By He Jianwu, Research Team on “Research on People’s Livelihood in China”, DRC

Research Report, No. 145, 2017 (Total 5220), 2017-11-06

Abstract: Based on the people’s livelihood index (PLI) proposed by the research team on “people’s livelihood in China” and relevant data collected over the past five years, this paper gives an evaluation on the development of PLI in various regions in recent years. The evaluation results show that people’s livelihood in various regions in recent years has witnessed certain improvement respectively, while there are differences in different aspects of PLI. Residential livelihood has been significantly enhanced, while the stress of life pressure is getting higher in some regions which deserves attention; the equalization of public services has made positive progress, while the regional gap in terms of specialized and skilled personnel of public services is rather wide; the progress in public safety is yet to be improved, and public concern needs to have an eye on the increased number of crime incidents, accidents and disasters as well as risks of public safety in some developed eastern coastal regions; the living environment has become better, but needs further improvement. It should be noted that the improvement of urban environmental quality is not in step with the rapid development of urbanization. The paper puts forward relevant policy options in light of the major problems reflected by the objective PLI.

Key words: objective PLI (people’s livelihood index), viewing from regional perspective, livelihood