Layoffs and Urban Poverty in the State-Owned Enterprise Communities in Shaanxi Province, China

This paper applies a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods to examine urban poverty in China’s state-owned enterprise communities where laid-off workers concentrate. A sequential explanatory model using interviews, Participatory Poverty Assessments and a community household survey on textile and military industries in Shaanxi Province of north-western China shows that low-income households suffered multidimensional disadvantages. Qualitative techniques have helped to reveal the hidden aspects of poverty while statistical tools have captured holistic information on the communities. These approaches together (Q-squared) consider both the outsiders’ and insiders’ views on the laid-off poor and benefit the making of effective anti-poverty policies.