Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Inequality in China

Since the beginning of the reforms and the opening-up in 1978, China’s society and its social structure in particular, has experienced dramatic changes. Rapid economic growth, speedy industrialization, fast urbanization, and successive marketization have combined to bring about a series of changes in the social stratification and inequality. After a continuous increase of economic inequality, urban-rural gap and class conflict during 1990s and the first decade of 21 century, there have been new trends in social stratification in the recent five years because of a series of government policies including increasing government transfer payments, capital investments in rural and other less developed areas, the improvement of the social security system, the expansion of health insurance, pension and other social benefit coverage, and increased welfare assistance to the vulnerable groups. Income gap between urban-rural areas has reduced obviously. Expanding social welfare has defused effectively the discontentment of under- classes. Rising middle class has alleviated economic inequality and social conflict. However, there is still much uncertainty in China’s social stratification and controversy among scholars around whether the social inequality and social differentiation will lead to social and political unrest. China’s economic growth rate has been declining since 2013, clouding the future economic outlook. These and other developments will no doubt further compound the uncertainties surrounding the future trajectories of China’s social stratification.