this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2022
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[–] coldhotman@nrsk.no 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The average Chinese citizen has a wealth of $26,752

It found that Chinese median wealth per adult, at $26,752

I don't believe that the average and median values are the same. I don't think those who wrote the article understand the difference.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The language they use is imprecise, but that does appear to be the median wealth in China right now https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202209/1276225.shtml

[–] coldhotman@nrsk.no 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yes, the median wealth is noted in the article. The average wealth, however, is not. At this point I don't think you understand the difference either. Thank you for the conversation, let's try again later on a different topic.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I understand the difference between median and average perfectly fine. What I'm saying is that the median is what's relevant because that's what represents the wealth of a typical person. The problem with using average is that it doesn't account for inequality meaning that high average wealth could be in practice hoarded by a handful of rich people while the rest of the population remains poor.

[–] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

Yep, if they gave us an average without showing us the distribution, then that would be meaningless

[–] sheesh@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Median is an 'average' (it is the mean of ranks), just not the arithmetic average ('mean') of the values. Text is correct - no need to get upset because you did not get it. Anyway, the numbers are meaningless as they do not tell us how wealth is distributed (e.g., what is the interquartile range - central 50%) and we cannot conclude anything about the wealth of the majority (>50%) of people.