Page 168 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 1

CPS1254 Yu Jin et al.
of related research has gradually shifted from the direct study of income
inequality tilt to the study of opportunity inequality in the process of income
acquisition. Equality includes the starting point, the opportunity and the result
equality, and the equal opportunity among the three is the most important.
The "hatred of the rich" is often due to the lack of fair access to high income.
If the income level is determined entirely by individual efforts, the unfairness
of the income results will not cause dissatisfaction. Therefore, it is a new
research perspective to study income inequality through inequality of
opportunity.

2. Methodology
2.1 Data sources
This paper uses the China Comprehensive Social Survey (CGSS) data
provided by the China Survey and Data Center of Renmin University of China.
Since 2003, large-scale sampling surveys (excluding 2007) have been
conducted annually, and what is available now is the survey data for a total of
eight years from 2003 to 2013 (excluding 2004, 2007 and 2009). CGSS data
has a large sample size, wide coverage and sufficient information, which is the
authoritative micro-data for the study of social problems in China
2.2 Variable selection
In the process of choosing "environment" factors, firstly, for urban and
rural factors, because the object of the study of opportunity inequality is not
family information, the income of rural residents is recorded by the total family
income in the survey process. But the total family income is determined by the
objective "environment" factors and "efforts" of all members of the family,
which will make it difficult to match the "environment" information of the
investigated rural individuals with their personal income. However,
considering that the urban and rural household registration system greatly
affects the income gap, this paper uses the equivalent per capita income
formula to estimate the personal income of rural residents, and then matches
the "environment" factors of the investigated individuals. Secondly, based on
previous studies, it is found that parents' educational level and occupation
have a significant impact on their children's future income after entering the
labor market. Therefore, this paper incorporates parents' educational level and
occupation into the "environment" factors. However, due to the problem of
questionnaire design, the different years of the questionnaire on career and
education have different classification. At the same time, because of the wide
range of occupational variables, it is necessary to re-classify and re-code the
occupations before analyzing. According to the existing literature on the re-
[9]
classification of occupations (Gao Yong, 2009 ), the occupation is divided
into three categories: high, middle and low. Higher-ranking professions
include state power organs, judicial organs, government agencies and

157 | I S I W S C 2 0 1 9