who are the disadvantaged groups?
In the European and American, “the disadvantaged group” mainly refers to the people who lose the ability to work and live independently, and then have to live on the social welfare and government help. Losing or having no ability of working and lacking the necessary living income are the common characters of them.
Different from Europe and America, the disadvantaged groups in China mainly states the unfair distribution structure of certain social resources and interests. Chinese scholars tend to define the disadvantaged groups as "those social colonies who need the help and support from his nation and society because they can not maintain the basic living standard for themselves and their family members with their own strength or ability."
In other words, the main feature of disadvantaged groups is that those groups of people are in the disadvantaged position in society and poor in their material life due to some barriers or lack of economic, political and social opportunities.
In China, the disadvantaged groups can be divided into three types: socially disadvantaged, physiologically disadvantaged and naturally disadvantaged.
(1) Socially disadvantaged group mainly includes such people as unemployed, peasant-workers, university students from poor families, poor single-parent families, poor families with members serving prison terms and teenagers and minors who have committed crimes and are prone to committing crimes.
(2) Physiologically disadvantaged group: people with disabilities, old aged, women and children.
(3) Naturally disadvantaged group include those who live in poverty mainly due to out-of-the-way geographical locations, harsh environment, dearth of natural resources or natural disasters.