Study finds top 1% of China's families own 1/3 of its wealth

A study by Peking University’s Institute of Social Science Survey has found that China’s richest 1% own a third of its wealth–of which the poorest 25% own only 1%, The Financial Times reported. The study, based on a survey of nearly 15,000 households across 25 provinces, also found China’s Gini coefficient for income, a measure of inequality, was 0.49 in 2012, well above the World Bank’s standard for severe inequality of 0.40. That contrasts with official estimates that claimed the coefficient had lilted downward from 0.477 in 2011 to 0.469 in 2014. “To put it simply, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer,” said Renmin University sociology professor Zhou Xiaozheng.