Popular Responses to Income Inequality in China and Russia: A Qualitative First Approach

Following different trajectories, income inequalities in China and Russia have converged at a high level. This paper focusses on the acceptability--in the eyes of ordinary citizens--of the gap between rich and poor. The research questions are: first, comparatively, how do citizens feel about the gap? Second, how do they justify their attitudes? The literature on the distribution of welfare values preferences suggests that there should be some correlation between acceptance of income inequality and a complex of variables related to market power and liberal political ideology. Specifically in Russia and post-Communist Europe more broadly, it is the younger, better educated, and wealthier citizens who happen to support liberal ideals and are more accepting of inequality. However, in China the referents of those on lower incomes tend to be either citizens’ own recent past or others with similar social status, leading to a different pattern whereby those who are objectively least privileged are most accepting of income inequality. Given these different patterns, one would expect to find that citizens in the two societies express different feelings about income inequality and use different justifications to explain their attitudes. The paper is based on an analysis of more than twenty focus group discussions carried out in the two societies in 2013 using parallel discussion guides, supplemented where appropriate by comparable survey items from the World Values and other surveys.