A SURVEY designed to measure how trusting people are indicates that many Chinese do not trust others, experts from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said.
The Chinese public was given a "trust score" of just 59.7 points out of a total of 100, according to the CASS survey conducted among residents in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, south China's Guangzhou, central China's Wuhan and southwest China's Chongqing municipalities.
It found people in central and western regions trust others more than in the east.
It also indicated that Chinese tend to be more trusting of government departments than business organizations.
Yang Yiyin, an organizer of the survey, attributed the lack of trust to migration, China's transformation from a planned to a market economy and declining "family culture."
"People are more concerned about trust, especially in a transformative period when a new system of trust has not been established," said Yang.
Food safety scandals, government corruption and tragedies like the death of a toddler who was run over and ignored by passersby in south China's Guangdong Province in 2011 have led to public calls for greater moral education.
The survey also found that 44.7 percent of 51,100 respondents were satisfied with their lives - down from 47 percent in 2011.
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