We use cookies to provide you with the best possible website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as cookies used for anonymous statistics, comfort settings, or displaying personalized content. You can decide which categories you want to allow. Please note that depending on your settings, some features of the website may not be available.

Cookie settings

These necessary cookies are required to enable the core functionality of the website. Opting out of these cookies is not possible.

cb-enable
This cookie stores the user's cookie consent status for the current domain. Expiry: 1 year.
laravel_session
Stores the session ID to recognize the user when the page reloads and to restore their login session. Expiry: 2 hours.
XSRF-TOKEN
Provides CSRF protection for forms. Expiry: 2 hours.
IZA Discussion Paper No. 11150
November 2017
Urban Consumption Inequality in China, 1995–2013
Qingjie Xia, Shi Li, Lina Song

We use 1995, 2002 and 2013 CHIP data to investigate the urban household consumption expenditure inequality. The overall inequality of urban household consumption expenditure measured by Gini coefficient slightly decreases from 0.33 in 1995 to 0.32 in 2002, but increases to 0.36 in 2013, which follows the same trend with that of urban income but is severer. However, the percentile ratio of p90/p10 shows that consumption inequality increases all the time. Besides, the inequality of basic food consumption is much smaller than the overall consumption, its contribution to the overall consumption inequality decreases from 20% in 1995 and 2002 to 15% by 2013, and its share also decreases steadily from 34% in 1995 to 30% in 2002 and further to 24% in 2013, and finally its share steadily decreases as the overall consumption level moving up the distribution in each of the three years. The inequality of housing consumption is much larger than overall consumption but decreasing over time, its contribution to the overall consumption inequality increases 35% in earlier two years to 40% by 2013, and its share also sharply increases from 23% in 1995 to 30% in 2002 and further to 38% in 2013, besides its share shows upward sloping as overall consumption level increases in each of the three years.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

About IZA@LISER Network
Contact
IZA Network (Current Site Operator):

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences
Maison des Sciences Humaines
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval, Luxembourg

IZA Institute (In Liquidation):

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH i. L.
Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113 Bonn. Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894-0 | Fax: +49 228 3894-510
E-Mail: info@iza.org | Web: www.iza.org
Represented by: Martin T. Clemens (Liquidator)