evidence that flaws in the poverty rate as an indicator of poverty make it so that any finding about the net effect of an increase in welfare benefits on the poverty rate underestimates welfare's ability to lessen the true extent of poverty.     

Henry Mayhew at 200 – the ‘Other’ Victorian Bicentenary

The New Agenda introduction puts forward the case for a much-needed revision of the scholarship devoted to Henry Mayhew – journalist and wit, playwright, co-founder of Punch, educational writer, novelist for children, travel writer, hack, social explorer and author of London Labour and the London Poor. It argues for a more intertextual and contextual reading of his major and minor works, and presents the articles contained in this new agenda special issue. The complex publishing history of Henry Mayhew's work and of London Labour and the London Poor in particular are explored in part one. The second part surveys the scholarship so far devoted to Mayhew and sketches out a new agenda for research based on a wider intratextual and intertextual approach to Mayhew's corpus. It is time, the introduction urges, for Victorianists to revisit Henry Mayhew.     

World Class Aspirations,Urban Informality,and Poverty Politics: A North–South Comparison

Under the influence of the discourses and practices of global neoliberal urbanism, municipal administrations worldwide aspire to make their cities world class spaces, where informality is an anachronism and poverty can be made history. In this essay, drawing on fieldwork conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, San Francisco (California), and Seattle (Washington), we address the question of how a geographic relational poverty approach can help us understand, or at least expand ways of thinking about these processes by attending to urban informality and the politics of poverty. Informality, a pervasive feature of the global South and North, functions as a survival strategy whereby the monetarily poor can compensate for their lack of income through commoning. Market-driven, state underwritten urban development initiatives for housing those with wealth is limiting the conditions of possibility for the monetarily poor, and informality. This is compounded by emergent political discourses rendering informality as inappropriate, and the monetarily poor as undeserving of a right to the city. Yet long-standing more-than-capitalist and communal informal practices pursued by the urban poor remain effective and necessary survival strategies, supporting residents whose presence is necessary to the city and whose practices challenge capitalist norms.     

西安市微区域收入及贫困空间格局研究

以街道办事处为研究单元,以居民收入数据为基础,采用FGT指数法和矢量数据符号法,分别从收入等级、收入差距、贫困程度等方面对西安市主城区的收入及贫困空间格局展开研究。结果表明:①1收入等级空间特征为\"南高北低,西高东低\"、\"中心城区,高低交错\";②街道办之间平均收入差距不大,街道办内部个人收入差距较大;③贫困地区主要集中在老城衰退区、老工业区、城中村棚户区及近郊城乡交错区;④收入高低、收入差距分别与贫困程度呈现反比和正比关系。本文的研究为政府部门从街道层面制定脱贫对策提供参考。     

五种清代内府刻书用纸样品纤维显微分析与鉴别

清内府刻书所用\"开化纸\"的来源和纤维成分在学界一直有很大争议,近年有学者将档案和现存古籍比较,发现清代\"开化纸\"实为\"连四纸\",\"开化榜纸\"实为\"泾县榜纸\",皆出自安徽泾县。通过分析4种清代\"开化纸\"和1种\"开化榜纸\"残片样品的纤维显微图,从纤维形态、纤维宽度、纤维纹理、胶质膜、晶体形状等各个角度鉴别古纸样品和对照样品的微观特征。结果表明:5种残片样品纤维成分皆为纯青檀皮,这一结论跟文献史料考证结果相吻合;清代内府刻书用\"开化纸\"和\"开化榜纸\"很可能为来自安徽泾县的纯青檀皮纸。     

国家图书馆藏鲁迅手稿散页保存袋的材质安全性能研究

国家图书馆古籍馆自2013年起对馆藏大量鲁迅手稿散页的保存袋进行材质安全性评估及相关研究,通过模拟试验测定不同材质保存袋内装手工纸、打印纸纸页在老化前后发生的理化性质变化,分析老化过程中不同材质的保存袋对内装纸页产生哪些影响,藉此评价保存袋材质的安全性能。研究结果表明,目前所用的硫酸纸袋和其他保存袋都不利于该类文献的保存,应考虑采用合适的无酸保护纸袋。     

内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征测算与分析

针对国家精准扶贫需求,构建基于A-F双临界值法的多维贫困度量模型,进行内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征的总体测算与分析,并分别分析多维贫困的空间集聚效应及不同分类体系下的贫困分异特征。结果显示:①研究区西部存在大面积高度贫困县单元,中部存在呈东西条带状分布的中度贫困县单元,东部地区贫困程度呈现\"南高北低\"状态;②研究区主要致贫因素为:人均纯收入、家庭健康、平均教育年限,一般致贫因素为燃料类型、资产、房屋结构,次要致贫因素为:饮水情况、通电情况、儿童入学率;且大部分贫困指标呈显著空间集聚效应;③研究区西部县际贫困特征差异较小,东部存在显著的南北分布差异;④不同类型县各贫困指标差异不同。     

旅游减贫与旅游再贫困:旅游发展中不同土地利用方式对贫困人口的影响

旅游发展能否真正减贫以及如何实现减贫应是当前旅游减贫大背景下备受讨论的焦点,并受到了国内外学术界积极关注。然纵观现有研究,对旅游减贫效果的实证探讨及细致剖析尚十分缺乏。本文选取旅游发展中对土地资源的利用作为研究视角,探讨这一过程对贫困人口生存状态的影响。研究以三亚亚龙湾度假区发展对周边两个村庄的土地使用（征用、租用）为例,采用多维贫困概念,探讨旅游发展给两村村民在收入、居住条件、就业及生产方式以及话语权等带来的影响。研究提出了旅游再贫困的概念,意在说明旅游发展在使贫困人口短暂富裕后再次陷入贫困状态的发展现象,是旅游发展之于贫困人口负面影响的一种表征。     

美国城市种族居住隔离与黑人贫困化

对于美国黑人聚居区环境的产生和发展,居住隔离起到了直接的作用。居住隔离使美国大多数黑人处于从属地位,处于主流社会的边缘,并使黑人贫困持久化,进而加速了黑人经济地位的下降,使许多美国黑人陷入贫困的隔离居住环境不能自拔。