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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Asian Studies

Selected Works

2012

Stratification and mobility

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Re-Thinking The Rural-Urban Divide In China’S New Stratification Order, Qian Forrest Zhang Aug 2012

Re-Thinking The Rural-Urban Divide In China’S New Stratification Order, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

I use a Marxist framework centred on the mode of production to conceptually analyze the changing stratification structure in today’s China with a focus on the changing nature of rural-urban inequality. As the state-managed tributary mode of production, once dominant under socialism, is being gradually eclipsed by the reviving petty-commodity mode of production and the newly emerged capitalist mode of production, both of which are market-based and enable the transfer of surplus from labour to capital, a new set of mechanisms are creating and sustaining rural-urban inequality in China. Rural-urban inequality – although still significant in its magnitude – is …


Status And Hierarchy: A Framework For Understanding Stratification And Inequality In Today’S China, Qian Forrest Zhang Feb 2012

Status And Hierarchy: A Framework For Understanding Stratification And Inequality In Today’S China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

Social hierarchies and inequality in a society are shaped by the modes of production that extract and transfer surplus among social groups. In China under socialism, the redistributive economy established a powerful tributary mode of production (TMP) that extracted surplus from rural areas to cities and from commoner producers to cadre-officials. This TMP created two fundamental hierarchies in socialist China: the urban-rural divide and the official-commoner divide, both of which were based on politically defined statuses. China’s post-socialist transition has led to both a resurgence of the traditional petty-commodity mode of production (PCMP) and the rise of a novel capitalist …


Economic Transition And New Patterns Of Parent-Adult Child Coresidence In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang Feb 2012

Economic Transition And New Patterns Of Parent-Adult Child Coresidence In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

This study uses national data from the 1996 Life History and Social change in Contemporary China survey (N = 3,087) to gauge the effect of the economic transition on parent-adult child coresidence in urban China. Previous studies find that, thanks to state actions, traditional patterns in coresidence persisted in post-Mao urban China. This study still finds high levels of coresidence. China's aging population, coupled with an underdeveloped social security system, means that the traditional role of family will remain strong. It also uncovers three new patterns, however, best explained as caused by changes in the economic realm. First, the coresidence …