中欧社会论坛 - China Europa ForumOccupation, Class, and Social Networks in Urban China
Bian Yanjie, Ronald Breiger, Deborah Davis, Joseph Galaskiewicz
2005, Issue 6
Open Times
Abstract：China’s class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed “market-socialist” economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic，results of a 1998 urban survey that measured strength and diversity of social ties among 400 households in Tianjin， Shanghai， Wuhan， and Shenzhen documented networks of social exchange that identify a class structure distinct from the cadre-dominated social hierarchy of the Mao era. In particular，analysis of visiting during the Lunar New Year celebration suggests an urban society simultaneously divided along two axes：one by economic success in the more privatized economy and one by distinctions in political authority at the workplace. Thus contrary to those who privilege market transactions as the primary engine for creating a new class hierarchy， we conclude that to understand processes of social stratification one needs theories and methods that work simultaneously with multiple dynamics of class differentiation rather than presuming linear hierarchy.