Journal of East China Normal University (Philosoph ›› 2014, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (5): 156-164.

• 经济问题研究 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

On China’s Intergenerational Income Mobility and Transfer Mechanism

LONG Cui-hong & WANG Xiao   

  • Online:2014-09-15 Published:2014-10-02
  • Contact: LONG Cui-hong & WANG Xiao
  • About author:LONG Cui-hong & WANG Xiao

Abstract: The study on intergenerational income mobility, which reflects the equality of opportunity in economic and social conditions, is practically significant. Through the optimizing of estimation methods and eliminating the deviation factors, this thesis analyzes CHNS data from 1989 to 2009 and finds out that in 2009 the overall intergenerational income elasticity of China is about 0.6, and the urban and rural area is respectively 0.8 and 0.5. This means that China’s intergenerational income elasticity is still on the high side compared with other countries. An empirical study on the internal transfer mechanism of intergenerational income mobility from the perspectives of education, health and social capital shows that human capital plays an important role in the process of China’s intergenerational income inheritance, and social capital is also having a significant influence on the inheritance. Therefore, on the one hand, the government should further increase the intensity of public expenditure and use a variety of ways to increase the justice and fairness of people sharing public resources such as health care and education; on the other, the government should continue to strengthen the reform of market economic system and break barriers regarding labor market segmentation and labor mobility between the urban and rural area, and remove occupational segregation and industry monopoly pattern, so that we can improve social efficiency, dynamic equal opportunity and income fairness.