1st Edition

Understanding Inequality in China The Contribution of the Chinese General Social Survey

Edited By Xiaogang Wu, Jia Miao Copyright 2025
380 Pages
by Routledge

380 Pages
by Routledge

380 Pages
by Routledge

This edited volume provides an overview of inequality and stratification in contemporary China. A rare and timely resource, it presents key research on the topic published in Chinese Sociological Review from 2011 to 2023, using one or multiple waves of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data, reflecting the advancement of the field over the past decade.  The CGSS, launched in 2003 and... Read more

Introduction
Xiaogang Wu and Jia Miao

1. The Chinese General Social Survey (2003-8): Sample Designs and Data Evaluation
Yanjie Bian and Lulu Li

2. The Household Registration System and Rural-Urban Educational Inequality in Contemporary China
Xiaogang Wu

3. Redrawing the Boundaries: Work Units and Social Stratification in Urban China
Xiaogang Wu

4. Job Mobility in Postreform Urban China
Jun Li

 

5. Between State and Market: Hukou, Nonstandard Employment, and Bad Jobs in Urban China
Kevin Stainback and Zhenyu Tang

 

6. Intergenerational Mobility in Contemporary China
Meng Chen

7. Higher Education Expansion and Social Stratification in China

Wei-jun Jean Yeung

8. Chinese Adulthood Higher Education: Life-Course Dynamics Under State Socialism
Qing Lai

9. Key-Point Schools and Entry into Tertiary Education in China
Hua Ye

10. Hukou stratification, class structure, and earnings in transitional China
Qiong (Miranda) Wu and Michael Wallace

11. Income Inequality in Urban China, 1978-2005
Wim Jansen and Xiaogang Wu

12. Earnings returns to tertiary education in urban China, 1988–2008
Hua Ye

13. Understanding the consequence of higher educational expansion in China: a double-treatment perspective
Maocan Guo

Biography

Xiaogang Wu is Yufeng Global Professor of Social Science, Professor of Sociology at New York University, USA, and NYU Shanghai, China, and Founding Director of Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) at NYU Shanghai, China. Wu is a leading scholar in research on Chinese inequality and social stratification. He has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has been serving as Chief Editor of the Chinese Sociological Review since 2011, Associate Editor (Social Stratification) of Sociology Compass (2023–2025), and Global Scholar at Princeton University, USA (2020–2024).


Jia Miao
is Assistant Professor of Sociology at NYU Shanghai, China. Her research investigates how urban neighbourhoods affect social cohesion, health inequality, productive aging, and individual subjective well-being in the Asian context. She is also interested in the social consequences of homeownership in large Chinese cities. Her work has appeared in Social Science and Medicine, Social Forces, and among others.