Survey: Chinese blame system for changing attitude towards poverty

The Big Data China Project under the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently released a report pointing out that Chinese people's attitude towards poverty has changed significantly. Ten or 20 years ago, most people believed that poverty was due to personal factors such as lack of ability or effort, but now they attribute the problem to unfair opportunities or economic structures.

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The report, released on Tuesday, was co-authored by Scott Kennedy, senior advisor for the CSIS China Business and Economy Program, and Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior researcher. They analyzed the findings of research by scholars from Harvard and Stanford universities.

The report cited relevant data and said that between 2004 and 2014, the majority of Chinese respondents believed that lack of ability, insufficient effort and low education level were the top three factors of poverty in China, while institutional factors such as unfair opportunities or economic structure were ranked 5th and 9th respectively.

However, the latest data released in 2023 found that low education level leading to poverty (37%) was ranked second by respondents, but opportunities (38%) and unfair economic structure (36%) have surpassed to become the first and third major causes of poverty in the minds of Chinese people.

At the same time, Chinese people's ideas about the causes of wealth have also changed significantly.

The report pointed out that between 2004 and 2014, most people believed that wealth was more related to personal factors, such as ability and talent, hard work, and a good education. However, the 2023 data found that the importance of the above personal factors fell to 4th, 5th and 7th place respectively, while structural factors, such as extensive personal connections (55%) and more opportunities in the growth stage (52%), were considered the two main factors.

In addition, the survey found that the proportion of Chinese respondents who disagreed that "a person's wealth or poverty is a personal responsibility" increased from 25% in 2004 to 48% in 2023, while the proportion of those who agreed that "in our country, hard work will be rewarded" dropped sharply from 62% to 28%.

"These trends suggest that people have less confidence in the ability of meritocratic societies and economies to deliver fair outcomes for all citizens," the report said.