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Inequality, Crime and the Floating Population in China

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Abstract

Since the Open and Reform Policy, China has been making great progress toward modernization. A salient phenomenon accompanying economic boom is increased social inequality and crime, and these are destabilizing Chinese society. This paper shows how income and social inequality were socially, structurally and institutionally constructed during the reform period because of a continuation of the pre-reform social strata that deprived peasants of equal access to education, employment, housing, and health care opportunities. The social inequality gives rise to a huge floating population which is socially disorganized and has no attachment, commitment, or involvement in communities. Low external control and strain also led to high crime rates among the floating population.

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Notes

  1. According to the China Statistics Yearbook, the annual growth rate of disposable income per capita in urban areas was 15.3% from 1991 to 2001; the average wage of urban employees grew by 15.9% per annum.

  2. Wu (2002) summarized the features of work units: (1) all work units were affiliated with and supervised by government at various levels. (2) managers in work units were appointed and promoted by their supervisory government offices; (3) there existed no labor market, and all employees were assigned to work units by government labor or personnel bureaux; (4) activities of work units were also controlled by government offices.

  3. ‘Price-scissor’ happened in socialist planned economy. It refers to the uneven falling or rising rate of agricultural and industrial product prices because the prices were controlled by irrational government policies. Usually, the prices of industrial products increased faster than that of agricultural products. Thus, farmers paid a lot more to buy industrial products, while workers paid a little to buy agricultural products. It was unfair to farmers (see Lin, et al., 2002: 3).

  4. See http://www.economist.com/World/asia/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=639652. His other slogan was to “get rich is glorious”. See China’s Growing Pains, Economist, 00130613, 8/21/2004, vol. 372, issue 8389.

  5. For instance, the former Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, expressed concern about the unfairness in the distribution process (Jiang, 1989).

  6. Refer to the China Statistics Bureau website, http://www.stats.gov.cn/ndsj/information/zh1/i041a. Annual per capita income of the rural residents is 133 yuan, while that of the urban residents is 316 yuan.

  7. The tax is usually spent for local use. Financially, the farmers had already been in a disadvantaged position. The practice of Dabianche worsened it. To avoid Dabianche imposed by local governments, the central government is planning to abolish tax on peasants completely in 2010 in order to improve their living conditions.

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  1. Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    T. Wing Lo & Guoping Jiang

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Lo, T.W., Jiang, G. Inequality, Crime and the Floating Population in China. Asian Criminology 1, 103–118 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-006-9000-1

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