The Grandchildren of China's Pre-Revolutionary Elite Have Regained Their Social Advantage, Earning 12% More Than Their Contemporaries and Surpassing Communist Party Members By 2%.
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The Grandchildren of China’s Pre-Revolutionary Elite Have Regained Their Social Advantage, Earning 12% More Than Their Contemporaries and Surpassing Communist Party Members By 2%.
The surviving descendants of the old elite have prospered. By 2010 they were again richer and more educated than the Chinese average, according to data gathered by an international group of academics. Adding new evidence from cities to previous work, which looked at rural areas alone, the authors now find that the elite’s grandchildren have even out-earned Communist Party members.To measure the initial impact of China’s reforms on inequality, the authors compiled data on land ownership in 1950 from archived records. Unsurprisingly, inequality of land holdings, measured by a Gini coefficient, fell sharply after land reform, from 0.5 to 0.1—close to perfect equality. To measure what has happened since then, the authors used a survey of 36,000 Chinese residents from 2010. It recorded earnings and education, as well as social class. The party created hereditary class labels in 1950, in part to punish the old guard. These allowed the researchers to distinguish between old elites and everyone else. The authors found that elites born before 1940 were 7% likelier than their contemporaries to have finished secondary school. Their stigmatised children were 3% less likely to have done so than others their age. By 2010 the children of old elites earned 5% less than other Chinese. But things flipped back. Descendants of the old elite born between 1966 and 1990 were 6% more likely to finish high school than their contemporaries. In 2010 they earned 12% more than other Chinese. They even earned 2% more than party members. The researchers found that the old elite’s grandchildren are more enterprising and work longer hours than the descendants of those who had lower social standing. Although the elite’s capital was destroyed 70 years ago, their social capital has endured.
The authors found that elites born before 1940 were 7% likelier than their contemporaries to have finished secondary school. Their stigmatised children were 3% less likely to have done so than others their age. By 2010 the children of old elites earned 5% less than other Chinese.
But things flipped back. Descendants of the old elite born between 1966 and 1990 were 6% more likely to finish high school than their contemporaries. In 2010 they earned 12% more than other Chinese. They even earned 2% more than party members.
The researchers found that the old elite’s grandchildren are more enterprising and work longer hours than the descendants of those who had lower social standing. Although the elite’s capital was destroyed 70 years ago, their social capital has endured.
Economist Staff, “The grandchildren of China’s pre-revolutionary elite are unusually rich,”The Economist, June 9, 2022, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/06/09/the-grandchildren-of-chinas-pre-revolutionary-elite-are-unusually-rich
The grandchildren of China’s pre-revolutionary elite are unusually rich
The land ownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class shall be abolished.” So read China’s agrarian reform law of 1950. Land was seized from the better-off and given to poor farmers, whose share of farmland rose from 14% in 1947 to 47% in 1954. Liu Shaoqi, who was president during the Mao era, called it the “most thorough reform in thousands of years of Chinese history”.
Hundreds of thousands of landlords were murdered. Tens of millions of people died in a famine when farms were collectivised. Yet the surviving descendants of the old elite have prospered. By 2010 they were again richer and more educated than the Chinese average, according to data gathered by an international group of academics. Adding new evidence from cities to previous work, which looked at rural areas alone, the authors now find that the elite’s grandchildren have even out-earned Communist Party members.
To measure the initial impact of China’s reforms on inequality, the authors compiled data on land ownership in 1950 from archived records. Unsurprisingly, inequality of land holdings, measured by a Gini coefficient, fell sharply after land reform, from 0.5 to 0.1—close to perfect equality.
To measure what has happened since then, the authors used a survey of 36,000 Chinese residents from 2010. It recorded earnings and education, as well as social class. The party created hereditary class labels in 1950, in part to punish the old guard. These allowed the researchers to distinguish between old elites and everyone else.
