A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
report indicates that China's income gap is showing no signs
of narrowing despite government efforts to bridge it.
China's income disparity is close to that of Latin America's,
says the CASS report based on surveying 7,140 households.
Growing at double-digit rates China's economy has become the
world's fourth largest; however, it is still grappling with the
disparity between the haves and have-nots. This has widened
dramatically over the past 20 years.
The richest 10 percent of Chinese families now own more than 40
percent of all private assets while the poorest 10 percent share
less than 2 percent of the total wealth.
In 2005 the average annual per capita income of urban residents
in Beijing was 17,653 yuan (US$2,259.5) while people in Qinghai Province earned an average of only
8,057 yuan (US$1,031.3) a year, government statistics show.
The gap between urban and rural residents is even larger.
Farmers in Qinghai reported an average annual per capita income of
2,165 yuan (US$277.1) in 2005. This is just 25 percent of what
local urban residents earned.
Increasing medical costs have become the biggest burden facing
Chinese people. The report shows that 11.8 percent of household
expenditure goes on health care. This is higher than communications
and education.
According to a recent survey jointly conducted by the China
Youth Daily and sina.com.cn nearly 90 percent of Chinese
people are alarmed by the gap between those who have and those who
don't.
Just over 80 percent said it was time to correct the imbalances
while only 14.1 percent believed "there is no need to change." The
government has made narrowing the income gap one of its top
priorities and a cornerstone to building a harmonious society.
China's Gini Coefficient, an indicator of income disparity, has
reached 0.496 according to the report carried by Elite
Reference, a weekly newspaper run by the China Youth
Daily. The Gini Coefficient uses zero to indicate equal income
distribution while one represents the largest income disparity.
According to the World Bank the country's Gini Coefficient
was 0.45 in 2005. The index in India is 0.33, the US 0.41 and
Brazil 0.54.
(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2007)