Beijing (AsiaNews/AFP) – Nineteen per cent of the Chinese population (i.e. one in 5 inhabitants) belongs to the country's middle class. Reporting the news on March 30 was the state Xinhua news agency, which cited the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for its figures.

Based on the Academy's standards middle class families are those which earn between 150,000 yuan (about 14,700 euro) and 300,000 yuan (about 29,400 euro) a year. In the cities, 49% of families fall within these parameters.  But this not the case for rural families finding themselves in desperate financial conditions and with little income, making the overall national percentage drop to 19%.   

In 1999 the middle class formed 15% of the entire Chinese population and has increased by 1% each year, according the China Youth Daily. The Academy of Social Sciences says that the percentage of middle class families will rise to 40% by 2020.

Such figures bring to mind once again the huge gap in social-economic conditions existing between cites (which are ever richer and more industrialized) and vast poor rural areas (which are falling behind the times). The income of rural families has always been inferior to that of urban families. But in the last 20 years this gap has increased drastically.  

In 1980 a person living the city earned on average 1.8 times more than someone living in the countryside. In 2001 that same gap in salaries increased to 3.1 more, while the cost of living has risen to 6 times more.

There are about 100 million migrant workers, mostly rural inhabitants, in search of work and making a new start in cities as they flee from hardship and seek to maintain their families. This has sparked social tensions, especially in  families which are ever the more separated and in which women are left to carry on the hard work of the fields.  

Tens of millions of migrant workers are exploited and work without getting paid or contracts. Moreover, they often work in unsafe conditions. According to the All China Federation of Trade Unions debt owed to migrants was around 100 billion yuan (12.5 billion euro) in 2003.  (MR)