Stat: China Ranked the Least Charitable Country in the World

China’s dead-last ranking out of 140 countries featured on the annual CAF World Giving Index placed it below crisis-consumed and war-torn countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Greece, Yemen, and the Palestinian Territories.

The survey consists of three questions intended to compare and rate generosity (In the past month, have you given money to a good cause? Have you helped a stranger? Or have you volunteered your time?).

At a global level, the survey has found a year-on-year increase in people’s inclination to help others, or at least there has been among those outside of China. Compounding China’s embarrassment, when Hong Kong was assessed separately from mainland China, it managed a five-year average of 20th place.

Due to its mind-boggling size, however, China simultaneously tops and bottoms the rankings: As well as being least likely to involve themselves in other people’s business, with only 11 percent of the population having helped a stranger in the past month, China simultaneously took second place for its sheer quantity of sympathetic citizens, with 273 million saying they had lent a helping hand.

However, with the report taking a very hands-off approach to molding the data, it’s not clear if China really is an every-man-for-himself society, or if cultural differences are causing a data discrepancy. After all, as it’s a self-reported survey; perhaps Chinese people are actually just the world’s most honest.

This article first appeared in the January/February 2018 issue of the Beijinger, which you can read via PDF online or in hard copy at all of your favorite venues across town.

Photo: Caixin 

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