People are increasingly talking about "the second-generation rich" as family wealth is passed down to grown children by parents who got rich by taking advantage of the government's policy of "letting some people get rich first" in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

People are also growing increasingly concerned about "the second-generation poor" - the adult sons and daughters of the poor who missed the golden opportunity to get rich, owing to a host of factors.

German sociologist Max Weber once remarked that the eagerly sought rare social resources fall roughly into three categories: wealth in economic terms, power in political terms and prestige in social terms.

Obviously, of the three, wealth is the most easily passed down the family line. As a matter of fact, the so-called "second-generation rich" get their fortune largely through inheritance.

On the other hand, poverty is also inherited.

Millions of children of the poor, who failed to share in the benefits brought by reform and lack social security guarantees, remain at the bottom rung of the social ladder.

They can be sons and daughters of laid-off workers, or the new generation farmers-turned-urban-workers, or street vendors. They are distributed widely across society.

Young farmers-turned-urban-workers, or migrant workers as are better known, make up the bulk of the second-generation poor.

They were kept out of compulsory education by high tuitions in their childhood. This means they were denied the first steppingstone to acquiring work skills. As a result, they lack the education necessary to making a decent living.

What is in store for them are poorly paid manual and menial jobs. In many cases, their pay falls far short of the minimum wage decreed by the State. In most cases, they have to marry those coming from the same humble backgrounds, bringing up children in poverty. The cycle goes on.

A rough equilibrium between inherited wealth and opportunities for the poor to move up the social ladder should be brought about, particularly in a society which is becoming increasingly polarized.

The most fearful prospect is that the poor are closed off from all avenues of advancement. We are currently undergoing a process of wealth redistribution unprecedented in scope.

In my opinion, this redistribution tends to solidify the current social structure.

A fairly large portion of social wealth accumulated in the course of reform and opening-up over the last three decades remains undistributed.

This largely explains why some people's incomes fail to keep up with the rapid growth of the national economy.

This kind of undistributed wealth has taken the form of real estate, business assets, stocks and cash.

In recent years, rediscovery of the value of this kind of "deposited" wealth has touched off a new round of wealth redistribution. The currently booming stock and real estate markets, for example, are the expression of the redistribution. But physical laborers, who lacked money for investment a few years ago, find themselves sidetracked from this wealth redistribution process.

Many signs indicate that channels through which the poor can manage to raise their social status are narrowing as the power of capital plays an increasing role in solidifying the social structure.

Surveys conducted in Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi'an in 2006 found that people in the disadvantaged groups, such as the jobless, unemployed, those with low incomes and farmers-turned-urban-workers, feel they are increasingly stuck where they are.

For example, 43 percent of the people living at the minimum income level believe they are unable to change their lives by relying solely on their own efforts. Only 13 percent believe they can.

Among the surveyed farmers-turned-urban-workers, 43.5 percent said they don't expect to change the status quo of their lives by mere efforts of their own. Only 0.3 percent say they do expect to.

Some from the disadvantaged groups turn to violence and unlawful acts to get a better life.

The narrowing of the social channels finds expression in employment and education.

Surveys show that the employment of the urban poor is four percentage points lower than the average. In turn, low employment makes the poor poorer.

Many local officials in Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi'an, where the surveys were conducted, believe that the employment of one more family member makes a poor family significantly better off.

Disparities caused by education factors have become increasingly obvious in recent years. As educational costs keep rising, education is increasingly out of reach of the disadvantaged as a means to help them out of their wretched conditions.

The surveys in Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi'an indicate that people's income is proportionate to their education. A college graduate earns three times more than a primary-school graduate and nine times more than an illiterate worker.

Taking all this into account, mechanisms guaranteeing the disadvantaged groups opportunities to raise their social status constitute a vitally important component in optimizing the social structure.

The author is a professor of sociology at Tsinghua University

(China Daily 06/21/2007 page10)