Poverty in China has famously declined since the beginning of the reform period in the late 1970s.
Most of the decline occurred in rural areas, where the great bulk of poverty was located in the past.
In this paper, we explore some of the unknown or poorly understood dimensions of UUurban
poverty in China and its evolution over time, from the early state of the reform and transition perio
until the beginning of the present century. Urban absolute poverty was, by most accounts,
insignificant in size before the reform period began in the late 1970s, and generally ignored bo
then and afterwards, when it started to increase. Only recently has research in China and abroad
begun to focus on the urba
d
th
n poor.