Household Income and its Distribution in China

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 has not been possible to address these questions systematically because of inadequate statistical information. There were few estimates of the distribution of income in China and the available estimates were fragmentary and unreliable.