More than 80 percent Chinese youth feel China's widening wealth gap is "very serious" and must be narrowed urgently, a survey has shown.

The survey, conducted by the China Youth Daily and leading portal website Sina.com, asked 10,250 Chinese aged 20 to 30, most with university degrees and a monthly salary of 1,000 to 3,000 yuan (US$125 to US$375), about their views on China's yawning wealth gap.

It shows 72 percent believe the gap can be felt between the underprivileged and well-off and between rural migrant workers and their bosses.

About 40 percent think the widening gap exists between coastal city dwellers and residents of central and western regions, between cities and countryside and between the social elite and the general public, it shows.

Ninety-five percent believe a good education and skills or a good command of foreign languages, to which Chinese have traditionally attached much importance, will not necessarily bring wealth, says the survey.

With a double-digit growth rate and the world's fourth largest economy, China has been grappling with the disparity between the haves and have-nots, with the per capita GDP of the richest province more than ten times than of the poorest.

Statistics show the richest 10 percent of families own more than 40 percent of all private assets, while the poorest 10 percent share less than two percent of the total wealth.

The country's Gini Coefficient, a measure of the wealth gap, is estimated to exceed 0.4, a level that could endanger economic and social stability.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2006)