1. Introduction
Poverty is a major problem faced by economic and social development in the world. Eliminating poverty is the common task of human social development [
1], and many governments and international organizations regard poverty reduction as their primary goal [
2]. Since the United Nations implemented the first “Ten-Year Development Strategy” in the 1960s, the international community has been committed to global poverty governance and has achieved great results. According to statistics, the number of people living in extreme poverty in the world has dropped from 1.895 billion in 1990 to 736 million in 2015, and the poverty rate has dropped from 35.85% to 10.7% [
3]. Absolute poverty governance has achieved remarkable results, but it also faces major challenges. First, the 1.9 dollar poverty standard does not reflect the full picture of poverty. There are still 1.3 billion people in the world in “multidimensional poverty” [
4], and the problem of relative poverty is still prominent [
5]. Second, poverty governance is still facing a severe crisis of returning to poverty. Due to the impact of Corona Virus Disease 2019, about 114 million jobs have been lost globally, and about 120 million people have fallen into extreme poverty [
6]. Even in a wealthy society, the prevalence of poverty will have a negative impact on individuals and society [
7], not only in economic deprivation [
8,
9], but also in politics, culture, society and so on. For example, the uneven distribution of income and the increase in the poor will promote economic crises [
10]; poverty as a limited citizenship [
11] makes the poor lack the economic capital to participate in politics [
12], and seriously undermines the rationalization of democratic politics [
13]; poverty will lead to the prevalence of various opportunistic cultures [
12]; in countries with serious polarization between the rich and the poor, drug use is rampant and the homicide rate is higher [
14], and minors will also be adversely affected [
15,
16,
17]. Therefore, the characteristics of different poverty types and their assistance strategies have gradually attracted the attention of academic and political circles, and relevant research is urgently needed.
Poverty classification is the focus of academic research [
18]. Poverty is generally classified as absolute poverty and relative poverty [
19,
20,
21,
22,
23]. Absolute poverty is manifested as the lack of material basis for reproduction of individuals or families [
24]. The world bank defines absolute poverty as “the lack of the ability to reach the minimum living standard” [
25]. The concept of relative poverty was put forward by the British scholar Peter Townsend [
26]. He defined relative poverty as when individuals, families, and social organizations lack resources, leading to their living below the median level and being excluded from normal lifestyles and social activities. The classification of poverty can optimize the allocation of resources and build a diversified and precise poverty alleviation system. Therefore, it is necessary to classify the poverty types of farmers.
Livelihood risk refers to the damage to the livelihood capital of farmers, leading to difficulties in their lives. Livelihood risks are closely related to livelihood capital. Many empirical studies have proved that the improvement of farmers’ livelihood capital can alleviate poverty [
20,
27,
28] and strengthen farmers’ ability to cope with livelihood risks. On the contrary, the lack of farmers’ livelihood capital causes farmers to fall into poverty, which increases the risk to livelihoods [
29], and livelihood capital has a significant positive impact on farmers’ livelihood risks [
30]. For example, Addison and Brown [
31] used the sustainable livelihood method and found that the poorer a family, the more united its livelihood capital structure, and the weaker its ability to cope with livelihood risks. Papa [
32] believed that the financial and physical capital owned by farmers will affect their ability to cope with livelihood risk portfolio capital and play an important role in coping with livelihood risks. Scoones [
33] believed that under the attack of multiple internal and external risks, farmers’ pensions are extremely vulnerable, which may cause the elderly in rural areas to fall into the situation of no financial source, no one to take care of their life and lack of end-of-life escorts. Su and Shang [
34] believed that the increase in financial capital and human capital will help strengthen farmers’ ability to resist risks. Establishing a sound risk aversion mechanism, improving the social security system, and reducing the risk of farmers’ livelihoods is conducive to improving the living standards of farmers, promoting the sustainable development of farmers’ livelihoods, and playing an important role in economic and social development. However, regarding the research on farmers’ livelihood risks, most scholars at home and abroad focus on livelihood capital investigation, livelihood risk identification, livelihood risk avoidance, etc. [
35]. There are few systematic studies on the correlation between farmers’ livelihood risks and poverty types, and relevant research is urgently needed.
China is one of the countries with the worst natural disasters in the world [
36,
37]. From the perspective of earthquake disaster zoning, seventy-four percent of provincial capital cities and sixty-two percent of cities above prefecture level are located in dangerous areas with earthquake intensity above VII. Many residents are deeply affected by disasters and fall into poverty [
38], and what is more, their lives will be greatly threatened. The terrain of Sichuan Province is complex and diverse, with high altitude differences, frequent natural disasters, extremely poor natural conditions in the “three regions and three prefectures” of the province, and the heavy task of poverty alleviation, which is the “weakness of the shortcomings”. As of the end of 2018, Sichuan Province had more than 700,000 poor people, 1782 poor villages, and 38 poor counties. The cost of poverty alleviation was high and poverty alleviation was difficult.
In 2020, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council’s
Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the “Three Rural Areas” and Ensuring a Well-off Society as Scheduled stated that after the completion of the poverty alleviation task, China’s poverty situation will undergo major changes and the focus of poverty alleviation work will shift to solving relative poverty. The work mode of poverty alleviation has been adjusted from concentrated operations to normal progress. 2020 is a decisive year for achieving a well-off population in an all-round way. China has lifted the rural poor from poverty under the current standards, and all poor counties have taken off their hats. After achieving absolute poverty alleviation, the focus of China’s poverty alleviation work will gradually shift to relative poverty [
39]. Therefore, clarifying the livelihood risks faced by farmers of different poverty types and proposing targeted policy guidance is of great significance to China’s poverty alleviation and international poverty governance.
Based on the above theory and policy background, this study used survey data of 327 households in four districts and counties in the hardest-hit areas of the Wenchuan Earthquake and Lushan Earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province in 2018. In this study, we measured farmers’ livelihood risks from four aspects: health risks, environmental risks, financial risks, and social risks, and measures farmers’ poverty types from three aspects: absolutely poor farmers, relatively poor farmers, and non-poor farmers. We systematically analyzed the four types of livelihood risks faced by farmers and the three types of poverty they were in, and constructed a multinomial logistic regression to explore the correlation between livelihood risks and poverty types. It is hoped that this study can provide useful enlightenment for the effective connection of government poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in formulating and implementing relevant policies.
5. Discussion
Based on the above theory and policy background, this study used the 2018 survey data of 327 farmers in four districts and counties in the hardest-hit areas of the Wenchuan Earthquake and Lushan Earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province. We systematically analyzed the four types of livelihood risks faced by farmers and the three types of poverty they were in, and constructed a multinomial logistic regression to explore the correlation between livelihood risks and poverty types. This study was the first to compare the relatively poor type with other poverty types. This research divided poverty types into absolutely poor, relatively poor and non-poor, and compared the livelihood risks faced by the three poverty types. In the existing literature, there are few empirical studies on the comparison between the relatively poor type and other poverty types. The second innovation of this study was to use the entropy method and multinomial logistic regression. This study uses the entropy method, which is more objective than the study of using qualitative methods to obtain index weights and comprehensive indexes. At the same time, we used a multinomial logistic regression to explore the relationship between the four types of livelihood risks and the three poverty types. This study can provide inspiration for similar studies in the future. At the same time, it also has shortcomings. When constructing the livelihood risk measurement analysis model, we did not consider the endogenous problem of variable selection.
This study found that the impacts of the health risks of the three different types of poverty-stricken households are not significant. This is inconsistent with the research Hypothesis H1 and the results of Chen [
49] and Quinn et al. [
52]. The research Hypothesis H1 assumes that there are significant differences in the impact of health risks on different types of poverty-stricken farmers, and that poor farmers are more impacted by health risks. Chen [
49] found that poor farmers will lose the ability to work due to illness, which will cause a catastrophic impact on family income. Quinn et al. [
52] found that poor farmers do not have the ability to resist risks and are more impacted by health risks. The possible reason is that the Chinese government has been promoting the full coverage of the “New Rural Cooperative Medical System”, improving the drug policy and integrating the resources of regional medical institutions, striving to solve the problem of “difficult and expensive medical treatment”, and reducing the impact of farmers’ health risks from the root cause.
This study found that the environmental risks faced by farmers with three different poverty types are not significantly different. This is inconsistent with the research Hypothesis H2 and the results of Huiling [
66] and Shameem et al. [
68]. The research Hypothesis H2 assumes that there are significant differences in the impacts of environmental risks on different types of poverty-stricken farmers, and that poor farmers are more affected by environmental risks. Huiling [
66] found that poor farmers are often the first to bear the brunt of natural disasters. Shameem et al. [
68] found that poor farmers are more vulnerable to environmental risks and suffer more from food and water safety risks. The possible reason is that the research objects of this study are farmers in the hardest-hit areas of the Wenchuan Earthquake and Lushan Earthquake. Farmers in this area are all facing the threat of earthquake disasters regardless of the poverty types. Therefore, there is no significant difference in the threats faced by farmers of different poverty types.
This study found that the financial risks faced by farmers with three different poverty types are not significantly different. This is inconsistent with the research Hypothesis H3 and the results of Li et al. [
74] and Lucas and Pabuayon [
78]. The research Hypothesis H3 assumes that there are significant differences in the impact of financial risks on different types of poverty-stricken farmers, and that poor farmers are more impacted by financial risks. Li et al. [
74] found that the impact of financial risks will make the per capita net income of poor rural households change larger than that of non-poor rural households. Lucas and Pabuayon [
78] found that poor farmers suffer less impact from financial risks. The possible reason is that nowadays farmers mainly rely on non-agricultural income. Farmers are less affected by financial risks such as price fluctuation of agricultural products and lack of funds to expand agricultural production. Therefore, the impact of financial risks on different types of farmers is not significant.
Consistent with the study of Moav and Neeman [
72], this study found that, compared with the absolutely poor farmers, the impact of social risk on the relatively poor farmers is more serious, but there is no significant difference between the non-poor farmers and the relatively poor farmers. This is inconsistent with the research Hypothesis H4 and the results of Kasie et al. [
82]. The research Hypothesis H4 assumes that there are significant differences in the impact of different types of poor farmers on social risks, and that poor farmers are more impacted by social risks. Kasie et al. [
82] found that farmers with higher income have more social resources, better social relations, and are less impacted by social risks. The possible reason is that poor farmers are poor in human capital, physical capital, financial capital, and natural capital, but they will invest a lot of energy in social participation in order to improve other capital conditions through the increase of social capital.
6. Conclusions
Through the above analysis, we mainly drew the following three conclusions:
- (1)
Among the four types of livelihood risk, the environmental risk had the highest comprehensive score (0.40), followed by financial risk (0.33), health risk (0.17), and social risk (0.10).
- (2)
Among the three types of poverty in which farmers live, absolutely poor farmers have the largest number (177 households, accounting for 54.1%), and relatively poor farmers have the least number (41 households, accounting for 12.6%).
- (3)
Farmers of different poverty types are impacted by different levels of livelihood risks. Specifically, compared with absolutely poor farmers, relatively poor farmers are more severely impacted by social risks, but the impact of health risks, environmental risks and financial risks is not significant. Impacted by social risks, relatively poor farmers are more seriously impacted by public affairs and social security status, especially public affairs. Compared with the non-poor farmers, the relatively poor farmers are not affected by the four livelihood risks.
With the acceleration of China’s integration into the global economy, agricultural production and operations have begun to bear the dual impact of international and domestic markets, and the problem of agricultural structure has become more prominent. Natural risks and other risks act on farmers together, putting different types of poor farmers at livelihood risks. This study was aimed at farmers in areas where earthquake disaster threats and poverty are intertwined, and explored the differences in the impact of livelihood risks among absolutely poor farmers, relatively poor farmers, and non-poor farmers. It can provide theoretical support for different types of poor farmers to improve their ability to withstand risks, promote the stability of the agricultural economic structure, guarantee the income of farmers, and promote rural development. At the same time, 2020 is the final year of China’s poverty alleviation. After 2020, the focus of China’s poverty alleviation work will shift from solving absolute poverty to alleviating relative poverty. This research can bring some useful enlightenments to the formulation and implementation of government policies, as follows:
- (1)
The government should consolidate the continued stability of agricultural and rural financial investment to prevent non-poor households from falling into poverty due to financial risks. The research results show that non-poor farmers are more severely impacted by financial risks. The government should increase the intensity and capital investment of welfare policies such as critical illness relief, industrial poverty alleviation, and public welfare posts, and help non-poor farmers to build a strong livelihood capital base and improve their livelihood capabilities through “blood-making” methods.
- (2)
The government should expand the social resources of farmers through poverty alleviation projects. The research results show that non-poor farmers are more severely impacted by social risks. The government should provide farmers with more market information, market sales channels, and financial and physical capital support, and encourage non-poor farmers to learn to independently develop markets and establish social resources.
Finally, there are suggestions for further research:
- (1)
Future research needs to design a more comprehensive indicator system to measure the difference in livelihood risk between different types of poverty-stricken households. It is necessary to consider the endogenous problem of variable selection, and at the same time pay more attention to the impact of various livelihood risk variables on the farmers’ economy, select the economic benefits of different types of poor farmers as the evaluation object, and make a reasonable efficiency evaluation.
- (2)
The impact of different types of poverty-stricken households on industries and the economy is comprehensive and complex, and it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on them from the perspective of more participants. Participants not only involve farmers of different types of poverty, but also governments, enterprises and various intermediary organizations, so they need to be fully considered in future research.