In China, there is a big difference between the lives of people in wealthy urban centers and the lives of people in poor rural areas. In the bustling hub of Shanghai, high rise buildings are everywhere; taxis, subways and the aboveground light rail take people wherever they want to go; and modern architecture dots the landscape.

Travel to the rural provinces, and you won’t find any of this. Schools are often falling down without roofs or proper walls, homes are small, simple structures and a lot of people can’t afford proper health care. This poverty is the reality for hundreds of millions of China’s rural poor.

This disparity in wealth between urban and rural areas is one of the most notable things about poverty in the region. Today, China is the fastest growing economy in the world. But in China, as in most East Asian countries, poor rural communities remain trapped in poverty and the gap between rich and poor expands.

Poverty doesn’t just exist in rural areas. As families migrate from rural to urban areas in search of work, they are often forced to live and work in difficult conditions. They often work long hours for little pay, are unable to access health insurance, are often discriminated against by city dwellers and are forced to share cramped living quarters. The sad reality is that the life they leave behind in rural areas is usually even worse, as the poverty there is even more widespread.

Fact File

• Twenty million children are abandoned in the countryside because poverty forces their parents into the city as migrant workers.

• Almost half of China’s population lives on less than $2 a day, with most of these people living in rural areas.

Good News

On a positive note, China has made such tremendous leaps forward in terms of poverty reduction that it is known as having the largest overall poverty reduction in history.