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

Research report No.65, 2017 (Total 5140) 2017-6-8

Abstract: The survey findings based on household questionnaires show that the level of interviewees’ satisfaction with life is relatively high, but they hold that there are still loopholes relating to their income, medical treatment, old-age care and low-income housing. It should be noted that some urban and rural residents’ income is declining and the pressure of social assistance is mounting; the burden on family medical treatment expenditure is high, old-age insurance system is incomplete, and some urban and rural residents are worried about the rising cost of getting medical treatment and old-age care; the expenditure on housing is on the rise and quite a lot of people are not satisfied with the current living conditions. With regard to rural residents and rural migrant workers, they are a more vulnerable social group relating to the above-mentioned issues as their ability to respond to decreasing family income, illness and old-age care is even weaker. Therefore, government’s future work relating to people’s livelihood needs to focus on the weak points, close relevant loopholes pertinent to major issues of people’s livelihood and improve the basic public service with targeted measures.

Key words: highlights relating to people’s livelihood, household questionnaire, basic public service