Changing Trends in China's Inequality: Evidence, Analysis, and Prospects
Terry Sicular, Shi Li, Ximing Yue, and Hiroshi Sato
Abstract
This work provides a new, comprehensive, and empirically grounded study of household incomes in China that critically examines the long-term rise and recent apparent decline in inequality. It covers incomes and inequality nationwide as well as separately in the urban and rural sectors, with close attention to measurement issues and to underlying changes in the economy, institutions, and public policy. The chapters examine a range of related topics, including the inequality of wealth, the emergence of a new middle class, the income gap between the Han and the ethnic minorities, the gender wage ... More
This work provides a new, comprehensive, and empirically grounded study of household incomes in China that critically examines the long-term rise and recent apparent decline in inequality. It covers incomes and inequality nationwide as well as separately in the urban and rural sectors, with close attention to measurement issues and to underlying changes in the economy, institutions, and public policy. The chapters examine a range of related topics, including the inequality of wealth, the emergence of a new middle class, the income gap between the Han and the ethnic minorities, the gender wage gap, and the impacts of government policies, such as social welfare programs and the minimum wage. A distinguishing feature of the book is its use of data from the China Household Income Project (CHIP), a collaborative, international research project that has organized nationwide household surveys spanning 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and, most recently, 2013. The CHIP data make possible to provide a consistent picture of the evolution of China’s income and inequality from the late 1980s to the beginning of the Xi Jinping era. Analyses of the 2013 CHIP data, with comparisons to findings from past rounds of the survey, reveal new trends in China’s inequality.
Keywords:
China,
inequality,
income distribution,
Gini coefficient,
poverty,
wealth,
wages,
consumption,
middle class,
public policy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190077938 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2020 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190077938.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Terry Sicular, editor
Professor of Economics, University of Western Ontario
Shi Li, editor
Professor of Economics, Beijing Normal University
Ximing Yue, editor
Professor of Economics, Renmin University of China
Hiroshi Sato, editor
Vice President of Hitotsubashi University and Prodessor of Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University
More
Less
