Market Transition, Industrialization, and Social Mobility Trends in Post-Revolution China

Market Transition, Industrialization, and Social Mobility Trends in Post-Revolution China

Seminar LIEPP/ OSC - June 4, 2019 - 12h30-14h30
  • Actualité Sciences PoActualité Sciences Po

LIEPP and OSC are glad to invite you to attend the seminar: 

Market Transition, Industrialization, and Social Mobility Trends in Post-Revolution China

Tuesday June 4, 2019 

12h30 - 14h30 

Room LIEPP

254 boulevard Saint Germain, 75007 Paris 

Please register here

Presentation: 

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Yu Xie

Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Sociology

Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies

Princeton University 

 

This study examines trends in intergenerational class mobility in China by analyzing six comparable, nationally representative surveys between 1996 and 2012. Defying a simplistic, unidirectional account, we report two countervailing trends in social mobility in post-revolution China. On the one hand, we find a decline in social fluidity following China’s transition from state socialism to a market economy, as the link between origin and destination in vertical social status has significantly strengthened. On the other hand, horizontal mobility between the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors has increased substantially during recent decades. To put these trends in a global context, we compare China’s experience with those in 11 advanced industrial countries. We find that despite its recent decline, social fluidity in China is still high by international standards. Yet, the direction of vertical social mobility trends in China stands in contrast with that in mature capitalist countries, in which the class structure has either stayed stable or become more open over time. 

The general discussion with the audience will be briefly introduced by Louis-André Vallet (OSC and LIEPP).

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