Household Income and its Distribution in China

Abstract

The distribution of income in China has been a subject of great interest to economists and others both inside and outside the country. Scholars have wanted to know whether a socialist strategy of development has resulted in an egalitarian society and, more generally, how the distribution of income in China compares with that in other developing countries that have relied more on market forces. Policy-makers have wanted to know, especially after the economic reforms introduced since 1978, whether the institutional transformations and policy interventions ameliorated or aggravated existing inequalities. Unfortunately it was not possible to address these questions systematically because of inadequate statistical information. There were few estimates of the distribution of income in China and those that were available were fragmentary and of uncertain reliability.