Children’s Dimensions of Poverty: Qualitative Studies in Urban China

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Held via Zoom – registration required: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvcuyvrzgrG9CbnLONF4qml-Nh1KMCEHBA

Poverty is multidimensional but with disagreement as to the most important dimensions. This is especially true of child poverty partly because children are seldom asked systematically to describe their experience of poverty. Fifty-five children, aged between eight and 12 and attending two schools in Hangzhou and Beijing China, each participated in several hours of interviews and discussion about experiencing poverty. Integrating their understanding with perspectives of parents and teachers suggests nine dimensions of poverty: four structural (material deprivation, limiting home environment, constrained education; restricted opportunities); three relational (violence, negative social relations, lack of confidence); and two core (shame; neglected agency).