By Cheng Yu & Ruan Rongping, Research Team on “Survey on People’s Livelihood in China”, DRC

Research Report, No.210, 2021 (Total 6275) 2021-7-29

Abstract: In view of the questionnaire survey on people’s livelihood conducted by DRC research team from 2016 to 2020, the results show that the increased and unified standards of basic medical insurance and basic old-age insurance for urban and rural residents significantly reduced respondents’ worries about medical care and old-age pensions. The unified standards for both urban and rural residents’ subsistence allowances significantly enhanced low-income earners’ confidence in life. Moreover, the unification of relevant urban and rural social security systems obviously improved the respondents’ satisfaction about living conditions and satisfaction with government services, and reduced the differences of living conditions between urban and rural respondents, all of which have laid an important foundation for achieving the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. In the course of socialist modernization, it is still necessary to focus on improving the people’s well-being, continue to enhance the overall level of the social security system, ensure that migrant workers will gradually be covered by medical and old-age insurance program provided for urban workers, continue to promote the unification of minimum living allowances for urban and rural residents, and gradually narrow the differences relating to social security systems between urban and rural residents and urban workers in a bid to advance modernization of agriculture and rural areas in step with urban areas.

Keywords: Survey on People’s Livelihood, urban-rural unification, social security, life satisfaction