People’s Daily recently reported on the People’s Livelihood Development Report newly released by the Chinese Social Science Research Center of Peking University. The report focused on six aspects of Chinese families: wealth, the spending model, health-related costs, self-employment, housing, and their “subjective sense of happiness.” The inequality in the distribution of wealth in China has been increasing rapidly. The research showed that the top one percent of Chinese families own more than one-third of the total of Chinese wealth. Meanwhile, the twenty-five percent of families at the bottom own one percent of the nation’s wealth. The difference between urban and suburban populations and the difference between different geographic regions are the two primary causes of the imbalance in wealth. The imbalance is also reflected in the spending model. The research shows that the vast majority of Chinese families spend most of their income on basic needs, while a small number of families enjoy an extremely high-end life-style. Also, China’s healthcare costs are higher than the world’s main developed countries.
Source: People’s Daily, July 25, 2014
http://society.people.com.cn/n/2014/0725/c1008-25345140.html