Research On The Benefits Of Middle Class Development From The Perspective Of Market Transformation Theory

The accelerate of China's economy has improved people's standard of living, in the same time, it promotes the growth of middle class, and becomes the main group of benefit from economic and social development gradually, but recently, occurs a heated discussion on Chinese middle class, whether “gain” or “loss” from the development of China's economic and society for middle class. From the report of social media, parts of middle class had labeled as "slave of house", "slave of car" and was treated as a “loss” community. So how does Chinese middle class' s feeling of benefit from development? And what kind of role does the marketization plays? The study based on the perspective of Theory of Market Transition, and analyzed a data set of Chinese General Social Survey(CGSS) and Chinese Social Survey(CSS) in 2001-2011, to discuss Chinese middle class' s feeling of benefit from development.The study found that middle class as the main beneficiary groups from the development of economy and society, their feeling of benefit from development is slightly above average standard. However, middle class is separated by "institutional fragmentation", and becomes two different groups--within the system and outside the system. The former's feeling of benefit from development is better than the latter. To an extent, this finding verified the Theory of Market Transition that the development of marketization will strengthen the human capital. This conclusion suggests that in the past thirty years, China's marketization has been developing, thus, parts of middle class has been growing outside the system. They gets higher returns from economic activities depends on their own ability and opportunities in market, comparing with middle class within the system, they have better feeling of benefit from development. Meanwhile, during the transformation of Chinese market, the middle class didn't gain such large part of profit through within the system as the common viewpoint foreseen. the major cause is the inherited of the institutional mechanisms in a certain degree, which is not conducive to middle class within the system to get more profit from development.