Measurement, Decomposition and Influencing Factors of Rural Residents’ Policy Information Poverty under the Goal of Common Prosperity: A Perspective of Multidimensional Relative Poverty

The governance of relative poverty is a crucial task for consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation and realizing common prosperity. Entering the information age, information poverty has become a prominent type of relative poverty. Based on the theory of multidimensional relative poverty and taking policy information as a starting point, this study focused on the precise identification and measurement of information poverty. A multidimensional poverty index system for policy information was designed, which included four dimensions: cognition, capability, service, and hardware, comprising 12 indicators. Based on a questionnaire survey of 1047 rural residents in the central and western regions, the A-F method was adopted to complete the assessment and conduct dimensional and regional decomposition, then explored the influencing factors. The findings revealed that, multidimensional policy information poverty was widespread in rural areas; the digital divide at the level of access to information and communication equipment was no longer the main factor hindering information poverty alleviation, and bringing information services to the grassroots was the focus of the next stage; group and regional differences were prominent, and population identification and indicator breakthroughs must be precise. Based on the differentiated mechanisms of various factors, this paper advanced several recommendations aimed at enhancing the efficacy of policy communication.