Structural Characteristics and Trends of Income Inequality in China

Abstract

On the income inequalities in contemporary China, extensive research has been conducted by a lot of scholars from China and other countries. Whatever measurement standard is employed, the conclusion drawn almost in unison is that the income inequalities in China have widened since reform and opening up. This chapter mainly analyzes the trend and internal structure of the widening of China’s income inequalities, the inequality between urban and rural areas and that among different regions, the economic differentiation among social strata, and the formation mechanism of the income inequalities in China. In this chapter, our analysis will be mainly based on the data from three sources. First, the General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the Institute of Sociology of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in 2008. The sampling method applied to this survey is the probability proportionate to size sampling (PPS). It sampled 260 townships and urban subdistricts from 130 sampled counties in 28 provinces (excluding Hainan, Tibet, and Gansu); then from these townships and urban subdistricts, 520 villages and urban communities and were sampled; finally 7,139 household samples were obtained. The second data source is the China National Nutrition and Health Survey (CHNS) which was jointly conducted by the University of North Carolina of the USA and the Chinese Academy of Preventive