Since the late 1970s, China has transformed from an inefficient centrally planned backwater to a fast-growing market-orientated economy. While economic reform has enabled average living standards to improve immensely, the benefits have been shared disproportionately depending on demographic factors such as location, age, gender, and social class.
This new four-volume collection from Routledge addresses some of the pertinent questions raised by the difference in ordinary people’s experience of China’s economic modernization. In particular: what are the socio-cultural transformations accompanying China’s economic transition? What are the experiences and responses of people who have gone through these social changes? What are the theoretical implications for social scientists who study social and economic development?
Social Transformation in China answers these questions by collecting essential and cutting-edge scholarship to reflect and capture experiences of socio-cultural transformations in China. Topics covered include: issues around work, the restructuring of state enterprises, unemployment, changes in welfare provisions, migration and women workers’ experiences; the family, love and marriage, the one-child policy, and ageing; the cultural domain, including works on media and consumption; the emergence of civil society.
Given China’s ever-growing economic influence, and sheer population size, there is an increasing demand from the rest of the world to understand Chinese society and its rapid economic modernization. By collecting the work of leading figures on China from disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology, Social Policy, Cultural Studies, and Political Sciences, this set will not only appeal to researchers and students in Chinese Studies but also more widely to academics and policymakers who are concerned with the social impact of economic development.
Volume I: Work
1. Yanjie Bian, ‘Bringing Strong Ties Back In: Indirect Ties, Network Bridges, and Job Searches in China’, American Sociological Review, 1997, 62, 3, 366–85.
2. Yongshun Cai, ‘The Resistance of Chinese Laid-off Workers in the Reform Period’, The China Quarterly, 2002, 170, 327–44.
3. Anita Chan and Jonathan Unger, ‘A Chinese State Enterprise under the Reforms: What Model of Capitalism?’, The China Journal, 2009, 62, 1–26.
4. Chris King-chi Chan and Pun Ngai, ‘The Making of a New Working Class? A Study of Collective Actions of Migrant Workers in South China’, The China Quarterly, 2009, 287–303.
5. Feng Chen, ‘Privatization and Its Discontents in Chinese Factories’, The China Quarterly, 2009, 185, 42–60.
6. Tiejun Cheng and Mark Selden, ‘The Origin and Social Consequences of China’s Hukou System’, The China Quarterly, 1994, 139, 644–65.
7. Chris Smith and Pun Ngai, ‘The Dormitory Labor Regime in China as a Site for Control and Resistance’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2006, 17, 8, 1456–70.
8. Sarah Cook, ‘From Rice Bowl to Safety Net: Insecurity and Social Protection During China’s Transition’, Development Policy Review, 2002, 20, 5, 615–35.
9. Cindy Fan, ‘Rural-Urban Migration and Gender Division of Labor in Transitional China’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2003, 27, 1, 24–47.
10. John Giles, Albert Park, and Fang Cai, ‘How has Economic Restructuring Affected China’s Urban Workers?’, The China Quarterly, 2006, 185, 61–95.
11. Edward Gu, ‘Beyond the Property Rights Approach: Welfare Policy and the Reform of State-Owned Enterprises in China’, Development and Change, 2001, 32; 129–50.
12. Tamara Jacka, ‘Finding a Place: Negotiations of Modernization and Globalization Among Rural Women in Beijing’, Critical Asian Studies, 2005, 37, 1, 51–74.
13. Ching Kwan Lee, ‘Engendering the Worlds of Labor: Women Workers, Labor Markets and Production Politics in the South China Economic Miracle’, American Sociological Review, 1995, 60, 3, 378–97.
14. Jieyu Liu, ‘Gender Dynamics and Redundancy in Urban China’, Feminist Economics, 2007, 13, 3–4, 91–124.
15. Jieyu Liu, ‘Sexualized Labour? "White-Collar Beauties" in Provincial China’, in S. Jackson and J. Liu (eds.), East Asian Sexualities: Modernity, Gender and New Sexual Cultures (Zed Books, 2008), pp. 85–104.
16. Yuting Liu and Fulong Wu, ‘The State, Institutional Transition and the Creation of New Urban Poverty in China’, Social Policy and Administration, 2006, 40, 2, 121–37.
17. Dorothy J. Solinger, ‘Labour Market Reform and the Plight of the Laid-off Proletariat’, The China Quarterly, 2002, 170, 304–26.
18. Andrew G. Walder, ‘Organized Dependency and Cultures of Authority in Chinese Industry’, Journal of Asian Studies, 1984, 43, 1, 51–76.
Volume II: Family
19. Delia Davin, ‘Marriage Migration’, Internal Migration in Contemporary China (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), pp. 137–50.
20. Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell, ‘Introduction: The Impact of Post-Mao Reforms on Family Life’, in Davis and Harrell (eds.), Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era (University of California Press, 1993), pp. 1–22.
21. James Farrer and Sun Zhongxin, ‘Extramarital Love in Shanghai’, The China Journal, 2003, 50, 1–36.
22. T. Hesketh and Xing Zhu Wei, ‘Health in China: The One-Child Family Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’, British Medical Journal, 1997, 314, 1685–7.
23. Charlotte Ikels, ‘Economic Reform and Intergenerational Relations in China’, Oxford Development Studies, 2006, 34, 4, 387–400.
24. Tamara Jacka, ‘Migration, Householding and the Well-being of Left-behind Women in Rural Ningxia’, The China Journal, 2012, 67, 1–21.
25. A. Joseph and D. Phillips, ‘Ageing in Rural China: Impacts of Increasing Diversity in Family and Community Resources’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 1999, 14, 153–68.
26. Jieyu Liu, ‘Living in the Danwei: The Intersection Between Work and Family Life’, Gender and Work in Urban China: Women Workers of the Unlucky Generation (Routledge, 2007), pp. 65–86.
27. J. R. Logan, Fuqin Bian, and Yianjie Bian, ‘Tradition and Change in the Urban Chinese Family: The Case of Living Arrangements’, Social Forces, 1998, 76, 3, 851–82.
28. M. Palmer, ‘The Re-emergence of Family Law in Post-Mao China: Marriage, Divorce and Reproduction’, China Quarterly, 1995, 141, 110–34.
29. Erika Platter, ‘Divorce Trends and Patterns in China: Past and Present’, Pacific Affairs, 1988, 61, 3, 428–45.
30. X. Y. Shang and X. M. Wu, ‘The Care Regime in China: Elder and Child Care’, Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 2011, 27, 2, 123–31.
31. M. Silverstein, Z. Cong, and S. Li, ‘Intergenerational Transfers and Living Arrangements of Older People in Rural China: Consequences for Psychological Well-being’, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 2006, 61B, S256–S266.
32. Ming Tsui and L. Rich, ‘The Only Child and Educational Opportunity for Girls in Urban China’, Gender and Society, 2002, 16, 1, 74–92.
33. Margery Wolf, ‘Marriage, Family, and the State in Contemporary China’, Pacific Affairs, 1984, 57, 2, 213–36.
34. Xiaowei Zang, ‘Household Structure and Marriage in Urban China: 1900–1982’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 1993, 24, 1, 35–43.
35. H. Jenny Zhan and R. J. V. Montgomery, ‘Gender and Elder Care in China: The Influence of Filial Piety and Structural Constraints’, Gender and Society, 2003, 17, 2, 209–29.
Volume III: Culture
36. C. Cartier, ‘Production/Consumption and The Chinese City/Region: Cultural Political Economy and The Feminist Diamond Ring’, Urban Geography, 2009, 30, 4, 368–90.
37. Howard Chiang, ‘Epistemic Modernity and the Emergence of Homosexuality in China’, Gender & History, 2010, 22, 3, 629–57.
38. Deborah Davis, ‘A Revolution in Consumption’, in Davis (ed.), The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (University of California Press, 2000), pp. 1–23.
39. Deborah Davis, ‘Urban Consumer Culture’, The China Quarterly, 2005, 183, 692–709.
40. Harriet Evans, ‘Gender in Modern Chinese Culture’, in Kam Louie (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 68–90.
41. James Farrer, ‘Dancing through the Market Transition: Discotheque and Dance Hall Sociability in Shanghai’, in Deborah Davis (ed.), The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (University of California Press, 2000), pp. 226–49.
42. James Farrer, ‘Opening up and Other Stories’, Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai (Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 22–52.
43. James Farrer, ‘A Foreign Adventurer’s Paradise? Interracial Sexuality and Alien Sexual Capital in Reform Era Shanghai’, Sexualities, 2010, 13, 1, 69–95.
44. Barbara E. Hopkins, ‘Western Cosmetics in the Gendered Development of Consumer Culture in China’, Feminist Economics, 2007, 13, 287–306.
45. Jeroen De Kloet, ‘Global Longings with a Cut’, China With a Cut: Globalisation, Urban Youth and Popular Music (Amsterdam University Press, 2010), pp. 15–36.
46. Fengshu Liu, ‘Politically Indifferent Nationalists? Chinese Youth Negotiating Political Identity in the Internet Age’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2012, 15, 1, 53–69.
47. Kam Louie, ‘Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 2012, 71, 4, 929–43.
48. Lisa Rofel, ‘"Yearnings": Televisual Love and Melodramatic Politics in Contemporary China’, American Ethnologist, 1994, 21, 4, 700–22.
49. Lisa Rofel, ‘From Sacrifices to Desire: Cosmopolitanism with Chinese Characteristics’, Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality and Public Culture (Duke University Press, 2007), pp. 111–34.
50. Wanning Sun, ‘Poetry of Labour and (Dis)articulation of Class: China’s Worker-Poets and the Cultural Politics of Boundaries’, Journal of Contemporary China, 2012, 21, 78, 993–1010.
Volume IV: Civil Society
51. Timothy B. Brook and Michael Frolic, ‘The Ambitious Challenge of Civil Society’, in Brook and Frolic (eds.), Civil Society in China (M. E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 3–17.
52. Yongshun Cai, ‘Local Governments and the Suppression of Popular Resistance in China’, The China Quarterly, 2008, 193, 24–42.
53. Selina Ching Chan and Graeme S. Lang, ‘Temple Construction and the Revival of Popular Religion in Jinhua’, China Information, 2007, 21, 43–69.
54. Daniel L. Overmyer, ‘Religion in China Today’, The China Quarterly, 2003, 174, 307–16.
55. Kenneth Dean, ‘Local Communal Religion in Contemporary South-East China’, The China Quarterly, 2003, 174, 338–58.
56. Fan Lizhu and James D. Whitehead, ‘Spirituality in a Modern Chinese Metropolis’, in David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive, and Philip L. Wickeri (eds.), Chinese Religious Life (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 13–29.
57. Thomas B. Gold, ‘After Comradeship: Personal Relations in China Since the Cultural Revolution’, The China Quarterly, 1985, 104, 657–75.
58. Peter Ho, ‘Embedded Activism and Political Change in a Semi-Authoritarian Context’, in Ho and Richard L. Edmonds (eds.), China’s Embedded Activism: Opportunities and Constraints of a Social Movement (Routledge, 2008), pp. 1–19.
59. Jude Howell, ‘Women’s Organizations and Civil Society in China Making a Difference’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2003, 5, 2, 191–215.
60. Michael Keane, ‘Broadcasting Policy, Creative Compliance and the Myth of Civil Society in China’, Media Culture Society, 2001, 23, 6, 783–98.
61. Li Lianjiang and Kevin O’Brien, ‘Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China’, Modern China, 1996, 22, 1, 28–61.
62. Pitman B. Potter, ‘Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China’, The China Quarterly, 2003, 174, 313–37.
63. Jonathan Schwartz, ‘Environmental NGOs in China: Roles and Limits’, Pacific Affairs, 2004, 77, 1, 28–49.
64. Mark Selden and Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘Reform, Conflict and Resistance in Contemporary China’, in Perry and Selden (eds.), Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (Routledge, 2003), pp. 1–30.
65. Yunxiang Yan, ‘The Chinese Path to Individualization’, The British Journal of Sociology, 2010, 61, 3, 489–512.
66. Guobin Yang and Craig Calhoun, ‘Media, Civil Society and the Rise of a Green Public Space in China’, in Peter Ho and Richard L. Edmonds (eds.), China’s Embedded Activism: Opportunities and Constraints of a Social Movement (Routledge, 2008), pp. 69–88.
67. Guobin Yang, ‘The Co-evolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China’, Asian Survey, 2003, 43, 3, 405–22.
68. Yongnian Zheng, ‘Society Must be Defended: Reform, Openness and Social Policy in China’, Journal of Contemporary China, 2010, 19, 67, 799–818.
