An Empirical Study On Income Inequality Of China's Floating Population And Criminal Rate

Within decades after the reform and opening up, the growth rate and scale of criminal offenses in our country have sharply increased, which leads to a severe situation of public order. According to the authoritative data and numerous empirical studies, the floating population and the criminal rate in our country have the similar change cycle and same spatial distribution. Therefore, the floating population in increasing scale is assumed to be the one of main reasons for the growth of the criminal rate of the whole society. This article conducts systematic and in-depth study on the relation between the income inequality of floating population and crime, guided by the scientific theory and based on the demonstration. In consideration of the typical demonstrations of the low-income floating population and high ratio of crimes against property, the comparatively more complete system of theory on the income inequality and crime and the weakness in the empirical study of our country, this article mainly adopts the empirical study and reveals the internal relation and mechanism of action between the income inequality and crime.According to the traditional theory on the income inequality and crime, the floating population has higher criminal tendency due to its obvious horizontal income gap comparing to other social groups, thus the increase of floating population will increase the overall crime rate of the society. This article conducts empirical tests with the panel data and time series data against the above mentioned traditional theory. The study result presents that though the overall floating population has obvious income inequality with other social groups, its scale has no internal relation with the overall crime rate of the society, and the series of tests show the same. Therefore, the empirical study seems to overturn the relevant traditional theories. In connection with the disagreement of the empirical study and theoretical derivation, the article further compares the hypothesis of the theoretical derivation and the model of the empirical study. The result shows that the internal income inequality among the floating population and the "reference group" of income inequality greatly impact the crime decision of the floating population, while the relevant model ignores this problem. The relevant theory on the income inequality and crime can be fully applied to the analysis on the floating population and crime of our country and is proved by relevant empirical study by taking the internal income inequality among the floating population and the "reference group" of income inequality into consideration. The income inequality is an important influence factor on the crime decision of the floating population, while the inequality of social capital closely relates to the income inequality. Therefore, the study on the social capital inequality of the floating population and the crime is the natural prolongation and deepening of the study on the income inequality of the floating population and the crime. This article discovers that the social capital inequality of the floating population in the main factor for the crime decision of the floating population in our country, regardless of in nationwide or in eastern, middle or western region, or the industries of labor force, service and business where most of floating population gathers. The floating population of high social capital within the province can help to control the increase of overall crime rate of the society, while the floating population of low social capital among the provinces may incur more social crimes. The relation among the floating population, income inequality and crime is not only reflected as that the income inequality is the main influence factor on the crime decision of the floating population, but is also shown as that the differential income directly impacts the crime rate and meanwhile gives rise to the floating population, which has close relation to the crime rate in return. This article puts forward the method of decomposition of floating population among provinces to solve the collinearity of the income inequality among different regions and the floating population among princes, which strengthens the scientific and normative nature of relevant empirical study.