Chinese families with annual income in the millions: 41% don’t work? What’s even more interesting is that among respondents whose household annual income is below 20,000 yuan, the non-working group also makes up more than 40%. Even when people don’t work, some don’t work because there are no opportunities, while others simply don’t need to rely on a job to support themselves.

In high-income “no-work-required” drama plots, there’s always a standard character profile.

Like the endless meetings in The First Half of My Life—“fires you can’t put out.” In “Like a Fish in Water,” the programmer Nie Jun turns himself into an internet “workaholic,” working overtime every day to push projects back-to-back, and in the end he becomes so anxious that he goes deaf and freezes.

It’s as if the higher the annual salary, the less time a person has that truly belongs to themselves. So many people think the more they earn, the more they have to proactively stay in work for longer hours.

But reality may not be like that. A report titled China Family Wealth and Consumption Report (Q1 2026) jointly released by the School of Economics at Xiamen University and the Ant Group Research Institute found that among respondents with household annual income above 1 million yuan, the largest group is actually the non-working population, reaching 41%.

By contrast, ordinary employees’ household income mainly concentrates in the 50,000—100k yuan range, accounting for 28.7%. After that, the higher the income, the more the share drops steadily; when household annual income exceeds 1 million yuan, it falls to only 8.1%.

The income distribution of professional and technical personnel is clearly higher: the 500,000—1 million yuan group peaks at 39.7%. But once their household annual income exceeds 100k yuan, it drops again to 21.7%.

This means that as income rises, what determines a household’s wealth level is not only wages that land in your account on time each month, but also assets, operations, and investments.

Meanwhile, the report also specifically analyzes a category of special group: “not retired and not looking for work.” They are not equal to the unemployed; they simply have no job for the time being. It could be that they continue studying, take care of their family, temporarily take a break to recuperate, or they might be training and recharging—later they may re-enter the workforce.

And regardless of which situation they’re in, their household “bank account” is thicker than that of many office-goers. For this group, household annual income reaches 161k yuan, slightly higher than the 158k yuan for full-time workers; per-capita annual income is also 76k yuan, clearly higher than the 61k yuan for full-time workers.

But what truly widens the gap is still their base of assets. The average financial assets of households in the “not retired and not looking for work” group reach 521k yuan—nearly twice that of full-time working households. The total value of residential properties in their households also reaches 161k yuan, which is almost 1 million yuan more than full-time working households.

So when they spend money, it doesn’t look at all like what people without jobs would do. Whether it’s housing and transportation, eating out, education and healthcare, or buying durable goods, nearly every category of spending is higher than that of full-time working households.

After all, for them, assets are the real “money-printing machine,” and work is more of a choice rather than a prerequisite for survival. Before they even wake up each day, the assets at home may have already earned them some money. (by NetEase)