The Economist - USA (2022-06-11)

TheEconomistJune11th 2022

Graphic detail Chinese social mobility

89

Class revival

“T

helandownershipsystemoffeudal

exploitation  by  the  landlord  class

shall be abolished.” So read China’s agrari­

an  reform  law  of  1950.  Land  was  seized

from the better­off and given to poor farm­

ers,  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  collec­

tivised.  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 aca­

demics.  Adding  new  evidence  from  cities

to previous work, which looked at rural ar­

eas  alone,  the  authors  now  find  that  the

elite’s grandchildren have even out­earned

Communist Party members.

To measure the initial impact of China’s

reforms  on  inequality,  the  authors  com­

piled data on land ownership in 1950 from

archived records. Unsurprisingly, inequal­

ity of land holdings, measured by a Gini co­

efficient,  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 la­

bels in 1950, in part to punish the old guard.

These  allowed  the  researchers  to  distin­

guish between old elites and everyone else. 

The  authors  found  that  elites  born  be­

fore  1940  were  7%  likelier  than  their  con­

temporaries  to  have  finished  secondary

school.  Their  stigmatised  children were

3% less likely to have done so than others

their age. By 2010the children of old elites

earned 5% less than other Chinese. 

But things flipped back. Descendants of

the  old  elite  born  between  1966  and  1990

were 6% more likely to finish 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  descen­

dants of those who had lower social stand­

ing.  Althoughtheelite’s  capital  was  de­

stroyed  70yearsago,  their  social  capital

has endured.n

The grandchildren of the pre-

revolutionary elite are doing well

Great

Famine

Cultural

Revolution

Reformand

Openingera

Chinajoins

theWTO

Generationborn1940-65

finishessecondaryschool

-10

0

10

20

30

1945 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 2000 05 10

LandReform

95%confidence

interval

LandwasveryheavilyredistributedinShangluo;

40%ofpeasantfarmersowned80%ofland

 Ginicoefficient 1

Veryequal Veryunequal No data

Elitefamilies

Gapof19.7% 11.7%

Non-elitefamilies

Grandparents

Born1919-39

Theirchildren

1940-65

→ → Their grandchildren

1966-90

-5.%

→ Land redistribution in 195s China dramatically reduced inequality

→AftertheMaoeraended,thepre-revolutionaryelites’

grandchildrenregainedtheirsocialadvantage

*639 counties. Missing values are imputed with province-level average, unless province data are missing

Source: “Persistence despite revolutions”, by A. Alesina, M. Seror, D. Yang, Y. You & W. Zeng, working paper,   0       

Differenceinprobabilityofcompletingsecondaryschoolbetween

pre-revolutionaryeliteandnon-elites,percentagepoints

Differenceinpersonalincome, 010

Before land reform After land reform

Inequality of Chinese land

ownership within counties*