Causes of inequalities in China, 1952 to 1999

Abstract This paper presents a comprehensive picture of inequality in China on the basis of provincial data. It decomposes overall inequalities into intra and inter components. Rural–urban inequality dominated overall inequality in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Meanwhile, in recent years inter‐regional inequality has grown rapidly and become an important component of inequality. We find that the pattern of inequality is quite different in the pre‐reform and reform periods. Our results show that overall inequality in China is large by international standards and that it has grown worse during the past half century. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.