An Empirical Analysis On Income Mobility Of Social Class In China

Through reform and open policy,our country has transited from planned economy to market economy, and people’s living standards have greatly improved. However,problems follow, which are the widening gap in income distribution, the severe polarization between the rich and poor, the increasing social contradiction and so forth.Income mobility refers to the change of a particular group’s income degree after a period of time. Quan Heng(2008) puts forward, income mobility helps to realize the unification of fair and efficiency in income distribution. But because different social classes occupy different resources, it’s not easy to improve income mobility. In addition,if solidification phenomenon in social class exists, and our government only improves income mobility instead of improving social mobility radically, the effect can’t last long.So my paper takes the angle of social classes, studies income mobility of different social classes and analyzes the influence of social mobility to income mobility.The paper uses China Health and Nutrition Survey(short for CHNS) data from the year of 2000 to 2006 and from 2006 to 2011, and divides the respondent to different social classes, according to the partition of Chinese social classes which proposed by socialist Lu Xueyi and the dictionary of the People’s Republic of China on occupational classification.When analyzing the income mobility of different social classes, firstly, I take the elementary descriptive statistic analysis of different social classes’ income level, and draw the conclusion that compared to the period of 2000-2006, annual average income growth has improved in 2006-2011, in addition to the classes of state and social administrators and the managers. Then, by building income transition matrix and according to income mobility measure index of immobility ratio and the like, I take the analysis of different classes’ income mobility. And I reach the conclusion that, for the tracking respondent from the year 2006 to 2011, the income mobility of lower class is the strongest, and the income mobility of middle class is the weakest; for the tracking respondent from the year 2000 to 2006, the income mobility of middle class is the strongest,and the income mobility of upper class is the weakest; and comparing the income mobility of the two period, we can see that the income mobility of different classes reduces from the period 2000-2006 to the period 2006-2011.When analyzing the influence of social mobility to income mobility, the paper uses the CHNS data from the year 2006 to 2011. Firstly, I verify the significant effect of social mobility to income’s absolute change by ANCOVA model; then, I verify the significant effect of social mobility to income’s relative change by binary logit model;lastly, I compare the income mobility condition of the changing social classes and the unchanging social classes over a period of time, and reach the conclusion that when people’s social class changes, they will make a higher income mobility.And lastly, I propose corresponding policy suggestions, that are, to build fair employment environment and reduce discrimination; to realize the rational resource allocation of education; and to optimize allocation of social resources.