Data for: Why is inequality higher among the old? Evidence from China

We use panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) for the period 1991-2015. The CHNS is a collaborative project between the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National Institute for Nutrition and Health at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. CHNS data are available from ten waves (1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015), in which surveyed households were revisited and new households were added to replace households no longer participating in the study. We exclude the first survey year 1989 from our sample because the questions asked in the 1989 survey are different from those in other waves, and it is therefore difficult to compare the 1989 data with other waves (see also, Zhong 2011; Baeten, Ourti, and Doorslaer 2013; Cao and Birchenall 2013). The CHNS uses a multistage, random cluster-sampling scheme to select the households from each sampled province. Counties in each province were selected using a weighted method. Villages and townships in each county and urban and suburban neighborhoods in each city were randomly selected. The survey collects detailed information on income, assets, and demographics for each household.