With new nationwide longitudinal survey data now available from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we study the level, distribution, and composition of household wealth in contemporary China. We find that the wealth Gini coefficient of China was 0.73 in 2012. The richest 1 percent owned more than one-third of the total national household wealth, while the poorest 25 percent owned less than 2 percent. Housing assets, which accounted for over 70 percent, were the largest component of household wealth. Finally, the urban-rural divide and regional disparities played important roles in household wealth distribution, and institutional factors significantly affected household wealth holdings, wealth growth rate, and wealth mobility.
Research on stigma and discrimination during COVID-19 has focused on racism and xenophobia in Western countries. In comparison, little research has considered stigma processes, discrimination, and their public health implications in non-Western contexts. This study draws on quantitative survey data (N = 7,942) and qualitative interview data (N = 50) to understand the emergence, experiences, and mental health implications of stigma and discrimination during China’s COVID-19 outbreak. Given China’s history of regionalism, we theorize and use a survey experiment to empirically assess region-based stigma: People who lived in Hubei (the hardest hit province) during the outbreak and those who were socially associated with Hubei were stigmatized. Furthermore, the COVID-19 outbreak created stigma around people labeled as patients by the state. These stigmatized groups reported greater perceived discrimination, which—as a stressor—led to psychological distress. Our interview data illuminated how the stigmatized groups perceived, experienced, and coped with discrimination and stigma.
Using data from a nationwide household survey—the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS)—we study how social determinants—political and market factors—are associated with wealth and income among urban households in China. Results indicate that both political and market factors contribute significantly to a household’s economic wellbeing, but the political premium is substantially greater in wealth than in income. Further, political capital has a larger effect on the accumulation of housing assets, while market factors are more influential on the accumulation of non-housing assets. We propose explanations for these findings.
In China, premarital sexual and reproductive behavior is seldom considered and poorly understood. Increases in premarital pregnancy are thought to not only illuminate a decoupling of marriage and sexual/reproductive behavior but also serve as a key feature of family change in East Asia. This study assesses change across cohorts in the likelihood of premarital pregnancy and the extent to which change differs by educational attainment. Drawing on the 2017 China Fertility Survey, we apply a discrete‐time, competing‐risk survival analysis to a nationally representative sample of 221,990 women born between 1960 and 1999. Women born in the 1980s and 1990s are more likely than those born in the 1960s and 1970s to experience a pregnancy prior to first marriage. This cohort trend is driven by increases in premarital pregnancy among women with a high school education or less. The less educated women and their college counterparts increasingly diverge in the likelihood of experiencing a premarital pregnancy. The diverging patterns of premarital pregnancy underscore the urgency to shift the focus of China's family planning programs from fertility control to reproductive health, with an emphasis on providing information and services to disadvantaged unmarried individuals.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.