SOCIAL WEALTH INEQUALITY IN CHINA REFORM ERA

Social Wealth Inequality in China Reform Era



Social Wealth Inequality in China Reform Era

Introduction

China's reform and openness have now been ongoing for a quarter century. During this important period, while China's economy has developed rapidly and personal incomes have increased, changes in income distribution, especially rising income inequality, have raised social concerns. Income and wealth are closely correlated. The people's well-being depends not only on incomes but also on the level and distribution of wealth. Since 1990 China has experienced a period of rapid accumulation of personal wealth combined with unequal distribution of that wealth. The country has established the objective of constructing a well-oil society. The issue of wealth distribution thus has become a new focus of concern.

Discussion

In this we have discussed about wealth, also called property or assets, includes land, housing, and individual savings or holdings of other financial instruments, among other factors. Here the terms wealth, property, and assets arc used as synonyms, but in different ways and from different points of view. When we link these assets with ownership we use the term “property rights.” Wealth and income are different concepts. Here income refers to all earnings of a person or a household in a certain period of time (usually a year). Wealth refers to the net monetary value of all assets at a certain point of time. In other words, wealth is the stock of all property at a certain point, while income is a (low of earnings in a time period. Obviously, income and wealth are interrelated. The previous flows of income affect the current stock of wealth; the current stock of wealth affects the flows of future income. Growth of wealth levels and changes in wealth structure and distribution affect not only macro economic stability, but also long term changes in income distribution.

It also presents a general analysis of the distribution of wealth in rural and urban China, and in the nation as a whole, on the basis of the CHIP survey conducted in 2002. We make some comparisons with findings from the 1988 and 1995 surveys (McKinley 1993; Brenner 2001) and with the survey results of urban residents' wealth by the Urban Social and Economic Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in 2002. We also examine the relationship between wealth distribution and income distribution, but in depth analysis of this and other topics is limited by the availability of research materials and references.

In the pre reform period China had nearly no private property or Personal wealth. During the reform period many reforms, such as land-use reforms, housing reforms, and financial reforms, have taken place, allowing the Chinese people to become property owners. Perhaps because these changes were so rapid and recent, and because of difficulties in data collection, few studies have examined the distribution of personal wealth in China, with the exception of a small number of works based.

To understand the wealth distribution in China fully, we find it useful ...