How far does your yuan go in Shanghai?
Shanghai white collar professionals work much less to earn this yuan than their peers across Asia.Even in this gold medal-oriented country, there are times when being number one isn’t such a great thing, this might be one of them. In the November issue of China Briefing the magazine does what it calls the 'The Asia Comparator'. They looked at 13 cities across Asia (we don’t see Tokyo on the list, but they’ve thrown in New York city for good measure) and compared everything from wages and taxes, to purchasing power and a night out on the town.
So how did Shanghai do? We’ll start with our favorite chart: Working hours per annum. Shanghai ranks dead last for number of hours worked by white collar workers. Who took the top spots? Seoul and Hong Kong.
China Briefing chalks up Shanghai’s ranking here due to “the impact of a tightening of China's labor laws. [China has] seen its workers approach U.S. levels of working hours due to more strictly enforced labor law regulations and the legal requirement to compensate overtime. Staff in Shanghai put in the least amount of regional hours worked over the course of a year, and a full hour a day less than their colleagues in Hong Kong.”
Other interesting rankings are wages by profession and purchasing power. The purchasing power breakdown highlighted the growing gap between India and China which in theory should rank close together. This is how China Briefing ranked the cities that have the highest purchasing power, calculated using a basket of 39 food items.
- New York
- Hong Kong
- Singapore
- Seoul
- Shanghai
- Taipei
- Bangkok
- Beijing
- Jakarta
- Manila
- Kuala Lumpur
- Delhi
- Mumbai
China Briefing also calculated the cost and value of eating out in cities across Asia. It no surprise that Shanghai came in, in the top five. Meals were calculated as a three-course evening meal without drinks, in a good quality restaurant and figures are given in U.S. dollars.
- Hong Kong: $54
- Singapore: $52
- New York: $50
- Shanghai: $45
- Taipei: $40
- Bangkok: $34
- Seoul: $33
- Beijing: $25
- Jakarta: $21
- Hanoi: $20
- Mumbai: $20
- Manila: $19
- Kuala Lumpur: $17
- Delhi: $13
The take away message here: Save money and eat in South East Asia.
