The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)'s National Institute of Social Development released the third-ever Annual Social Development Report on the penultimate day of 2014, and the collated data was published in the media on Thursday.
In the wake of a year in which major corruption cases surfaced, a notable aspect of the report was the increase in the public's trust of the government.
The CASS research initiative is a significant undertaking, and the report presents information on 12 aspects of Chinese society, including housing prices and living conditions, in a final document that consists of 12 reports.
While the number of survey participants was not explicitly stated by the China.org.cn website, the trust area of the study indicated that, overall, China's citizens rated the national government 69.58--out of a possible score of 100--in terms of trust.
The researchers distinguished between urban and rural settings, so the report features location-specific data. According to the responses of urban residents, governmental trust levels are higher than for those citizens in rural areas. The data also targets particular official departments, and in terms of the social security department, the 42.6 percent of urban citizens who indicated trust was nearly 10 points lower that the 51.3 percent that was registered for rural residents.
However, even though urban Chinese showed a higher level of trust in the Chinese government last year, in comparison to the 2013 report, the trust in township and county governments rose by around 1 percent, increasing to 51.05 percent.
In relation to corruption-specific questions, the scores regarding the fight against dishonesty among the establishment over the next three years increased by as many as 22.3 percentage points, when placed alongside the 2013 figures.