How China’s Expanding Middle-income Group Reshape Consumption Patterns And Carbon Footprint?

In the process of becoming a powerful socialist country,China is faced with a number of important tasks,such as expanding the middle-income group,achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.An important concern is the growing middle-income group who may make carbon peaking and carbon neutrality more difficult to achieve due to consumption upgrading.Current quantitative understanding of this issue is inadequate.Therefore,this study constructs an analytical chain of "expansion scenarios-demographic characteristics-consumption pattern-carbon footprint" using various methods such as clustering,classification,association rules,regression,and input-output model,and simulates the differences in carbon emission impacts of emerging middleincome households through different paths to middle-income ranks.The purpose of this study is to improve the scientific understanding of the link between the expansion of middle-income groups and carbon emission reduction,and to provide decision support for the synergistic promotion of the process of common prosperity and carbon neutrality.This study identifies 15 typical household consumption patterns and 3 relative carbon emission characteristics.The results found that consumption scale has a higher degree of influence on household carbon footprint than consumption structure.Households with different carbon emission characteristics at the same income level show regular differences in socioeconomic status and household life cycle.The rise in household income may be accompanied by changes in socioeconomic characteristics and exhibits significant household heterogeneity.The phenomenon of consumption upgrading does exist,as evidenced by the increase in households with medium and high consumption,transportation and communication,and clothing and education-based consumption structures.The marginal carbon footprint of households with rising income shows a decreasing trend.The level of per capita carbon footprint of emerging middleincome households has increased by 50% over six years.When the "new urbanization" policy and the "increasing income of skilled personnel" policy were implemented,the consumption of target households was significantly upgraded,showing an increase in the number of medium and high consumption households,as well as an increase in the number of households with a food and clothing consumption structure and a clothing and education consumption structure.The average per capita carbon footprint of the affected households increased by 13% and 10% respectively.Both the income only scenario and the "social security" scenario show a concentration of medium consumption among the target households,with less change in the distribution of consumption structure and no significant consumption upgrading.The average per capita carbon footprint of the affected households increases by 5% and 7% respectively.The extent of consumption upgrading and changes in carbon footprint of target households under the policy combination scenario are more pronounced than for a single policy,with the average increase in per capita carbon footprint of affected households ranging from 10% to 25%.The addition of "social security" policies along with other policy incentives does not significantly contribute to consumption upgrading,and the average increase in the per capita carbon footprint of the affected target households does not exceed 3%.This study offers three suggestions for program design to achieve the expansion of middle-income group and carbon neutrality.Firstly,the relevant sectors should cooperate across sectors as a way to hedge the risk of possible mutual exclusion of the two goals.Secondly,the relevant sectors should guide low-income groups to shift to green and lowcarbon consumption.Thirdly,Government departments should actively explore policies and systems that encourage and support two-or three-generation families to live together.Lastly,policymakers can consider improving the social security system simultaneously when implementing other policies to increase residents’ income.