Who should take up arms in the war against poverty? This is a task for poor households, the government and the whole of society, but in the final analysis it is the poor households who must win the war. As the battle enters unchartered waters and more and more people are lifted out of poverty, a growing problem of psychological barriers is found in several poverty-stricken counties. The battle has become a campaign to force people out of poverty in some places, and their reluctance to do it on their own has become a stumbling block to progress.

Some poor households boycott new apartments that are offered at almost no cost

For people living in places which cannot sustain their life, alleviating poverty through relocation is a measure addressing the root cause of the problem. The subsidies given to the poor for relocation in many provinces can reach more than U.S. $4,000 per person, amounting to a new apartment for each poor household for free, but there are still some poor who look such “gift horse” in the mouth, and in some cases it turns out to be a daunting challenge to persuade people to move.

24 year-old Meng Zhijian is a young man of Yao ethnic minority living in Qibainong Town of Guangxi, which is one of the poorest places in China. The whole town lies in rocky land subject to desertification, with an extreme shortage of arable land and water. Officials from the Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations regard it as the least livable place after actual desert. About 20,000 people live in this place and nearly half of them are living under the poverty line.

Meng Zhijian’s home village, Nonggentun, still has no proper transport links. It takes people more than an hour to climb along a treacherous path over two mountains in order to reach this remote outpost. Dwellings there comprise dilapidated wooden shacks, some of which are extremely shabby, so much so that a bed, a table and a few stools are the only furniture. The nearest primary school is several kilometers away.

Meng Zhijian is a short quiet young man with a wood-chopping sickle hanging by his waist. He dropped out of school after primary, and went to the coastal areas in east China as a migrant worker in his teens.

“If you move out of the village, your children can go to school and your father can have easier access to medical care. Besides, the government is offering a new apartment worth tens of thousands of dollars for free. Why did you turn it down?” asks a reporter.

“The cost of living is very high outside,” answers Meng. “And at least in the village I can grow a little corn on the hillside to sustain us. Besides, the kids belong to the mountains, and I can have more children here as long as they can survive.” But he falls into silence when it is pointed out that like many other single men in the village, he might never be able to find a wife if he refuses to move.

Staying in the mountains instead of leaving in search of work

For many poor households, leaving the village to find work is the most effective means of escaping from dire poverty. Life can be improved quickly if the family has one or two members working elsewhere. Therefore, many local governments see providing labor services as an important tool to increase incomes for the poor.

However, some healthy young people choose to cling to the barren mountains instead of leaving in search of work. Illiteracy, lack of skills, and poor Putonghua or standard Chinese are factors deterring them from leaving.

Longmen, Longbu and Qiniao are three villages in Longzhou County of Guangxi that still don’t have road access. It takes three hours of foot to reach the most remote village, Qiniao, and at least two hours to reach the nearest one, Longmen. The reporters are hot and sticky after less than an hour of climbing. They come across Huang Guoping, a poor villager who is rather different from the others because he is in his early forties and in good health. But he is still single, and has two younger brothers who are also single. All five members of his family depend on government allowance for a living.

“Why don’t you leave the village?” asks a reporter. “You might just find your Miss Right.”

“It would be very difficult for me to find a job since I have never been to school,” answers Huang. His two younger brothers both dropped out of school at very early age and the whole family depends on farming and raising cattle for their livelihood. They travel out of the village about every two weeks to buy daily necessities. No girl is willing to marry the men from this village because it is stranded in the depths of remote mountains.

Pantu is a poor village in Yalong Town of Dahua Yao Autonomous County. 51-year old Wei Jianzhan doesn’t worry about his desperate situation—he would rather casually drop into the conversation that he has four sons, more than his father and his grandpa had.

The local party chief is trying to create a platform for idle laborers over the age of 50, finding them work in local enterprises. Middle-aged villagers in good health like Wei could at least work as couriers.

But this opportunity is not attractive to Wei. “If I left the village I would have to get used to eating rice. I have lived on corn all my life,” he says.

Some guarantees will be needed as incentives to encourage poor villagers to start their own business

Developing competitive industries is a key solution that is very much part of the stability and sustainability of poverty alleviation. But it needs to stand the test of the market. Some poor households have an instinctive fear of the market and feel nervous about the idea of fighting poverty through developing their own business. They are only interested in involving themselves in lucrative businesses, and some of them even ask for government guarantees for success if they are pushed to do so.

“The poor don’t want to raise anything for fear of losing money,” says a village official. People complain that government offered little help in the past. Now, with the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation, the poor can access poverty-alleviation fund and subsidized loans from the government, but some of them are still reluctant to raise livestock. Village officials go door to door to help, but they often face questioning like “what if the pigs fall ill or die? Can I get compensation in that case?” Officials find it hard to respond. It is reported that some poor households agree to raise cattle, but ask for money for feedstuff and wages because they see this as a task that has been assigned to them by the government.

Poor villager Qin Hongkuan stands in front of his dilapidated wood shack, staring expressionlessly at the endless barren mountains while taking a deep inhalation of smoke. “I will never raise chickens. One of my fellow villagers tried it, and saw many of his chickens die.”

In order to incentivize villagers to raise chickens and develop a stable income, the government offers some subsidies after the chickens are ready for slaughter. But Qin has no interest at all—he is worried about losing money should his flock fall victim to bird flu. But he has thoughts only for the fellow who lost money, while turning a blind eye to his neighbor He Guijie, who is faring well with 300 chickens on the farm. Qin’s wife left the village in search of work more than a decade ago; having escaped from the desperate situation in the village she never came back.

Many poverty-alleviation officials at village level explain that some places offer rewards instead of subsidies, which means the poor households only get money after they carry out the projects. But some insist on being paid before they start, while others go even further, saying they will never join a project even if they are offered money. It is disappointing to see carefully designed policy so far at odds with reality. “One village official is required to couple up with a dozen poor households, and they often begin to run out of patience before those under their care have been lifted out of poverty,” says a poverty-alleviation official.

Some poor households are used to struggling in poverty and feel they can do nothing about it. Thinking that people around them are just the same, they tend to just muddle through.

In a remote village at the foot of a mountain luxuriant with plants—an ideal place for animal husbandry—each poor household was offered five sheep, and normally after two years each female sheep could deliver several lambs. If managed properly, the number of sheep would gradually increase. But when the organization offering help went back to revisit, they found that a lot of sheep has been eaten. With an expression of helplessness, one official said that some poor households simply accept their life of poverty, and never feel any inclination to try for anything better.

“We often visit the poor households in the village,” says the director of a county poverty alleviation and development office. “Some of them are already drunk even in the morning. It seems they have a different take on the definition of happiness, and it leaves us all feeling confused.”

Give the cautious inspiration; give the timid a clear vision

The battle against poverty gets tougher the further it goes. Psychological poverty is the hardest nut to crack. Lack of confidence, fear of risk, reluctance to try, contentment with things as they are…all these are manifestations. Its root cause can be traced to lack of ability, weak will, cultural and psychological factors, as well as social customs and manners. As the battle against poverty moves forward, the barrier of psychological poverty is looming ever-larger.

“Nothing can be achieved without the will to do so.” In some ways psychological poverty is more intimidating and more difficult to address than physical poverty. Even perfect policies and sufficient funding will be met with frustration when there is no passion, when hopelessness takes over, and when the poor become bystanders. Even if people are raised from poverty temporarily through the application of resources, they will probably slip quickly back into the vicious cycle of “poor and passive”.

What’s the solution? During his inspection tour in Lüliang of Shanxi Province, President Xi Jinping pointed out that equal attention should be paid to strengthening the intelligence and will of the people in poverty alleviation. There should be more focus on sparking the internal drive of the poor, and incentivizing their capacity for self-development. Working strategies should be improved to educate and guide poor people out of poverty through their own efforts while retaining the mechanism of rewarding production, subsidizing labor, and offering employment rather than outright grants.

To tackle psychological poverty, it is advisable to adjust policy measures and train more qualified officials, rather than blaming the poor for the problem. And to address the root causes poverty-alleviation officials should keep to the right philosophy and discard the idea of “quick results”. Only through steady implementation of well-designed policies can they lift people out of poverty for real without leaving anyone behind.

Some village officials, who have long been involved in the campaign, believe that officials are the key to breaking the bonds of psychological poverty—giving the cautious inspiration and giving the timid a clear vision. Poverty-alleviation officials should keep close relations with the people and become sincere friends of the poor, so as to change their mindset. The road toward wealth and happiness will become unobstructed only when the psychological barrier is removed. 

The article was translated by Liu Xinqing and its original unabridged version was published in Chinese.