Overview: Incomes and inequality in China, 2007-2013

Arbeitspapier

In this chapter we examine trends in China's household incomes, income distribution and inequality for China as a whole and for each of the urban, rural and rural-urban migrant subgroups, as well as analyzing changes in the income gaps between the urban and rural sectors and among the Eastern/Central/Western regions using the CHIP 2007 and 2013 data. Our base estimates show a decline in national inequality from 2007 to 2013. This decline is robust to alternative income definitions and different inequality indexes. The decline reflects reductions in important dimensions of inequality including the rural-urban income gap, regional income gaps, and inequality in the distribution of the major components of household income, e.g. wage earnings, asset income, etc. The decline in national inequality would have been even larger if not for rising inequality within the urban and rural sectors and the growing importance of unequally distributed income components, such as income from assets and imputed rents on owner-occupied housing. Moreover, the decline in national inequality is not robust to adjustments to correct for spatial differences in the cost of living and for under-representation of top-income groups in the survey sample. These adjustments reveal that some, if not all, of the apparent reduction in inequality from 2007 to 2013 is due to changes in prices and the growing importance of top-income individuals and their incomes that are not captured in the household surveys. The chapter contains further, detailed analyses of changes in incomes and income distribution within each of the urban, rural and migrant population subgroups.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CHCP Working Paper ; No. 2017-13

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Economywide Country Studies: Asia including Middle East ; Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics ; Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
• Subject: China ; inequality ; income distribution

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Luo, Chuliang ; Sicular, Terry ; Li, Shi
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP)
• (where): London (Ontario)
• (when): 2017

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/180858
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET