The New Middle Class in Peking: A Case Study

The economic reforms of China since the 1980s have resulted in an increase of national wealth, changed the social and economic structure and created a social group that many observers call China’s “new rich”. Some Western researchers have also identified this group as a “new middle class”. However, the new rich and the new middle class are different social and economic groups in China. This article looks at the second of these, the new middle class, in Peking. Our research shows that in the c...