In terms of education, the figure 2.0 indicates that the people who aged above 18 and had a high education grew about 6% in nationwide from 1982 to 2005, and 17.1% in cities. Furthermore, the popularization of high education directly caused the boost of white-collar employees in China, as the figure 2.0 displays, the urban residents increased from 20% to 43% from 1982 to 2005, and the white-collar occupation almost doubled in nationwide in these years. As a result, with the developing economy and the increasing popularization of high education of China, from 1990 to 2005, an extra 1.2 billion people joined the developing world’s middle class, and among them, four-fifths came from Asia, and half from China (Ravallion, 2010).
2.1.2 Concept of Chinese Middle Class
There is a general impression of middle class among Chinese people: this group of people suppose to be white-collar class, earning a medium or higher income, lives a life with stylish lifestyle and has a consumption manner that leading the mainstream values, and they believe themselves belong to the middle class (CASS, 2004). Though the concept of middle class for most Chinese people is quite different from the sociologists, the public image of middle class still need to take into account when studying the middle class issue. Despite it is claimed that there are more than 230 million middle-class residents in China (Wang, 2011) and 68.8% of the surveyed think the number of middle class in China is increasing (China.org.cn, 2010), there is still a lot of disputes about the definition of Chinese middle class, and its boundary and attributes are very unclear (CASS, 2009).
2.1.2中国中产阶层的概念
是一个普通的中产阶层在中国人的印象:这一群人应该是白领阶层,收入中等或以上收入的,住的生活与时尚的生活方式,有一种消费方式,引领主流价值观,他们认为自己属于中产阶级(CASS,2004年)。虽然中产阶层对于大多数中国人的概念是完全不同的社会学家,中产阶层的公众形象,还需要考虑到学习时,中产阶级的问题。尽管它声称,有超过230万的中产阶层的居民王,在中国(2011年)和68.8%的受访者认为中国的中产阶级人数在不断增加(China.org.cn,2010年),有仍然有很多的中国中产阶层的定义,它的边界纠纷和属性是非常不清楚(CASS,2009)。