http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/world/asia/mothers-killing-of-children-in-rural-china-spurs-debate-about-inequality.html 2016-09-12 21:08:13 Mother’s Killing of Children in Rural China Spurs Debate About Inequality The case of a mother who killed herself and her four children has ignited concerns about the grim realities rural families face amid rampant inequality. === BEIJING — The young mother lived in obscurity in a wobbly house at the end of a dusty road. She did not speak much with strangers, spending her days tending to rows of wheat, peas and potatoes. Then, one day in late August, everyone in Agu Shan Village in northwestern The gruesome story, which It has also prompted a debate about inequality in Chinese society and the effectiveness of government efforts to reduce poverty, which President Xi Jinping has vowed to Ms. Yang was struggling to support her children on the roughly $500 sent home each year by her husband, Li Keying, a migrant worker in a nearby city in Gansu Province, according to Chinese news reports. (Mr. Li was found dead this month in an apparent suicide.) Adding to frustrations about the case, local officials reportedly stripped Ms. Yang of welfare benefits two years ago, because she did not meet the official standard for poverty, which in China applies to families earning less than $350 per year. “When a person commits a crime for bread, then society is to blame,” one user wrote on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Still, others said it was Ms. Yang’s responsibility to care for her family. “She was too cruel,” Luo Xiaohua, a 25-year-old courier who lives near Agu Shan Village, said in an interview. “It’s wrong to take away lives, let alone the lives of your own children.” After years of breakneck economic growth, China faces rampant inequality. Village life is rapidly deteriorating, and more than 82 million people, the vast majority of them in rural areas, still lived on less than $1 a day in 2014. Hu Xingdou, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, said village officials often neglected needy families in doling out welfare benefits. “Sometimes people who deserve it don’t get it because the policy lacks transparency and justice,” Professor Hu said. Officials in Agu Shan Village, home to nearly 300 people, could not be reached for comment on Monday. Ms. Yang’s story Li Keyi, 21, a cousin of Ms. Yang’s husband, celebrated the Lunar New Year with the family in Agu Shan Village last year. In an interview on Monday, he said that even though the family did not live comfortably, Ms. Yang had encouraged him to stay and eat. “I couldn’t find a family that was poorer than they were,” he said.