Upper-Class Chinese Young Adults' Perspectives on Inequality

• In Event: 212 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. The View from the Top: Attitudes on Inequality Among the Wealthy or Highly Educated

Abstract

How do upper-class young adults in contemporary China perceive the growing gap between rich and poor? What do they feel should be done about it? To answer this question, I interviewed 35 Chinese citizens from top graduate programs in China and the United States and participated in two month-long volunteer programs in rural China. I found that while the majority of upper-class respondents feel that the gap between rich and poor is an important problem, they are more concerned with its effects on social stability, culture and morals than whether it is just or unjust. Most feel that material inequality is inevitable and adamantly oppose redistribution. However, to reduce social tension and improve general quality of life, they believe that both the government and NGOs should take actions to discourage materialism and greed and encourage volunteerism and non-political self-expression among all sectors of society. This suggests that elites in developing countries may legitimize inequality by asserting the superiority of post-materialist expressive values over the material concerns of the poor.

Author

• Henry Chiu Hail, University of California-Irvine