ABSTRACT
Economic reform in China has been underway for more than three decades. Today Chinese society is very different in a number of ways to that of 30 years ago. Considerable attention has been paid to macro-level changes, both the positive achievements of rapidly growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP), increasing foreign investment and trade, and growing foreign reserves, as well as the negative problems of increasing disparity of development between urban and rural areas and coastal and inland areas, environmental degradation, and unsustainable development practices. We also know a lot about changes at an individual level: incomes and well-being have improved but at a cost of a widening gap between rich and poor, and worker dissatisfaction and unrest.
