Fewer than one in eight city dwellers on the mainland can be considered middle class, a university study shows.
The study was conducted by a research team led by Nanjing University professor Zhou Xiaohong , according to a report by China Youth Daily yesterday.
The researchers interviewed 3,038 urban residents in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan for the study, and calculated that 11.9 per cent of urban-dwellers fall into the category of 'middle class', which was defined as individuals who earned more than 5,000 yuan a month.
They were mostly managers, professional technicians, government employees and private-company bosses and most were university-educated.
Professor Zhou pointed out that the percentage of middle-class people was only a rough estimate.
'At present, the middle class in China should be 11 to 19 per cent [of the population],' he said. 'At most, it won't be more than 20 per cent.'
An author of the study, Shen Hui , said 85.5 per cent of those interviewed believed they were middle class. That indicated that the majority of urban residents shared a strong aversion to being considered part of anything other than the major social stratum, even though the unequal distribution of wealth was a problem throughout mainland society.
