Top 10 Problems in 2011 China, CASS Survey of Chinese Public

Two Chinese women looking at apartment buildings under construction in Chongqing.

From QQ:

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences [CASS] reports that 70% of residents believe prices are too high, 40% can’t afford housing

Top 10 issues focused on by the Chinese public in 2011 according to CASS.

[Translation of above chart:]

Top 10 Issues of Public Focus in 2011

  1. Soaring Commodity Prices 59.5%
  2. Health Care Availability and Prices 42.9%
  3. Income and Wealth Gap 31.6%
  4. Governmental Corruption 29.3%
  5. Unemployment 24.2%
  6. Housing Prices 24%
  7. Retirement Pension for the Elderly 16.6%
  8. Food Safety 15.9%
  9. Education Costs 10.9%
  10. Environmental Pollution 10.3%

Nearly 70% of Chinese citizens feel the pressure of “soaring commodity prices affecting the quality of life”. Yesterday [December 19th], the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences initiated “China Intelligence” and published the “2011 China Comprehensive Social Conditions Survey”.

Raw data available online for free

According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, “China Intelligence” integrated the resources of the academy, and established the basic shape of a uniform, interconnected, and shared database. According to a representative, the original data for “China Intelligence” is made freely available to the public. Just go onto their website, register, and once the registration is approved, they can access the original data.

Yesterday, “China Intelligence” published the “The 2011 China Comprehensive Social Conditions Survey”. The survey was done with random samples from 5 major cities, 100 counties and 480 villages in 28 provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the central government, where 6468 citizens — all over 18 years old and living in both cities and rural areas – were surveyed.

40% of residents believe “housing conditions are poor”

According to the survey, in 2011, 75.3% of those surveyed believe the standard of living has risen compared to five years ago, and rural resident incomes are evidently higher than those of urban residents. Surveys measuring the life pressures of residents’ indicates that nearly 70% of the public feels the pressure of “soaring commodity prices affecting the quality of life”, though this is a 10% decline from 2008. Nearly 40% of those surveyed believe that “housing conditions are poor, can’t afford to build/purchase housing”.

Apart from this, “China Intelligence” also conducted relevant research into Chinese family/household happiness. Most participants gave a relatively high score to their sense of happiness, and the average score is 7.2.

Women walking by a construction site in Beijing.

Comments from QQ:

腾讯衡阳市网友 ☆ギ阳洋の:

CASS zhuan jia [false experts], how about doing an internet survey with the entire country’s netizens? Brother [referring to self] will first testify: My monthly income is about 6,000 RMB, but where I am I still can’t afford an apartment. Those friends who can’t afford a house please just click [the support/upvote button on this comment], and those who can I won’t trouble.

腾讯邢台市网友 天空:

Can’t you do something more real/practical? 40%? Come on, it’s at least 80%, okay?!! Both my spouse and I have jobs, but there isn’t much left each month after daily necessities and the kid’s education. And then I think about [the situation for] those who don’t even have a job. How did you do your calculations? Did you only count the high-income group, whereas us taxpayers were of no use to you?

腾讯杭州市网友 羽过天情:

I really don’t know where this data came from. 40% of those over 18 years old can’t afford [housing]? Even if that data is accurate, of those aged between 18 and 35 years old, 90% of them, I suspect, can’t afford housing.

腾讯网友 该用户不在线:

I don’t wanna say it, but I’ll just say it: [This data] is better than those from the Bureau of Statistics, but are also empty.

腾讯齐齐哈尔市网友 细雨霏霏:

If farmers taken out, the percentage of city dwellers who can’t afford housing should be 80%.

腾讯徐州市网友 秋凉:

40% can’t afford housing? Who are you cheating? It’s more than 80%, such a survey is meaningless.

腾讯网友 •清清河••:

Doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, either way I believe it; I just don’t know what portion [of the people] were surveyed, and whether they reflect the true conditions of the nation.

腾讯网友 缘外:

Only 40% can’t afford a house?! Heh heh! Where did these false experts collect their data?

腾讯合肥市网友 □星媛心声:

Don’t know how the CASS conducted the survey!!! 40% is seriously distorted!!! Divided by 2 perhaps; it should be 80%. Really don’t know what kind of people were doing the research. Of 1.3 billion people, only more than 6000 were surveyed. Don’t make the data public if you don’t have complete data. If you don’t do the job, I can still tolerate it, but don’t mess around. This will damage your image!!!

腾讯南京市网友 阿木:

College graduates like us who just graduated two years ago earn 30,000 [RMB] a year, and minus 20,000 for living expenses, each year we can only save up to 10,000, and that’s without getting sick or having something big come up. According to this situation, even if we say an apartment costs 900,000 yuan, I have to keep earning money for at least 90 years. I’m 26 years old this year, and I have to work until I’m 116 years old before I can afford a house, and that’s without taking into account mortgage interest… If interest is calculated in, I think it’s resting in peace [to die] before I’m 150 years old is basically impossible…

What about you? What were the most important issues of your life in 2011?

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28 Comments

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  1. At least my sofa isn’t a problem..

  2. How many can buy a nice sofa?

  3. It’s a hard life in china for the norms.

  4. 80% of statistics are made up

  5. Time to chase the American Dream

  6. Can’t wait til their housing bubble explodes. It will be glorious to see so many farmers suffer in the face of Western Might.

  7. Agree with Chinese. . housing costs is the #1 problem and it is way more than 40% who can’t afford it. This survey is bunk.

    • more than rmb 40,000 per sqm where i live (good district of shanghai), more than rmb 25,000 per sqm where most of
      the locals live in shanghai. apartment sizes at least 100 sqm.
      so, rmb 2,500,000 for an apartment that is not even close to the city.
      and if you would see the quality of these buildings….
      anyway, if this real estate bubble bursts, then it will effect not only china. real estate is where most of china`s money flows in (and military and u.s. debts of course).
      and all shanghai males are pratically forced by tradition to buy their future wives a house (apartment).
      So, practically everything here in china somehow revolves around real estate.

    • Except that all the problems, including housing costs, stem from #4, government corruption.

  8. I’ve never heard of such a comprehensive survey of the public in China on key issues. So that is great. Maybe I just missed previous ones. As half the population lives in the countryside if you take them out 80% say that housing is unaffordable which sounds right.

  9. I might not be as good at maths as the Chinese but I’m pretty sure 40 divided by 2 isn’t 80.

  10. It’s a hard life elsewhere, not just in China, if one is without a job (stable income). Job creation should come above everything else so that at least people can rent a decent place to live in!

    • I’m guesstimating that 95 percent of the regular single 20-30 year olds can’t even afford to rent in the tier 1-2 cities these days. If you know people of that age you see they very often share apartments and are actually pretty lucky if they can afford a room to themselves within it. My wife lived with 6 people in a 3 room apartment before we moved in together later one, all her co-workers and friends lived the same way, all MY Chinese co-workers (sub-management positions) apart from 1 or 2 lived the same way and of the people I’ve met outside of work and friends not ONE Average Zhang had his or her own flat. This is a massive problem I’d say and it’s all over China in cities with 1 million+ inhabitants these days. No wonder most Chinese people aren’t very optimistic about their future.

  11. So the Chinese are well aware of their problems. Surprise.

    • So the Chinese are well aware of their problems. Surprise.

      I can understand why a westerner might be surprised, actually.

      Whenever one mentions Chinese problems such as these, suddenly there are none!

  12. Unemployment 24.2%

    WTF? I though people were shitting on America about unemployment rates.

  13. And how do they rate government corruption? Does that mean that 29% of officials are corrupt? How the f* did they find that out?

  14. Wow. Has anyone but me noticed over the last month the Chinese news has gone back to it’s old ways? No more stories about truth, we’re back to stories about the happy people of China and their great achievements. Where’s the story about the human rights lawyer that was beaten to a pulp, left disabled then she was ADDITIONALLY arrested for disrupting the public? Where’s the Wukan stories? And especially, where’s the story of the new CCTV chief that ordered all reporters to be voices of the government, nothing more? Now we’re stuck with a Chinese soldier that almost blows himself up, a surrogate mother, corporal punishment at school being abolished… drivel.

    • No, unless they’re like you, who mistake the one-post-a-day chinaSMACK site as being representative of “Chinese news”.

      Anyone who comes to chinaSMACK expecting to read about the handful of pet topics that Westerners and the Western media love to jump on really need to read this site’s About page and get a clue. It’s like demanding Penthouse to advocate abstinence and feminism.

      This site explicitly and consistently avoids those politically sensitive topics, and thank god it does because that stuff, while important, is over-represented. The whole reason why many of us visit this site is specifically to see and read about the things many Western media typically don’t cover because the only thing that catches their attention and imagination are issues of human rights, democracy, communism, whatever. There’s more to China and the people who live in China than that stuff, and this site is one of the few popular sources where we can get some insights into those other aspects of Chinese society.

      The fact you know about those stories means you have other sites to discuss those issues on. Why do you want chinaSMACK to cover that stuff?

  15. Yesh. I am doing some research for my book (fiction) which uses a Chinese male as the female heroine’s love interest. This web site is excellent, even though crime seems to be the primary topic, I am at least able to get a good look at China and how Chinese people feel. Yes, I’m right in the midwest of America, and I am an American woman. So if you don’t mind, I will observe and ocassionally comment with my pathetic western point of view. Thank you for making the news available. I don’t think I’ll learn much about men though, here but I will learn some things about the feelings of Chinese people.

  16. when it comes to statistics, it’s not what they show, it’s what they hide that’s really interesting.

  17. human rights?

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