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Money has become increasingly important in China since the transfer from a planned to a market economy. This study investigated whether the increased normative importance of money impairs Chinese adolescents' self-esteem. National survey data from 11,819 adolescents (mean age, 14.29 years; 48 % girls) in 200 junior high schools in China were used to examine whether school-level importance of money was associated with self-esteem, and how adolescents' family income and gender modified this association. Multilevel structure equation modeling analysis indicated that school-level importance of money was significantly and negatively related to individual students' self-esteem after controlling for school- and individual-level family incomes. The negative effect of school-level average importance of money on self-esteem varied with Chinese adolescents' subjective, but not objective, family income. Adolescents whose parents subjectively perceived that their families were poorer than others were more vulnerable to the negative effect of school-level average importance of money. No gender difference in susceptibility to the school-level average importance of money was observed. These findings suggest that Chinese adolescents' self-esteem is contingent on social standards about money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]