Who you are versus where you are: Revealing the importance of determinants of within-city income inequality in China through an interpretable machine learning approach

IF 5.4 2区地球科学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Applied Geography Pub Date : 2025-08-25 DOI:10.1016/j.apgeog.2025.103759

Zuge Xing , Canfei He , Jiale Lin , Yuxin Pan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Within-city income inequality may lead to slower regional growth and social instability. Most existing research attributes within-city income inequality to skill differences, with limited understanding of the combined impact and evolution of individual and city-level factors in the Chinese context. This study uses interpretable machine learning methods to measure within-city income inequality based on census and survey data from 2000 to 2015, and reveals the importance of individual and city-level factors on within-city income inequality using a SHapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) analysis. We find that within-city income inequality in China is primarily driven by urban-rural gaps rather than skill differences, and individual factors such as gender and age also play important roles. Among city-level factors, housing prices are the main cause of the widening of within-city income inequality. Individual factors have the largest explanatory share in within-city income inequality, but the explanatory contribution of city-level factors is on the rise. The results of this study provide theoretical and methodological contributions to the measurement of the extent of within-city income inequality in China and its driving mechanisms.

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你是谁与你在哪里：通过可解释的机器学习方法揭示中国城市内收入不平等决定因素的重要性

城市内部的收入不平等可能导致区域增长放缓和社会不稳定。大多数现有研究将城市内收入不平等归因于技能差异，对中国背景下个人和城市层面因素的综合影响和演变的理解有限。本研究基于2000年至2015年的人口普查和调查数据，使用可解释的机器学习方法来衡量城市内收入不平等，并使用SHapley加性解释（SHAP）分析揭示了个人和城市层面因素对城市内收入不平等的重要性。我们发现，中国城市内收入不平等主要是由城乡差距而非技能差异造成的，性别和年龄等个人因素也起着重要作用。在城市层面因素中，房价是城市内部收入差距扩大的主要原因。个体因素对城市内部收入不平等的解释作用最大，但城市层面因素的解释作用呈上升趋势。本文的研究结果为测度中国城市内部收入不平等程度及其驱动机制提供了理论和方法上的贡献。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Applied Geography GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

2.00%

发文量

134

期刊介绍： Applied Geography is a journal devoted to the publication of research which utilizes geographic approaches (human, physical, nature-society and GIScience) to resolve human problems that have a spatial dimension. These problems may be related to the assessment, management and allocation of the world physical and/or human resources. The underlying rationale of the journal is that only through a clear understanding of the relevant societal, physical, and coupled natural-humans systems can we resolve such problems. Papers are invited on any theme involving the application of geographical theory and methodology in the resolution of human problems.