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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Asian Studies

Selected Works

Stratification and mobility

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Strength Of Sibling Ties: Sibling Influence On Status Attainment In A Chinese Family, Qian Forrest Zhang May 2013

The Strength Of Sibling Ties: Sibling Influence On Status Attainment In A Chinese Family, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

What allowed eight siblings from a politically disadvantaged rural family to overcome institutional barriers and achieve upward mobility during Maoist China? What then restricted their children’s chances of upward mobility during the Reform era, when both family background and institutional environment were more favourable? In studying this anomalous case, whose experiences contradicted the well-documented effects of state policies and yet cannot be explained by parental influence, this study examines how adult siblings influenced each other’s status attainment processes, an issue largely neglected in the literature. Through comparing the micro-level mobility processes of the two generations in this family, I propose …


Women’S Entry Into Self-Employment In Urban China: The Role Of Family In Creating Gendered Mobility Patterns, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan Apr 2013

Women’S Entry Into Self-Employment In Urban China: The Role Of Family In Creating Gendered Mobility Patterns, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan

Qian Forrest ZHANG

How did family characteristics affect women and men differently in self-employment participation in urban China? Analyses of national data show dual marriage penalties for women. Marketization made married women more vulnerable to lay-offs from state-sector jobs; their likelihood of being pushed into unskilled self-employment surpassed that of any other groups. The revitalized patriarchal family tradition favored men in family businesses and resulted in their higher rates of entering entrepreneurial self-employment. Married women who had the education to pursue entrepreneurial self-employment were constrained by family responsibilities to state-sector jobs for access to family services, and had much lower rates in entering …


Gender Disparities In Self-Employment In Urban China's Market Transition: Income Inequality, Occupational Segregation, And Mobility Processes, Qian Forrest Zhang Dec 2012

Gender Disparities In Self-Employment In Urban China's Market Transition: Income Inequality, Occupational Segregation, And Mobility Processes, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

This paper presents the first quantitative analysis of gender disparities in self-employment in urban China. It documents the extent of gender income inequality in self-employment. By disaggregating self-employment into three occupational classes, it shows the gender segregation within self-employment—women were concentrated in the financially least rewarding segment—and identifies it as a main source of the gender income inequality. It examines a range of determinants of participation in self-employment—family structure, family background, and career history—and how their gender-specific effects contributed to gender segregation. Although using data from a 1996 national survey, this study captures two key processes that shaped the structure …


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 …