Abstract
In general, the gendered trends in working poor are reshaping a new relationship between a processing globalized market and numbers of women, both in developed and developing nations. In this research, we draw up a socio-demographic picture of female working poor between Belgium and China. And within such a cross-national profile examination, we focus on the common and different ways that working poor women were experiencing life. In short, we found that in-work poverty shows a gendered tendency that has been a chronic condition, particularly among women with low income in both nations. Otherwise, in-work poverty focuses on different specific female working groups under varied socioeconomic national contexts.
I Selecting Belgium and China as comparators
Nowadays, the gendered trends in working poor are reshaping a new relationship between a processing globalized market and numbers of women both in developed and developing nations. It is an increasing phenomenon observed through this paper in which we draw up a socio-demographic picture of female working poor between Belgium and China, and within such a cross-national profile examination we primarily focus on the common and different ways that working poor women were experiencing life. In short, we found that in-work poverty shows a gendered tendency that has been a chronic condition, particularly among women with low income in both nations. Otherwise, in-work poverty focuses on different specific female working groups under varied socioeconomic national contexts.
Gendered poverty issues in labour markets with a high rate of female participation
In the international comparison of female working poor, China is a fairly typical case, as it is a nation facing both a high female labour force participation and relatively high gender inequality in the workforce. On the one side, women’s employment in China ranks as one of the highest in the world, with a female labour force participation rate of 63.3 per cent in 2016 (World Bank, 2017). On the other side, China records a relatively high incidence of working poverty – 13.6 per cent of total employment in 2013 (<2$ per day) (Table 1). Women have suffered more disadvantages than men in aspects of employment, payment, and retirement age since the 1978 economic reform and market transition (Song & Dong, 2011; Tang & Long, 2013; Chi & Li, 2014). Indeed, women experienced a great status change from “women hold up half the sky” (Mao Zedong, 1965) to “women are ‘losers’ in the course of China’s market transition” (He & Wu, 2014). In China, an increasing gender gap persists in participation and earnings, showing women’s higher risk of poverty than men in employment. With regard to wage equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Report (2016) women in China earn on average 35 per cent less than men for similar work, ranking in the bottom third of the Global Gender Gap Index. Moreover, in terms of occupation level, women in China show relatively weak empowerment with a female/male ratio of 0.20 in positions of legislators, senior officials, and managers (World Economic Forum, 2016). Based on this, the in-work poverty issue can be seen to be gendered, and the focus on gender equality has officially been re-emphasized since the 1990s.
Working poverty rate in China (% of total employment).
Sources: Working poor rate in 1986 and 1997 comes from “The size of the working poor in developing countries”, ILO Employment Paper 2001/16; working poor rate in 2013 comes from ILO, Trends Econometric Models, April 2014.
It is necessary to point out that this gendered tendency also happens in some European nations, such as Belgium. Indeed, Belgium is very successful in avoiding poverty among workers (Peña-Casas, 2009), but it seems it does not always work for all people, at least not explicitly targeted to women. In terms of labour force participation, Belgium shows relatively higher female participation in the labour market at the EU level (Figure 1), and with regard to in-work poverty, the incidence of working poor records a relatively low level among the European countries. However, as presented in Table 2, women suffer a higher risk of in-work poverty than men. At the EU level, in-work poverty has been increasing strongly in most countries (Marx & Nolan 2012). Europe shows a common phenomenon that men usually suffer a higher risk of working poverty than women in the labor market (EU27 in 2015: male 10.2% > female 8.7), which also slightly differs across nations. Although a majority of nations mask a similar tendency to the EU level, some nations do not. For instance, Germany, Belgium, and Norway all record a higher in-work poverty rate for women than for men (Figure 2). Moreover, when we are tracing the gender gap of working poor growth rate, we find that more than half of the EU nations experience a higher growth rate for women (Figure 3). The gender gap in Belgium has been on the rise since the 2010s when women maintained a slightly higher growth rate of working poor. Therefore, Belgium is likely to experience an over-represented and growing trend in female working poor during recent years.
Female employment rate in Belgium, Germany and Spain (ages 15 to 64). Source: Eurostat. Employment Rates by Sex, Age and Citizenship (%) (lfsa_ergan).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex in Belgium (18 to 64) (2005–16).
Sources: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC survey ([ilc_iw01]). Data for 2000 comes from Brady et al. (2010).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex in European countries, 2015 (ages 15 to 64). Source: Eurostat, in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC Survey [ilc_iw01].
Gender gap of working poor growth rate between 2005 and 2016 (female growth rate–male growth rate). Source: Calculated according to the Eurostat.
Being slightly impacted by the crisis, Belgium has experienced a relatively slow economic development, which manifested as a less bad GDP growth than average in the EU, continually growing gross public debt – 106.6 per cent of GDP in 2016 (Analyse de l’évolution de la situation sociale et de la protection sociale en Belgique, 2015) – and a standstill on total employment rate. However, due to the positive employment policy for women, Belgium has made a significant progress in increasing female participation in the labour force, which gradually expanded from 51.1 per cent in 2002 to 58 per cent in 2015. Based on this, with the background of more deteriorated access to the labour market and reduction in the adequacy of social benefits, we are wondering what kind of jobs the growing numbers of labouring women could find in Belgium today, and the nature of the link between employed women and in-work poverty.
Remarkably, Belgium reflects the same working poverty issue as China, with the risks of in-work poverty for women in both nations increasing, and the gender gap tends to be wider. The gender gap of in-work poverty growth rate reflects that women still suffer a higher risk of experiencing poverty when they are working, even in nations with a high rate of female employment. Thereby, the primary consideration of selecting Belgium and China as comparators of the research is to focus on the gendered tendency of in-work poverty that both two nations have been suffering during recent years. Moreover, examining female working poor by international comparison is meant to answer a common question: why in-work poverty seems to impact more on women in these nations. To respond to this question, Belgium and China are selected as two typical cases in the comparison. They are comparable because as members of international organizations – The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) – Belgium and China explicitly share a common reference point in terms of employment and workers’ well-being. And, with regard to socioeconomic contexts, although they may be different in many ways, they are closely matched on the working poverty issue.
Indeed, Belgian and Chinese labour markets are appropriate “terraces” through which we can examine the precarization processes for such a gendered trend in the working poor. As we know, globalization and modernization are never the processes of homogenization, which de facto produce even greater complexity in flexibility and precariousness in employment forms, which leaves the person to face lifecycle risks in an individualized way. Thus, we recognized the pluralization trends of poverty and inequality – that is, the different ways in which the phenomenon of poverty can emerge and spread, and the particular explanatory factors on the basis of particular nation-state contexts. Then, we argue that the incomparability based on a large difference of societal contexts is a breakthrough in detecting the diversity of this working poor phenomenon. Based on this, researching on female working poor in both Belgium and China can help develop a foundation for such transnational dialogue in the future.
In-work poverty: An economic and gendered topic
In-work poverty is not only an economic topic. For example in Belgium the in-work poverty rate developed in parallel with the GDP from 2004 to 2015, as presented in Figure 4. Such a tendency masks the fact that the incidence of working poor is not cyclical with an economic downturn. In contrast, in-work poverty increased when the economy improved, both in 2008 and 2014, which seem to show that economic growth alone did not efficiently reduce the risk of poverty among the working population. Based on this, it is worth noting that working poor co-exist with rapid economic development and other non-economic features; therefore the working poor are most likely poor because of other factors coming from the labour market or households. Based on this, we explore the in-work poverty issue as a multidisciplinary problem, which is not limited to economics but also is linked to changes of family and market, and of welfare provision.Moreover, in-work poverty is no longer a gender-neutral phenomenon, and women seem to be more likely than men to fall into poverty in the labour market.
GDP and in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate in Belgium. Resource: The World Bank. GDP. Belgium Source: Eurostat-In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC survey ([ilc_iw01]).
As Figure 3 demonstrates, women in EU-28 level present a consistently lower in-work poverty risk rate than men from 2010 to 2015. However, women in Belgium have shown a tendency toward a gradually higher risk rate than men in the labour market since 2014. Although Belgium shows a comparatively low in-work poverty rate in Europe, nevertheless there is a steady fate of 4.7 per cent of employed people who suffer a high risk of falling into poverty; also, women record an over-represented and increasing trend to become the working poor.
When looking at in-work poverty rate by age, the risk of the working poor is significantly higher in the age group entering the labour market from 18 to 24 (Figures 5 and 6). Comparatively, the risk rate decreases with age, growing in the EU 28 level, while Belgium shows an increased risk of in-work poverty in the age group of 55 to 64 (both for men and women). Moreover, women in Belgium show a significantly higher risk of becoming working poor than men aged from 18 to 54, which is in contrast to the situation of the EU28 (where women show a generally lower risk rate than men in the average EU28 level). In short, there is a clear gendered pattern that emerges concerning age in Belgium: women have a slightly higher risk of poverty in the initial stage of their professional careers and, due to their responsibility for primary care, they tend to quit work when retirement is imminent, thus confirming that women in Belgium suffer a higher risk of poverty in their professional careers, especially in the early stage of entering into the labour market.
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex in EU28 and Belgium (ages 18 to 64) Source: Eurostat-In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC survey ([ilc_iw01]).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex and age in EU28 and Belgium (2015). Source: Eurostat-In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC survey ([ilc_iw01]).
In-work poverty has become prominent in Belgium as a problematic gendered phenomenon during recent years, raising the following questions: Why do women show a continually higher risk of in-work poverty than men in Belgium? When joining the workforce at the same time, what kinds of factors induce the disparity in the in-work poverty risk gap between men and women?
II Mapping the female working poor population in Belgium
Generally speaking, working poor refers to people who are both employed and poor. According to OECD data (taken as 50% the median household income of the total population), the in-work poverty rate in Belgium was 4.27 per cent in the mid-2000s – that is, about 42.8 per cent of the poverty population were working poor who held the job (OECD Employment Outlook, 2009). Based on the indicator of in-work at-risk-of poverty in Eurostat, the in-work poverty rate in Belgium was 4.7 per cent in 2016.
As presented in Table 3, women experience a higher possibility of poverty risk and social exclusion in Belgium. Moreover, Belgium has a high proportion of single mothers. In 2009, single mothers in the Brussels Capital Region accounted for nearly 86.6 per cent of all single parents, 83.5 per cent in the Walloon region and 80.5 per cent in the Flemish region (Wagener, 2015). A majority of single mothers have a relatively high risk of being unemployed or employed only part-time. Also, single mothers are more likely to suffer monetary poverty with relatively low salaries. For instance, in 2014 about 13.2 per cent of single mothers had salaries under €875 gross/month (and 22% below €1250) in Brussels (Wagener, 2015).
Poverty risk or social exclusion in Belgium (2016).
Source: Les indicateurs de pauvreté en Belgique en 2016 (EU-SILC).
Mapping female working poor by Eurostat
In the research, we map female working poor in Belgium by using the European indicator “in-work poverty risk” of Eurostat within the overall domain of Income and living conditions (Appendix 1). Based on the Eurostat definition, working poor refers to a person who is at work (employed or self-employed) with an equivalized disposable income below 60 per cent of the national median equivalized disposable income (after social transfer). In this concept, the statistical population in Belgium consists of all people living in private households, aged from 18 to 64, who are employed. The risk-of-poverty threshold in Belgium is placed at €13,377 per year, that is, a person who works and earns an income below €1,115 per month can be identified as working poor (see Table 4). In short, the study aims to draw a profile of female working poor in Belgium through following two aspects: demographic characteristics at individual and household levels, and employment characteristics in the labour market.
Evolution of poverty threshold in Belgium.
Source: Direction générale Statistique – Statistics Belgium: Revenus et conditions de vie (EU-SILC) 2010–16
Demographic characteristics
1) Women experience a slightly higher risk of poverty in employment
In general, as presented by the data from EU-SILC, the in-work poverty rates for both men and women in Belgium are relatively lower than for average for the EU-28 averages. The average risk of in-work poverty for males was commonly higher than that for female workers in the EU-28. However, the development trends in in-work poverty risk rates by sex in Belgium seem to be complicated. As seen in Figure 7, the risk rate for men was little changed, while the risk rate for women has fluctuated significantly and recorded a climbing trend from 2006 to 2016. Indeed, in 2006, the at-risk-of-poverty rate for female workers was relatively lower than that for male (3.6%). Within the recent decade, the rate of female working poor in Belgium climbed closely to the rate of men, which has increased to 4.6 per cent in 2016. Thereby, women de facto have experienced a slightly faster increment speed of in-work poverty than men, in other words, poverty in Belgium seems to impact more on female among the working population during recent years.
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by sex (%). Source: Eurostat, in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex – EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw01).
2) Age groups
As presented in Figure 8, in Belgium women record higher risk rates of in-work poverty than men from the age of 18 to the age of 54. Among age groups, female workers experience two peaks of risk of poverty: one is in the age group from 20 to 24 (5% in 2016); the second peak is in the age group from 30 to 54.
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by ages in 2016 (%). Source: Eurostat, in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by age and sex Please provide citation EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw01).
3) Household type and work intensity
In Belgium, households with dependent children record a higher risk of in-work poverty than those without dependent children, and the in-work poverty rate among all household types is the highest for a single person with dependents (14.0% in 2015) (Figure 9). Otherwise, households with dependent children by a low work intensity have the highest risk of poverty (Figure 10). Therefore, a single working mother with relatively low work intensity suffers the highest possibility of falling into poverty in Belgium (see Figure 9).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by household type (%) (2014–16). Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by household type Please provide citation EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw02).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by work intensity of the household in 2016. Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by work intensity of the household (population aged 18 to 59 years) - EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw03).
Female working poor rate by ages in China (% of total female working poor population).
Employment characteristics
1) Educational attainment
In terms of educational attainment level, working people with low-medium education level have the higher risk of poverty. Since 2006, the in-work poverty risk has continuing to increase among workers with middle and low education levels in Belgium. Among them, the growth gap is much broader at the low educational attainment level (growth gap: 2.5 points for low educational level), which means in-work poverty develops fastest in the low educational attainment level (0–2), thus impacting more on these low educated/skilled workers (see Table 5).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by educational attainment level.
Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by educational attainment level – EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw04).
2) Work type
Concerning the work type, female workers who are working part-time appear more likely to be at risk of poverty than full-time workers. At the beginning of 2006, the in-work poverty rates for part-time and full-time were almost the same. However, the risk gap between part-time and full-time works apparently has increased during the last decade, which means in-work poverty impacts more on people employed at the part-time job (Table 6).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by type of work.
Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by full-/part-time work – EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw07).
Poverty shows a close relationship with work performance, under the explanation of decommodification – that poor workers record the highest degree of commodification in the labour market nowadays. As presented in Table 6, if one works in full-time, he or she will have a lower risk of becoming poor than those who work at part-time jobs. But, for instance, a single mother needs extra non-work time to take care of children, which cannot be simply decommodified and cannot be equivalent evaluated by a same standard level as other workers. That is the critical point in social security reform, that is, to balance the social role for a person to be a “worker” in economic activities and to be a “parent, friend, dreamer, or anything else” in society. Therefore the trend of a higher risk of poverty for part-time jobs is not a good sign, and we should pay heed to such a poverty risk gap in work type.
3) Type of contract
With regard to the type of contract, female workers who work less than a full year or with a temporary contract have a higher risk of in-work poverty than those with a permanent job (2016: temporary job 13.5%, permanent jobs 3.0%). The gap of in-work poverty risk between permanent workers and temporary workers was tremendous, both for men and women in the Belgian labour market. The in-work poverty rates of employees with a temporary job were 13.5 per cent for women and 14.9 per cent for men in 2016, which is significantly less than permanent workers who suffer a risk rate of 3.0 per cent for women and 2.1 per cent for men. What’s worth noting is that, during the observed 10 years, the poverty risk for men increased in a temporary job while it decreased in a permanent job; in contrast, such a risk climbed both in permanent and temporary jobs for women. And even worse, the in-work poverty rate for female workers grows faster than male workers. Seen from Tables 7 and 8, the growth gap for women in permanent employment was 1.1 points, which is higher than that for male workers (0.1 points). And such a growth gap for women with a temporary job increased by 7.2 per cent, which shows a much faster speed of growth for in-work poverty risk among women. Therefore, in-worked poverty affects more deeply on women than men in all types of contract.
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by type of contract (female).
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by type of contract (male).
Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by type of contract – EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw05).
Who are the working poor in Belgium?
In summary, in-work poverty impacts more on women in the labour market. Combined with individual, household and labour market characteristics, we found the following three types of women represent the majority of female working poor in Belgium. (1) young working women (aged from 18 to 24) with low education/skill level have the highest possibility into poverty; (2) single working mothers with low work intensity are also more at risk of poverty than households with multiple breadwinners. Otherwise, it is worth noting that, among jobs with low educational levels, flexible working times and especially with temporary employment, in-work poverty tends to have more impact on women than men in Belgium’s labour market (as presented in Tables 6, 7, 8, 9), thus intensifying the higher poverty risk for (3) women in low level jobs.
In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by months worked.
Source: Eurostat, In-work at-risk-of-poverty rate by months worked – EU-SILC survey (ilc_iw06).
Through observing female working poor in this section, we conclude that the gendered in-work poverty in Belgium has developed closely related to the factors during the last decades: one is the household factor (the need for expansion of dual-earners and the reality of increased single working mothers). Otherwise, according to Tables 7 and 8, no matter whether they were men and women, those who worked at a temporary job showed a higher risk of poverty, and held an over-represented position among the working poor. Therefore, the second is the low-quality jobs in the labour market.
III Mapping the female working poor population in China
It is not easy to have a relatively complete picture of the working poor in China because, until recently, there have been no records of official or academic statistics explicitly drawing on China’s in-work poverty profile. Nevertheless, some scholars roughly pointed out that the working poor in China specifically focus on rural migrant workers, laid-off workers, new university graduates with low income, single mothers, disabled people, and other low-income individuals with a heavy family burden (Jianping, 2011).
Mapping female working poor by CGSS
In China, we use data resulting from a sampling survey entitled Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) (Appendix 2). As declared by CGSS itself it is to serve “comparative social scientists who treat China as a point of comparison”; 1 it contains the various dimensions (e.g. income, household compositions, work status, etc.) related to the research of in-work poverty; thereby we choose CGSS database as the main source reference.
According to the CGSS data, we map female working poor in an independent sample of Chinese female workers. The statistical population in China consists of all persons living in private households aged from 15 to 65 who are employed. We select the data from seven CGSS annual surveys from 2003 to 2015: CGSS 2003 (population of valid sample N = 5,894), 2005 (N = 10,372), 2010 (N = 11,783), 2011 (N = 5,620), 2012 (N = 11,765), 2013 (N = 11,438), 2015 (N = 10,968). The surveys in 2003 and 2005 selected 125 districts and counties as primary sampling units, which are composed of 5900 urban people and 4100 rural people (men account for 50.3% of the surveyed population, and women account for 49.7%). The primary sample of surveys since 2010 has increased to 12,000 people. Among it, there are about 10,000 people in the randomly selected layer, and an additional 2000 people constitute the required sampling layer, who come from five selected metropolises in China – Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin. Otherwise, it is worth noting that the urban sample is over-sampled in the survey, for the database hypothesizes that the heterogeneity in the urban area is higher than in rural areas. Therefore, combined with the definition of in-work poverty in China and CGSS data, we can have a general overview of female working poor.
Then, how do we get the female working poor sample from CGSS? Here we followed three steps:
Step 1: select people who are employed;
Step 2: eliminate people whose income is above the in-work poverty threshold (Table 10);
In-work poverty threshold in China.
Source: Social Services Development Statistics Bulletin (2003–2016).
Step 3: eliminate people who are male. (Table 11).
Estimation of female working poor in China.
Source: Author’s own calculation according to the CGSS database.
According to the mapping, the in-work poverty rates remained around 15 per cent to 24 per cent of the working population in recent 13 year surveys, and the data shows that women tend to be over-represented among working poor (Table 12). In 2015, about 1543 surveyed people could be classified as working poor, which accounted for 24.57 per cent. Among them, poverty rates are higher among women than men in the survey, that is, more than 60.08 per cent of working poor were female working poor. In short, China is an agricultural country and also a country with a large population, and 1.3 billion people and millions (or tens of millions) of people are on so many different magnitudes that any observed possible trends in social phenomena would be magnified indefinitely on the basis of 1.3 billion people. Therefore the estimated female over-representation of in-work poverty in the surveys is certainly no exception, and any observed small differences of female working poor (in comparison with non-poor working population), multiplied by a huge population base, could be a big problem that may enhance the precariousness in the risk society today. On this premise, next, we would focus on the main characteristics of female working poor precisely on very detailed aspects of work and life, e.g. age, marital status, attitude, work status, social security, etc.
(Female) in-work poverty rate in China.
Source: Author’s own calculation according to the CGSS database.
Demographic characteristics
1) Age
According to the survey, female in-work poverty mainly focuses on middle-aged women around 50 years old in China (Figure 11). Before 2010, women aged from 21 to 44 were over-represented among female working poor. Since then, women in such age groups have shown a significant decline, and the numbers of women from 41 to 60 have proliferated among female working poor, which was up to 67.6 per cent in 2015 (the retirement age is 55 for women, while some women aged from 55 to 60 still work in agriculture or non-standard jobs). This may possibly be a natural result of the female working poor’s aging process within the surveyed 13 years. Nevertheless, the distinct contrast between the continually decreasing younger women and increasingly middle-aged women illustrates a real-world situation that at least young women seem to suffer a relatively lower risk of being poor at present, and middle-aged women now make up the majority of female working poor in China.
Otherwise, as for physical health status, in comparison with the non-poor working group (9.7% in 2005; 10.0% in 2010; 10.6% in 2012; 8.5% in 2013; 8.8% in 2015), the proportion of people who report poor physical health among female working poor was at least three times higher (28.1% in 2005; 34.3% in 2010; 36.3% in 2012; 29.5% in 2013; 25.8% in 2015).
2) Region and household registration
In terms of region, there exists an obvious geographic gap between female working poor and non-poor working group. According to the survey, a majority of female working poor lived in rural areas from 2005 to 2015 (85.8% in 2005, 73.5% in 2015), and more than 87.1 per cent of them were registered with the rural household houkou, which both recorded a remarkably higher proportion than among the non-poor working group (Figure 12).
Female working poor rate in rural region and household registration (% of total female working poor population).
Otherwise, it is noteworthy that among the female working poor the numbers of rural women are inconsistent in terms of region and household registration. As presented in Figure 12, when examining the types of the community they live in, more than 73 per cent of female working poor live in villages, and the higher proportion of rural registration implies that a certain part of poor rural women de facto work and live in a “village in the city” (a unique phenomenon that formed part of China’s urbanization efforts, which appears on both the outskirts and the downtown segments of major cities with immature infrastructure, poor sanitation conditions, and relatively low-management). Thus there exist a number of rural peasant women who held rural registration (rural citizen status) who migrated to urban communities for work, and constitute a significant part of the female working poor in China. Here we address the differences of rates between rural region and household registration, as the social security system closely corresponds to the types of household registration, which differentiates the standards of social benefits among people between the rural and urban sectors. On the one side, the unequal access to social rights in China has proliferated in correspondence with the different household registration (houkou system) in recent decades, which has led to the in-depth disparity between rural and urban in terms of social benefits, income distribution, housing, education, etc. On the other side, today people can easily migrate to cities through social flow, but getting an urban registration needs a series of rigid access conditions (especially in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, etc.). In the survey, women with rural household registration were over-represented among female working poor in China. Based on the above, the female working poor’s relatively poorer economic condition than non-poor workers, due to their registration differences, is not only an aspect of paid wages, but also in terms of the obvious differences in social security (which can also be indirectly reflected by the individual attitude, as shown in Table 15).
3) Marital and household conditions
In terms of marital conditions, most female working poor in China had a stable marriage with high support from traditional “family” culture; women who were divorced or separated were under-represented among the female working poor (Table 13). In terms of household conditions, only 33.55 per cent of female working poor were in possession of a house within the observed years, the proportion recorded being significantly less than that among the non-poor working population (50.33%). Indeed, more than half of female poor workers lived in a house owned by their spouses or offspring (Table 14). In short, the marriage concept of Chinese people has changed since the 1990s, while marriage relations remain stable. Family break-up or being a single mother seems not to be a major characteristic of the female working poor in China.
Marital status among female working poor.
Home ownership among female working poor.
What is the most urgent problem that should be solved? (2003, 2013).
4) Individual attitudes in public and private spaces
In terms of social justice, the general recognition of social equity is not so high among female working poor. On average 51.92 per cent of female working poor agreed that society is relatively equal (44.4% in 2010; 67.1% in 2011; 52% in 2012; 49.5% in 2013; 46.6% in 2015). About 27.46 per cent of female working poor thought that they live in an unequal society (32.0% in 2010; 18.3% in 2011; 29% in 2012; 28.4% in 2013; 29.6% in 2015), and on average 20.4 per cent of women had no clear attitude (23.1% in 2010; 14.6% in 2011; 18.9% in 2012; 21.9% in 2013; 23.5% in 2015).
Furthermore, the relevant data indicates the four problems we have found in the survey, namely, the problem of unemployment, the polarization between the rich and the poor, social security and corruption. As presented in Table 15, concerning the question of “What is the most urgent problem that should be solved?”, employment has been significantly promoted within the past 10 years, and unemployment was no longer the primary issue needing to be solved. Surprisingly, female working poor who are usually considered to work in precarious conditions with a high risk of falling into poverty hold a less strong worry about unemployment than non-poor workers, and the ratio of choosing “unemployment” was only about half of that of the non-poor working population. By contrast, more and more female working poor pointed out the polarization between the rich and poor as a priority that should be resolved (with the proportion increasing from 21.1% to 38% in 10 years), which is generally higher than that of non-poor workers. Indeed, it is worth noting that the social inequity in China today has been mainly manifested as the widening gap of wealth. Most female working poor consider that social polarization has developed rapidly over the recent decade, in particular in income distribution. Comparatively, female working poor (44.7%) hold a stronger attitude than non-poor workers (40.8%) about the idea that the most obvious gap in China is between rich and poor. Also, the gap between rural and urban people has risen to the third most obvious gap recently, which particularly seems to be a serious issue for female working poor (the majority of whom come from rural areas – see Figure 12) than for non-poor working group (see Table 16).
What kind of gap is the most obviously serious? (2013) (% of female working poor).
Otherwise, the issues of social security and corruption – which are closely related to people’s living conditions – also become more crucial for female working poor. Indeed, compared to being the third issue in attitudes of non-poor working groups, the social security issue for female working poor has risen to be the second most urgent one that should be solved (Table 15).
Attitude in private spaces: With regard to the attitude in private spaces (e.g. housework, care responsibility, marriage, and career, etc.), most female working poor hold a strong orientation for being a primary caregiver and a conservative point of view about women’s career development. In other words, a majority of women among the working poor in China continued to live in a male-breadwinner family model. More than 65 per cent of female working poor agreed with the view that “career-oriented for men (focus heavily on work), and family-oriented for women” (82.7% in 2010; 75.9% in 2012; 74.4% in 2013; 65.8% in 2015), and this proprtion is higher than that of the non-poor working group (averagely 55%).
Indeed, female working poor invest more time and energy in households than their partners, which is explicitly manifested as the housework time distribution. According to the survey, they spent on average 21.86 hours per week on housework and took 16.11 hours for family care in 2015, which was more than twice the time than their partners who took for both (housework: 9.96 hours/week; family care: 8.69 hours/week). Furthermore, female working poor invest more time on housework than the non-poor working group (10.2 hours/week). For eldercare, female working poor show a relatively stronger traditional attitude. In the survey, more than 60.0 per cent of female working poor agreed that offspring should take the primary responsibility for eldercare, which is slightly higher than the proportion of the non-poor working population. Also, less than 30.8 per cent of female working poor thought that the responsibility for eldercare should be shared among government, offspring, and elders (Table 17). As for childcare, the result showed that most female working poor agree that the family should take the main responsibility for childcare (90.3% in 2012), and only 5.6 per cent of women preferred to choose public care provisions.
Who should take the primary responsibility of eldercare?
If most Chinese female working poor agree with the “breadwinner–homemaker” family model, then how do they think about the relations between family and work? The statistical results showed that, in terms of balancing work and family, more than 64 per cent of female working poor held the idea that “If a child has not yet reached primary school age, the mother going to work will have an unfavourable influence”. More than half of women agree on the point that if they work full-time, the family life will be negatively influenced (see Tables 18 and 19). In fact, many female working poor have shown relatively less willingness towards employment. Even though having a job, more than half of them (53.4% in 2012) thought that being a housewife is the same as going out to work to create a sense of achievement/accomplishment. More than half thought that having a good marriage is better and more important than having a good career (53.5% in 2010; 53.6% in 2012; 49.7% in 2013; 52.2% in 2015), which accounts for a significantly higher proportion than the non-poor working population.
If a child has not yet reached primary school age, the mother going to work will have an unfavourable influence.
If women work full time, family life will be negatively influenced.
Employment characteristics
1) Educational attainment
In China, women with low educational levels essentially compose the primary population of the female working poor. As seen from Table 20, compared to the non-poor working group, female working poor recorded a relatively higher proportion with an educational level below high school within the recent decade. In 2015, for instance, at least 86.4 per cent of female working poor had their highest education level below high school. Among them, 21.1 per cent had an educational level of middle school, but 33.4 per cent had only a primary level of education, and 31.1 per cent had not received any formal education. By comparison, among the non-poor working population, about 42.6 per cent have educational levels above high school, and 23.4 per cent have a college education (female working poor: 7.5%). Therefore women with low educational levels tend to suffer a higher risk of poverty among the female working poor, while highly educated female workers are under-represented.
The highest education level of female working poor.
2) Employment status
Looking at their employment status, female workers working at low-skilled jobs were more frequently working poor than those who were involved in high-skilled occupations, which is especially the case for Chinese female workers in agriculture. In Table 21, the proportion of female working poor engaged in agriculture was as high as 71.4 per cent in 2015, while nearly 75.1 per cent of non-poor workers were engaged in non-agriculture sectors. Moreover, among female working poor in the non-agriculture sector, female peasant workers (who migrate into urban areas with rural household registration) were heavily over-represented. We found that nearly half of poor female workers (46% on average) had no fixed work unit, a higher proportion than the non-poor working group. In contrast, female working poor recorded a comparatively lower rate of entering both party/government office and public institutions, thus indicating their relatively weak positions in the hierarchy of employment.
Employment status of female working poor in China.
Otherwise, it is worth noting that women employed in enterprises also accounted for a relatively high rate among the female working poor while focusing on certain industries (Table 22). Among enterprises, for instance, nearly 66.7 per cent of poor female workers worked in private enterprise in 2015 (which is higher than the 47.6% of the non-poor working group), while only 16.7 per cent were employed in state-owned enterprise (36.5% in the non-poor working group), and the majority of them worked in manufacturing (45.6%) and the service industry (23.2%). In-depth, when looking at the employment position, nearly half of the female working poor were employed by others (Table 23). Only 3.5 per cent of the working poor were in a supervisory position – 2.3 per cent were business owners and 1.2 per cent worked for privately-owned business
Employment sector.
Employment position.
3) Working conditions
It was often believed that the high risk of poverty among workers is likely due to a relatively lower work intensity such as insufficient working hours, which has been well documented in relevant European research (and can also be examined by mapping female working poor in Belgium in this study). However, the investigation in China shows something different. The analysis of working time, remarkably, shows the basic profile of female working poor in China: “working hard with being poor”. In the survey, full-time workers constituted the majority of the female working poor, which had increased from 63.6 per cent to 78.6 per cent within the observed 13 years (NPW: 91.1% in 2003 to 88.0% in 2015). Moreover, in line with the fact that China regulates eight-hour working days, most female working poor de facto worked hard no less than 40 hours per week (Table 24).
Work time of female working poor.
In contrast to the high work intensity, what needs mentioning is that the majority of the female working poor in China de facto work in precarious working conditions without proper protection from labour unions or labour contracts, which occurs more commonly in comparison with non-poor working groups. According to the survey, although about 79.2 per cent of the non-poor working population did not participate in a trade union, there were up to 93 per cent of the female working poor who had never participated in any trade union (96.5% in 2010; 97.6% in 2011; 97.8% in 2012; 96.6% in 2013; 93.6% in 2015). Moreover, on average 74.4 per cent of the female working poor hadn’t signed any labour contract within the recent decade, that is, most of them worked as temporary workers (Table 25). In particular, when we ruled out the population who work in agriculture, and re-computed “did you sign a contract?”, we found among non-agriculture sectors there were still more than 80 per cent of female working poor who had not signed a contract, and 13.4 per cent of women who had signed a fixed-term employment contract. Therefore, one thing is clear: most female working poor are lacking the channels to protect their legitimate rights and interests, which puts them in a more disadvantaged situation for negotiation in the labour market. It is exactly this unstable, non-standard and insufficiently secure form of employment that contributes to the poverty process among the female working poor.
Signing of the contract.
4) Social security
A characteristic of female working poor in China that differs from Belgium is the low level benefits related to social security. In the early 2000s, few enterprises provided basic medical insurance and pensions to workers. Women without social security were over-represented among the female working poor before 2010. During the recent decade, social insurance in China has developed quickly based on the principle of “low level and wide coverage”. Particularly in 2009, China launched a new round of medical system reforms, which aimed at improving the health care system for all through gradually expanding the coverage of basic medical insurance. On this basis, more farmers were encouraged to participate in the new rural cooperative medical care system (built up in 2010), and more flexible working (self-employed, etc.) and non-working urban residents have participated in the urban resident basic medical insurance. Indeed, according to the government report of former premier Wen Jiabao (2010), people who have joined the insurance system in towns had reached 0.401 billion, and the new village cooperative medical system covered about 0.83 billion people in 2010. Furthermore, the coverage of medical social insurance among the female working poor has also largely improved, climbing from 19.5 per cent in 2003 to 92.0 per cent in 2015 (Table 26). Meanwhile, since that same year, China has tested the new type of village pension insurance in an increasing number of towns. More than half of the female working poor have participated in the basic pension since the 2010s (Table 27). Nowadays, more people coming from rural regions have access to social security. And in comparison with non-poor working population, female working poor have recorded a relatively similar high participation rate in both medical and pension social insurance (Tables 26 and 27). Nevertheless, it forms a specific feature of female working poor – being secured while remaining poor. Based on this “special” feature, we will focus on questioning the supportive impact of social security on the female working poor from the perspective of decommodification.
Participation rate in medical social insurance for female working poor.
Participation rate in pensions for female working poor.
Who are the female working poor in China?
By focusing on poor female workers in the survey, we found that there are generally two groups of women who constitute the majority of the female working poor in China: (1) rural women working in agriculture, (2) migrant women (with rural registration) working in low-quality jobs, such as the temporary worker in certain observed industries (e.g. manufacturers, retailing or service jobs).
By personal characteristics, a majority of the female working poor are middle-aged women (around 50 years old) who live in rural settings or in an urban “village in the city”; they have rural registration status, a stable marriage, and relatively low educational levels. The examination of market characteristics showed that most female working poor were doing low quality work. A large part of the female working poor work in agriculture, while others work in low-skilled jobs full-time, with a lower economic status and without a labour contract. Otherwise, from an understanding of social equity to the identification of social conflicts and stratification, and from the attitude towards gendered division of labour to the cognition about work, female working poor get a relatively clear feeling of being located in the lower social class, and they hold a “vague” consciousness about developing themselves in their career. All the above mirror a complex picture of Chinese female working poor: as a new poverty group, they record their specific features – a relatively higher proportion reported poor physical health, lower work willingness and greater responsibility for family care than the non-poor working group. Meanwhile, the female working poor also show a similar strong work intensity and an increasing participation in social security. The different result is that although they are working hard and taking advantage of social security, they remain poor.
This can be initially conceived as being impacted by three possible analyses. On the one hand, low educational level and status-based rural registration are associated with a higher poverty risk for women in China. On the other hand, low-quality jobs with precarious (non-standard flexible employment) working conditions mainly contribute to the in-work poverty phenomenon in China, as the majority of female working poor are working in low-quality jobs, particularly in agriculture, with flexible and unstable working conditions. The third explanation is derived from female working poor’s self-recognition and rights consciousness. On the one hand, although located in the relatively less disadvantaged economic positions, most female working poor tend to take the family as the priority, and value themselves through playing the crucial roles (e.g. caregiver, housewife) in the family field more than through development of their career. On the other hand, with poor education and relatively weak rights consciousness, female working poor hold an ambivalent feeling to society in terms of social equity, wealth polarization, and potential social conflict. Nevertheless, they clearly recognize that the polarization between the rich and poor is the most urgent problem that should be solved, and thus push themselves to work harder (aimed at having a better life) while in a precarious or even unsecure working condition. Combining the above two elements, it demonstrates a traditional gender pattern – “man comes first, woman comes second; elder comes first, younger comes second; relatives comes first, outsider comes second” (old Chinese adage) – that maintains that women (especially those regarded as outsiders, such as the female migrant workers or laid-off workers) hold a subordinate social status both at home and in the labour market.
Because the female working poor have a relatively strong mental dependence on family, the survey showed that the negative impact of family break-up (e.g. divorce, separation, etc.) is relatively weak; by contrast, most female working poor have a stable marital status that indeed protects them to some degree from being economically poor, particularly young women in early career stages. Nevertheless, the survey also showed that the problem of the female working poor’s excessive time spent on housework (and family care) is also serious. They spend on average more than twice the time that their partners spend on housework, and also more than twice the time that the non-poor working group spends. As there is still a traditional “family virtue” among a majority of Chinese families, women seem to “obviously” take on more responsibilities and demands in private spaces (not only in poor households), and middle-aged women face the double challenges of heavy family responsibilities and career development.
IV Conclusions
Nowadays, the processes of female poverty are observed in different societies in which modernization processes act in multiple ways. Indeed, gendered in-work poverty is separately drawing up a cross-national profile based on the unique social-economic backgrounds of Belgium and China. Through examining the characteristics of Chinese female working poor, we find that some existing western mainstream socio-ecological “rules”/views seem not always to explain the observed profile of gendered in-work poverty in China. For instance, the highlighted issue of the gap between the rich and the poor in China (see Table 15) does not meet Kuznets’ U-shaped hypothesis in which income inequality experiences a process that enlarges at first and then narrows. In fact, the special situation of a limitless labour supply in China has improved both the capital and technology gains in the past decade, and meanwhile has limited the development of migrant workers in unskilled/low-level jobs as well. Thus, following gendered in-work poverty, China still shows a growing obvious wealth gap and increasingly low-level job trends today, revealing a different profile and providing a new perspective for re-examining the female in-work poverty issue. In fact, behind the multiformity of the female working poor there is a huge difference that could be easily overlooked by the international comparison, that is, the difference in social structure. It is important to preliminarily conclude the cross-national characteristics of the female working poor, and look at how they play their roles. To answer these questions, some findings are as follows:
A cross-national profile of the female working poor
According to Tables 28 and 29, we concluded that women with relatively low-income level, high responsibility to the household and weak ties to the labour market (i.e. limited hours, precarious employment, lacking a work contract) tend to be over-represented among the working poor. Commonly, both in Belgium and China, in-work poverty has been a chronic condition among female workers in low-quality jobs with low pay. Meanwhile, there is a big difference in female working poor within the two countries. The observed profile of Belgium’s female working poor can be described with three keywords: “single mother, low job and part-time”. In-work poverty mainly focuses on the household type of the single parent with dependent children, and single working mothers are significantly over-represented among the female working poor. Meanwhile, women show a relatively higher participation rate in part-time jobs than men; women in low-quality jobs with low-paid and part-time employment suffer a relatively higher risk of poverty. Thus a single working mother with limited work intensity/education level suffers the highest risk of poverty in Belgium. However, China’s profile is different in that the working poor primarily focuses on women who are “rural women, work harder and have low education”. Female working poor in China still comprise a small number of single working mothers, but most female working poor have a stable marriage. Relatively speaking, rural (household registered) women working in agriculture, manufacturing or full-time service jobs generally suffer a higher risk of poverty in China’s labour market.
Characteristics of female working poor in Belgium (2016).
Characteristics of female working poor in China (2015).
The significance of a low-quality job
In both nations, labour market problems such as precariousness or women’s over-representation in low-quality jobs are most likely to cause the gendered working poor. Generally, most low-paid workers are not actually economically poor when we measure the working poor by using the household level definition. However, at the individual level, in-work poverty impacts more on female workers in low-quality jobs, which feature low education, low skills and low pay. When we map out the population of female working poor in the research, low-income women share relatively high proportions both in Belgium and China. More than half of the female working poor work with low pay in Belgium. Similarly, up to 70 per cent of female working poor in China are low-income workers employed in agriculture, manufacturing or service sectors. The study thus masks the fact that women’s economic condition is often hidden behind the household income, and meanwhile, low-quality employment is a main employment channel of female working poor.
The existing studies of working poverty focus more on household income conditions when exploring the potential reasons. Especially when analysing it under a man-dominated perspective, the situation of women is usually under-explored and most of the low-income women are regarded as non-poor as they may belong to a multi-earner family as a second-earner. Rising household income may have a positive impact on low-income women, but to some extent it may reduce women’s work intensity as a second-earner, devaluing their professional working performance and creating so-called “reasonable evidence” that women should focus more on family obligations. As a consequence, the gender-specific tendency (individual economic independent and free choice independent from family obligations) in the working poor definition is often neglected among the priority level of working poverty research.
In terms of individual well-being, women suffer a higher potential risk of experiencing poverty in the case of divorce or separation. And in the aspect of social inclusion, low-income jobs seem not to invest too much to “strengthen their participation in society in all areas of life” (Nicaise, 2011: 21). It is worth noting that, in Belgium, women account for more than 80 per cent of single-parent families, and they are also over-represented among low jobs. As a result, the over-representation of low jobs negatively impacts on women’s status in the labour market and does nothing to empower the female working poor. Behind this kind of gendered tendency, the overlap between low income and female working poor is relatively strong and impressive. Therefore, low-income jobs reflect a strong negative effect on the female working poor, and tend to show that the prevalent discrimination based on gendered in-work poverty is more serious than we expected.
The different focus of female working poor: Household or rural
Under varied socioeconomic national contexts, in-work poverty focuses on different specific female working groups. Household factors matter significantly to the working poor in Belgium, where the single breadwinner with dependent family members faces a much higher risk of experiencing poverty (most often mothers). In contrast to Belgium, in-work poverty in China is not only a gendered problem but also a rural phenomenon. Due to the urban-rural division, there is a widening gap in the quality of life and wellbeing between people in urban and rural settings. Rapid labour force mobility has led to large numbers of rural men finding jobs in cities as rural peasant-workers, and increasingly women taking up the workplaces in agriculture, thus gradually forming a feminized tendency in agriculture. Thus rural women who work in agriculture and female peasant workers employed in low-level jobs are heavily over-represented among female working poor. Otherwise, in-work poverty is more related to workers’ occupational status due to a higher employment rate in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, with a majority employed in lower occupational hierarchy due to their limited education or skills.
All in all, viewed from the perspective of the nation-state, these female working poor look like groups of poor people living in different states. But they are indicative of a new type of poverty in global markets. Since being integrated into the global economy, women’s over-representation in low-quality jobs has been revealed against the background of the rapid development of manufacturing in mainland China. Also, both the Belgian and Chinese labour markets are suffering the shock of precarious employment, which marginalizes the people who are considered “unqualified” and enforces social inequality in multiple forms. The central finding developed in this paper is that today, whether in western developed societies such as Belgium or a transforming society like China, we are seeing a proliferation of gendered working poor where the instability/precariousness of the labour market combines with the logic of gender division of labour in private spaces. Furthermore, gendered in-work poverty may take “multiple” forms in emerging-countries and at the global level. In this section, the phenomenon of young working women and single working mothers’ relatively higher risks of poverty in Belgium has been well observed. Meanwhile, the over-represented middle-aged rural (registered) women among female working poor in China is also a social fact. Cross-nationally, the female working poor profile reflects the point that both social and national idiosyncrasies indeed retain power in the processes of gendered in-work poverty. In the case of China, as previously stated, the basic characteristics of (female) working poor in low jobs are the division of the urban workplace and rural registration, with a low level of differentiated well-being and precarious working conditions. Thus the core issue of the female working poor in China not only refers to a gender issue but also critically concerns the (historical) longstanding institutional segmentation in the development of society, the market and the social security system.
V Discussion: The significance of the gender dimension in further political frameworks
As social risk has become more varied and unpredictable, something that may happen to anyone, income for some workers in low-level jobs cannot protect them from these risks (e.g. illness, accident, handicap, divorce). In-work poverty mainly focuses on low-income jobs, especially for female workers with low-pay. Work today has a more fragile link with security and protection from risk. If this function of work is gradually weakened, what will be the result, especially for the majority people who have been working for more than half their life? The situation is worrying. With regard to Belgium, there are an increasing number of women working in low-paid jobs, and their marital status has experienced a trend toward instability. In China, more than half the women are working in agriculture and low-skilled service jobs in tertiary industries; in addition, they are burdened with heavy family caring responsibilities. It is dangerous for women in both these situations.
As I see it, research into the female working poor is very important, both for Belgium and China, for we cannot neglect the economic contributions of working women. For instance, in the early historical period of the new foundation of China, women were encouraged to enter public spaces to engage in economic construction, doing the same work as men in a majority of industries. In Belgium, women have participated in many employment sectors and contributed where they have skills and knowledge. Nowadays, following the current evolution and pattern of reform in labour markets, the fact is that women suffer more disadvantages and restrictions. If we choose to ignore the gendered dimension of this situation, it will be a significant loss both for labour markets and society in general. In-work poverty has developed in a gendered way, thus calling for a gendered dimension for further reform of social security and meeting the basic needs and wellbeing of low income female workers. This should be given top priority.
Both in Belgium and China, the common problem is that a “woman-friendly” environment is lacking. Recently, the aim of equal gender access to the labour market and social protection has been put forward in EU documents, while poverty among women and relevant gender issues has not yet been focused on in-depth and analysed. Moreover, in-work poverty issues are not a priority at the national or EU level; it is only emphasized in general policies about anti-poverty and social exclusion, lacking specific projects or programmes. Even in China, the issue of poverty and a targeted female perspective are not integrated properly into existing anti-poverty policy. Employment orientation and combatting poverty still remain the main concerns; the actions for addressing gender inequality develop in a fragmentary way in both nations, and there are no specific mechanisms to measure the impact of these regulations on the working poor. In Belgium, certain political programmes such as cutting the provision of services for female labourers (e.g. childcare) have been launched; also, there has been an increase in divorce and the number of single mothers who work to make ends meet. Such a range of social phenomena happen chaotically, but the question is what is hidden behind this situation? The existence of Chinese female working poor is not only an indirect and unintended result of historical political reforms, but also seems to be due to the conflict of traditional ideology and modern gender culture.
As we can see, law is not the answer, but it is a necessary tool for challenging the poor conditions for female working poor. Can we confirm that the formal legal battle for gender equality today has been largely won? No – invisible discrimination against women still expresses itself in the labour market. By examining the working conditions of the female working poor in China, we can conclude that the oppressions they face are interconnected. Thus it is important for collective political action to achieve further change. Indeed, unless we address the gender dimension, it seems that female labourers will always be regarded as “Other” and excluded by the rule-makers and decision-makers in the Chinese and Belgian labour market. Thus, in practice, the poor conditions for some female working poor are not consistently linked to any given type of law or regulation. But we can see from the employment structure that the proportion of women at the leadership level or management level is lower than that for men. For instance, according to the data (1990–2015) in the Human Development Reports, the share of women’s seats in parliament as of 2014 was 42.4% in Belgium and 23.6% in China; 2 also, most research is done by males and most labour market rules are made by men. And such “one size fits all” laws in fact do not apply equally – this point has already been pointed out in recent gender research. The aim of coping with female working poor thus always entails defending women’s rights.
Footnotes
Appendix 1: EU-SILC
In this research, the data for in-work poverty in Belgium are derived from EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC).
Eurostat – The Statistical Office of the European Union (EU) situated in Luxembourg. Eurostat gathers data from the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) across Europe, and provides comparable and harmonized data for the EU to use in the definition, implementation and analysis of EU policies (Ponthieux, 2010).
EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) – one important database of Eurostat in the social field, which is an instrument anchored in the European Statistical System (ESS). It is the main reference source for statistics on income, living conditions, and in particular, on poverty and social exclusion in the EU. EU-SILC covers three topics: people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, income distribution and monetary poverty, living conditions and material deprivation. Within this data, it provides the indicators concerning in-work poverty topic with varied dimensions: age group and sex, household type, work intensity of the household and household type, educational level (ISCED), working time, etc.
Appendix 2: The Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS)
The Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) is an annual survey of mainland China’s urban and rural households. Launched in 2003, CGSS is aimed at gathering longitudinal data on social trends and the changing relationship between social structure and quality of life in China. Social structure refers to the dimensions of social groups and organizations as well as networks of social relationships. Quality of life comprises the objective and subjective aspects of the people’s well-being both at the individual and aggregate levels. The scope of CGSS contains data about employment, families, household composition, living conditions, social networks and social stratification.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.