With the advent of the “post-poverty alleviation era”, the strategic positioning of relative poverty in China’s poverty alleviation work has been gradually highlighted, but there is still a lack of unified relative poverty index to identify the relative poverty households and measure the relative poverty level. Therefore, based on the improved A-F double-bound method and Foster’s persistence idea, this paper constructed a continuous multidimensional relative poverty index by setting the relative poverty threshold of each indicator and verifying a series of axiomatization conditions it met. Then, using the five-year CFPS data from 2010 to 2018, this paper empirically analyzes the multidimensional relative poverty situation in China from the overall, urban and rural, regional and provincial levels. The findings are as follows: 1) The proportion of households with persistent multidimensional relative poverty in China gradually decreases with the increase of the critical value of duration, and the impoverishment factors become more concentrated. 2) The multidimensional relative poverty index decreased by 7. 15% from 2010 to 2018, and the proportion of relatively poor households gradually decreased. China’ s continuous poverty alleviation work has achieved obvious results, but the relative poverty degree of households still in relative poverty is still relatively high. 3) Medical insurance, education and housing are still important factors contributing to poverty in China. Meanwhile, the health status of urban households and the housing problem in rural areas have a greater impact on the persistent multidimensional relative poverty index. 4) The poverty gap between urban and rural areas as well as between regions is still more obvious, but it is more reflected in the poverty incidence gap, and the relative poverty depth of poor households is more similar. 5 ) The continuous multidimensional relative poverty index in the western part of China is much higher than that in the central and eastern regions, but the relative poverty degree of poor households in the central and eastern regions is more serious. This paper provides important statistical support for the development of China ’ s relative poverty governance work, and it is of great significance to establish a long-term mechanism to solve relative poverty in China.
