SPECIAL FOCUS:

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN CHINESE SOCIETIES

GUEST EDITOR: WU XIAOGANG

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 INTRODUCTION
INSTITUTION, CULTURE, AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:
†
TOWARDS A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CHINESE SOCIETIES

Wu Xiaogang

Comparative sociology is not a particular branch of

sociology; it is sociology itself, in so far as it ceases
to be purely descriptive and aspires to account for
facts.
Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Methodology

Introduction

Social stratification research is an intrinsically international and com-

parative enterprise. Scholars have long been interested in identifying
similarities and variations in stratification processes across different
nations (Ganzeboom, Treiman and Ultee 1991). While most empiri-
cal analyses are focused on a single country with individuals as the
unit of analysis, conclusions are often compared across countries; both
similar and idiosyncratic features in the pattern of social stratification
have been identified among different industrialized countries (Hout
and DiPrete 2006), and the idiosyncratic features are often attributed
to the unique institutional arrangement of the country (e.g., Erikson
and Goldthorpe 1992; Kerckhoff 1995).
However, as countries may differ in many dimensions, one cannot
ascertain the differences due to the institutional variations that the
empirical analyses are focused upon. To overcome these problems,
comparative studies increasingly employ a large number of cases
(countries) that represent the existing variations and control for spu-
rious factors. Nevertheless, such an analytical strategy suffers from

†
The author is thankful to the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (HKUST-
6424/05H and GRF 644208) and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International
Scholarly Exchange (CCK07/08.HSS03) for financial support and to Miss Gloria He
Guangye for research assistance. Please direct all correspondence to Xiaogang Wu
(sowu@ust.hk), Social Science Division, Hong Kong University of Science and Tech-
nology (HKUST), Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR.

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 4 wu xiaogang

two problems. First, the measurement of variables cannot easily be

standardized across varieties of societies. Second, there exists an inher-
ent tension in comparative research between the number of cases on
the one hand and a detailed understanding of their institutional and
historical contexts on the other (Ragin 1989). To pin down the role
of institutional arrangements in the stratification process, researchers
would ideally need to employ their substantive insights and rely on
comparative studies of societies with large similarities (instead of sta-
tistical controls) but differing in some key institutions of particular
interest.
Institutional factors are often intertwined with cultural factors. The
cultural factors are particularly relevant with respect to education,
gender inequality, and family resource distribution, intergenerational
relationships, and perceptions of opportunity. For instance, Lee, Parish
and Willis (1994) found that, despite rapid economic industrialization,
most Taiwanese adults continue to provide financial support to their
parents, and they concluded that parental socialization through obli-
gation, guilt, and gratitude via the belief in filial piety remains strong
for longer than one might assume. Chu, Xie and Yu (2006) modified
the theory on the sibship size and educational outcome, and explained
the unusual high-order interaction involving sibship size, gender, birth
density, and seniority within the context of Taiwan’s (Chinese) patri-
archal culture, in which families typically favor boys over girls. More
often, in a single-society study, institutional and cultural factors are
lumped together to explain the unique patterns of inequality and the
stratification process (e.g., Ishida 1993).
To distinguish institutional effects from cultural influences in shap-
ing stratification patterns,1 comparisons among East Asian societies
are justified on the grounds of the method of difference in compara-
tive analysis (Skocpol and Somers 1980) in the sense that they share
similar values and culture but differ in a key aspect in institutional
arrangements, leading to different stratification outcomes. Briton, Lee,
and Parish (1995) examined female labor force participation in Tai-
wan and Korea, which share considerable similarity in cultural val-
ues but have diverged in dramatic ways in the past two decades of

1
Cultural factors are rarely addressed directly in cross-national comparative stud-
ies of social stratification because they are difficult to measure at the empirical level.
Rather, they serve as the context to understand the variant patterns observed among
different countries.

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 introduction 5

economic development. They highlighted the institutional impact of

government policy and foreign loan investment in shaping the nature
of labor demand in the two countries. Yu (2006) found a substantial
difference in the effects of family demands, occupation, firm size, and
employment sector on women’s rates of exit from the labor market in
Taiwan and Japan, attributable to the distinct institutional arrange-
ments between work and family responsibilities in two societies that
share many features because of historical, political, and cultural inter-
mixing.
In this context, studies of three Chinese societies in East Asia (main-
land China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) are appealing, given the fact that
these societies differ substantially in terms of economic development
level, political institutions, educational systems, and labor market reg-
ulation while at the same time sharing Chinese culture and values.
Despite the increasing economic integration of Greater China over the
past two decades, direct comparisons of the three Chinese societies
based on quantitative survey data still remain to be seen.2

Changing Inequalities in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Since 1980

Over the past decades, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have
been undergoing dramatic economic and social changes. The economic
reforms in China have gradually dismantled the socialist planned
economy since 1978. China’s GDP per capita (Purchasing Power Par-
ity, PPP hereafter) has consistently grown from US$452 in 1980 to
US$5,772 in 2004,3 with an annual growth of about nine percent. The
economic growth has been especially phenomenal since 1992, when
Deng Xiaoping called for further market reforms in his famous tour
to southern China. Starting from that year, the market economy had
been fully legitimized by the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology and
played an increasingly significant role in China’s economic growth.

2
To this author’s knowledge, there have been two major comparative projects
on Chinese societies: the first was the East Asian Middle Classes (EAMC) project
directed by Michael Hsin-Huang Hsiao of Academia Sinica (Hsiao 1999). The other
was the Social Indicator Survey directed by Lau Siu-Kai et al. of Chinese University
of Hong Kong (Lau et al. 2003). Most studies did not include the Chinese mainland,
however.
3
All data on GDP per capita (PPP) are extracted from http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/
php_site/pwt62/pwt62_form.php.

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 6 wu xiaogang

The success of economic reforms and open-door polices is partly

from the inflow of capital investments from Hong Kong and Taiwan,
where the economy took off in the 1960s and 1970s. As a renowned
showcase of laissez-faire capitalism, Hong Kong successfully trans-
formed itself from an entrepôt to a manufacturing center and then to
a regional hub of business services. The GDP per capita increased from
US$7,402 in 1980 to US$31,668 in 2004, placing Hong Kong among
the advanced developed economies. Unlike in other newly industrial-
ized economies (NIEs), intervention by the Hong Kong government
into the economy has been kept to a minimum to help create a favor-
able business environment (Friedman 1982).
In contrast, the state played a significant role in economic develop-
ment in Taiwan, another “little dragon” in Asia (So 2001). Since the
1950s, with US loans and grants, the government has adopted a series
of economic plans to help guide and promote economic growth and
industrialization. The 1960s witnessed rapid growth in labor-intensive
export industries, followed by the development of capital-intensive sec-
tors, such as shipbuilding, chemicals, and petrochemicals in the 1970s.
Since the 1980s, the priority was to promote the service sector and
high-technology industries, and economic development in the 1990s
focused on a continuing privatization of government enterprises, the
opening of the Taiwan market to foreigners, and high investment in
the technological sector. The GDP per capita increased from US$3,282
in 1980 to US$21,775 in 2004 (Executive Yuan, ROC. 2008).
Figure 1 plots the annual rate of GDP per capita in the three regions
from 1980 to 2004. With some exceptions (1989 for China, 1998 for
Hong Kong, and 2001 for Taiwan), all three economies have experi-
enced high to moderate rates of growth over the past decades, and
mainland China has performed particularly well since the 1990s. The
transformation of the economic structure in Hong Kong and Taiwan
has greatly facilitated the migration of manufacturing industries to the
mainland. Despite some degree of convergence, the three regions con-
tinue to differ in many aspects of economic and social development.
Table 1 presents selected statistics on the three Chinese societies.
First, in terms of GDP per capita, Hong Kong is ranked the high-
est and mainland China is ranked the lowest, with Taiwan in the
middle. Second, both the Hong Kong and Taiwanese economies are
dominated by tertiary/service industries that employ the majority of
workers, whereas the mainland economy is still dominated by sec-
ondary/manufacturing industries, with the majority of the labor force

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 introduction 7

20

15
GDP per capita growth rate

10

0
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 Year
-5

-10

China Hong Kong Taiwan

Source: http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt62/pwt62_form.php.

Figure 1: Annual Growth Rate of GDP per Capita, 1980–2004

Table 1: Comparative Statistics of Three Chinese

Mainland China Hong Kong Taiwan

Population 1,314,480,000 6,909,500 22,790,000

GDP per Capita(PPP, US$) 5,772 31,668 21,446
Economic Structure %
Primary 11.7 0.1 1.6
Secondary 48.9 8.7 26.8
Tertiary 39.4 91.2 71.5
Employment structure %*
Primary 42.6 0.3 5.5
Secondary 25.2 18.4 36.6
Tertiary 32.2 86.3 57.9
Education %
Secondary 59.7 51.7 48.2
Tertiary 7.2 15.8 32.7
Gini coefficient** 0.449* 0.533 0.339
Data Sources:
http://www.stats.gov.cn/
http://www.cepd.gov.tw/
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Economy-of-Hong-Kong
http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/
Notes: * Hong Kong data are for 2004; ** China data are for 2005.

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 8 wu xiaogang

working in the agricultural sector. Finally, despite the recent expansion

in education in both mainland China and Hong Kong since the 1990s,
access to higher education is still limited in both regions compared
with Taiwan. For instance, among those aged 15 or above, only 7.2
percent in the Mainland and 15.8 percent in Hong Kong, in contrast
to 32.7 percent in Taiwan, have received tertiary education.
Past research has shown that economic development and industri-
alization, coupled with educational expansion, have important con-
sequences on social inequality and the process of social stratification
(Treiman 1970). While the paths of economic growth and the level of
development in Hong Kong and Mainland China may not be compa-
rable to each other in many aspects, both have been accompanied by
a rapid increase in income inequality (Chow and Papanek 1981; Khan
and Riskin 2005), as shown in Table 2. This defies the typical inverted
U-shaped relationship between economic growth and income distri-
bution observed in many countries, namely, a growth in the income
level first leads to an increase and then, beyond a certain point, to a
decrease in income inequality (Kuznets 1955). The Gini coefficient,
a common measure of income inequality, rose from 0.451 in 1981
to 0.535 in 2006 in Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department
2007), placing the city among the most unequal societies in the world
in terms of income distribution (Wu 2007). China’s income distribu-
tion is no better. The Gini coefficient increased from 0.295 in 1980 to
0.449 in 2005 for the nation as a whole. Income inequality between the
urban and rural populations, institutionalized by the household regis-
tration system (Wu and Treiman 2007), was particularly prominent:
the urban-rural ratio of income per capita, after a slight decline in the
early 1980s, increased dramatically since then, from 2.5 in 1990 to 3.1
in 2000 and 3.2 in 2005. With reference to the past socialist egalitari-
anism, this sharp increase in income inequality has caused widespread
social discontent that concerns policy makers (Wu forthcoming).
Taiwan, on the other hand, serves as a good model of an economy
being able to maintain equitable income distribution in the course of
rapid growth. For most time in the 1980s and 1990s, the Gini coef-
ficient remained at a minimum level of around 0.3 (Su 2008). Even in
recent years when income inequality has increased, the Gini coefficient
was still low compared with most other countries. The Gini coefficient
in Taiwan was 0.339 in 2003 (see Table 2).
The discussion of recent trends in income inequality in Hong Kong
and Taiwan has centered on a debate about the M-shaped society and

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 introduction 9

Table 2: Growth in GDP per Capita and Income Inequality, 1980–2006

China Hong Kong Taiwan
Year GDP per Gini GDP per Gini GDP per Gini
capita US$ capita US$ capita US$
1980/1981/1983 452 0.295 8472 0.451 4617 0.287
1985/1986/1988 877 0.331 13038 0.453 8102 0.301
1990/1991/1993 1411 0.357 20764 0.476 12543 0.314
1995/1996/1998 2535 0.290 26076 0.518 17416 0.320
2000/2001/2003 4002 0.390 27818 0.525 20701 0.339
2004/2006/2004 5772 0.449 — 0.535 — —
Data sources: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gin_ind-economy-gini-index
http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/Database/en_GB/wiid/

stagnant social mobility.4 While some writers argue that, in the con-
text of economic recession and industrial restructuring, both Hong
Kong and Taiwan are increasingly polarized, fitting the scenario of
the M-shaped societies, others contended that little statistical evi-
dence suggests such an ongoing trend, namely, ordinary people’s liv-
ing standards are on the decline and social mobility is blocked (Lui
2007a, 2007b; Yip and Fu 2007; Yip, Law, and Fu 2007). On the other
hand, the emerging middle class in China has also been a hot topic of
research in recent years (Li 2009). More interestingly, the trend of the
M-shaped society, true or not, is usually associated with the economic
restructuring that took place in the 1990s, when the manufacturing
industries in Hong Kong and subsequently in Taiwan migrated to
Mainland China (Chiu and Lee 1997; Chiu and Lui 2004; Su 2008).
As Figures 2a and 2b show, since the later 1980s, both Hong Kong
and Taiwan have witnessed their manufacturing sectors shrinking and
their service sectors expanding in terms of the share of both GDP out-
put and employment, whereas in Mainland China, the expansion of
the service sector and the decline of the agricultural sector were tak-
ing place at the same time, while the manufacturing sector remained
largely stable.

4
The notion of the M-shaped society, originally proposed by the Japanese business
strategist Kenichi Ohmae (2006), refers to the changing social structure in which the
middle class gradually disappeared: a very few members of the middle class can climb
up the ladder, while some others gradually sink to the lower classes.

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 10 wu xiaogang

Secondary Industry Tertiary Industry

50.0 100.0
45.0 90.0
40.0 80.0
35.0
70.0
30.0
25.0 60.0
20.0 50.0
15.0 40.0
10.0 30.0
5.0 20.0
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
96

20 8
00

20 2
20 4
06

19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
96

20 8
00

20 2
20 4
06
8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9

0
0

8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9

0
0
19

19

20

19

19

20
year year

China Taiwan Hong Kong China Taiwan Hong Kong

Figure 2a: Economic Structure Change, 1980–2006

Secondary Sector Tertiary Sector

45.0 90.0
40.0 80.0
35.0 70.0
60.0
30.0
50.0
25.0
40.0
20.0 30.0
15.0 20.0
10.0 10.0
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
88

19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
20 8
00

20 2
20 4
06

19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
88

19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
20 8
00

20 2
20 4
06
8
8
8
8

9
9
9
9
9

0
0

8
8
8
8

9
9
9
9
9

0
0
19

19

20

19

19

20

year year

China Hong Kong Taiwan China Taiwan Hong Kong

Data sources: China Statistical Yearbook 2007

http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/showtableexcel2.jsp?tableID=036 Taiwan Statistical Data
Book, 2008
Figure 2b: Employment Structure Change, 1980–2006

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 introduction 11

Such structural transformations have important implications for

changing patterns of inequality and mobility opportunities in the three
societies. This special issue brings together five papers on Mainland
China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to address related questions on urban
poverty, the transformation of the class structure, class mobility and
education, and changes in attitude/values about rising inequality.

Chinese Inequality in Comparative Perspectives

Sociological studies of inequality in China have flourished over the

past few decades (Bian 2002). More attention has been paid to the
unique pattern of inequality shaped by Chinese socialist institutions
such as the hukou system that created the rural-urban divide and the
danwei segmentation in the urban sector (Walder 1986; Bian 1994; Wu
2002; Wu and Treiman 2007). Given the emergence of new classes,
such as private entrepreneurs/capitalists, the self-employed, and wage
employees in the private sector, sociologists have recently revived their
interests in class (jieji) issues (under the term of strata (jieceng), with
the middle class being a focal point of observation and research.
Class is a core concept in sociology. Lin Thung-hong and Wu Xiao-
gang’s article brings class analysis back to the analyses of economic
inequality, social mobility, and changes in social structure in contem-
porary China. They propose an extended neo-Marxian class schema,
taking into account unique Chinese institutions such as hukou, dan-
wei, and the cadre-worker distinction in delineating class boundar-
ies. Based on the class schema, they examine the transformation of
the class structure and class inequality in China since the economic
reforms, and they find that the Chinese class structure has shifted to
a trajectory of proletarianization, particularly since 1992. Class has
become the main source of income inequality in China.
On the top of Lin and Wu’s overall description of Chinese inequal-
ity, Wang Feng, Tai Tsui-o and Wang Youjuan’s paper focuses on a
new aspect of China’s economic and social polarization in the 1990s:
the emergence of urban poverty, mostly caused by unemployment or
under-employment. Wang and his associates report that the emergence
of poverty in urban China, as in many other societies, is following a
pattern that may well make poverty a permanent feature of the social
scene in China, particularly among specific groups of individuals and
households, which will create a new underclass and durable inequality

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 12 wu xiaogang

in the society. An important policy implication of their findings is that

eradicating poverty requires increased educational access, adequate
health care, decent housing conditions and good paying jobs, which
all go beyond the minimum livelihood guarantee programs formulated
in recent years by the Chinese government.
In Hong Kong, poverty alleviation has been a priority of the govern-
ment since July 1, 2003, when more than half a million Hong Kong
citizens took part in a historic demonstration to express their dis-
satisfaction with the government. The government has set up a new
Commission on Poverty to tackle the problem, and inter-generational
transfer of poverty has been listed on the top of the Commission’s
policy agenda (Tang 2005). As education is known as an important
means for individuals to rise above poverty levels, how a family’s eco-
nomic resources affect children’s school performance and educational
outcome has become a central issue for academics and the commu-
nity. Greater access to higher levels of education could have long-term
impact on the evolution of the social structure in Hong Kong (Wu
2007).
Nevertheless, the public’s concerns about increasing income dispar-
ity are not only limited to the miserable living conditions of the poor;
there are also concerns about decreasing opportunities for upward
social mobility for the majority. Recent discussions on the arrival of an
M-shaped society and a shrinking middle class in many Asian societies
are symptomatic of growing fears of a major transformation in oppor-
tunity structures. Scholars suggest that the fall in the economic growth
rate and the maturation of the economy have reversed the trend of a
loosened social structure, making social mobility difficult. Lui Tak-
lok’s analysis based on a survey conducted in 2006 shows no sign of a
drastic decline in the openness of Hong Kong’s social structure. People
are still able to climb up the social ladder. He further points out that
the sources of growing anxiety seem not to be the decrease in opportu-
nities for mobility but in the unevenness of new opportunities shaped
by Hong Kong’s economic re-structuring and socio-economic integra-
tion with Mainland China.
In the study of intergenerational class mobility, education plays an
important role. Formal schooling can help children from disadvan-
taged backgrounds to change their fate. In Chinese societies influenced
by Confucian traditions, education may be particularly valued in sta-
tus attainment and social mobility (Ho 1967). While there have been
no comparative studies to test this claim empirically, some evidence

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 introduction 13

suggests that the processes of educational and occupational attain-

ment in Chinese societies might differ from those established in west-
ern societies (e.g., Chu, Xie and Yu 2006). In occupational attainment
and career mobility, a common belief is that Chinese employers may
put more emphasis on educational credentials than on abilities/skills.
Tsay Ruey-Ming, Yeh Hsiu-Jen and Chuang Chih-Chia examine the
effect of human capital on the career mobility of Taiwanese workers
in the private sector. Unlike the traditional measure of human capital
of years of school in status attainment models or social mobility analy-
sis, Tsai et al. decompose human capital into education, on-the-job
training, first job with managerial experience, and firm tenure. More
specifically, they take into account the concept of mismatch and use
the years of over-education to test the symbolic effect of education cre-
dentials on promotions within organizations. Their findings remind us
of similar studies done in Japan (Ishida, Spileman and Su 1997) and
China (Zhao and Zhou 2004).
Education, inequality, and job mobility are important issues closely
related everyone’s life experiences. People’s perceptions and subjective
feelings might not necessarily be consistent with the objective reality
of a society. For example, Lui Tai-lok’s analysis suggests that, while
no evidence indicates a decrease in mobility opportunity, there is still
a growing anxiety among members of Hong Kong’s middle class. Lui
suggests that this is from the unevenness of new opportunities shaped
by Hong Kong’s socio-economic integration with China. Martin Whyte
and Maocan Guo directly address the subjective dimension of rising
inequality in China. While many analysts and Chinese government
officials have assumed that the sharply increasing income inequal-
ity will lead to widespread discontent and anger, which would pose
challenges to social and political stability, Whyte and Guo’s analyses
show that Chinese people’s concerns about unfairness and inequal-
ity are not particularly strong compared with people in many other
countries. More surprisingly, it is not generally the case that the most
disadvantaged citizens (e.g., farmers) are angry about current patterns
of inequality. These counter-intuitive findings may be explained by
a “core” belief shared by Chinese citizens that talent, education, and
hard work are the key routes to economic success.
The importance of subjective factors in shaping inequality attitudes
is discussed in Wu Xiaogang’s recent paper in China Quarterly (forth-
coming), which compares income inequality and distributive justice
in two Chinese societies with distinct institutional legacies: reforming

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 14 wu xiaogang

socialist China and laissez-faire capitalist Hong Kong. Wu argues that

whether an income gap is large or not is subject to the normative/
value judgments of the public. Both culture and institutions therefore
play important roles in legitimizing income inequality. His analyses
of survey data collected in Mainland China in 2005 and Hong Kong
in 2006 reveal that both societies have a very high rate of normative
acceptance of income inequality, compared with other countries with
available data, although respondents in China appear to be less toler-
ant of income inequality than do respondents in Hong Kong. Further-
more, both Mainland and Hong Kong respondents are surprisingly
optimistic about opportunities for social mobility and this is positively
associated with their sense of the fairness of income distribution. The
results from this comparative study provide further evidence to sup-
port Whyte and Guo’s observations and argument.
To conclude, modern social stratification research been traditionally
relied on the analysis of high-quality survey data that are representative
of the general population. Sociologists in the Greater China region are
now fortunate to have access to large-scale survey data for their social
inquiries. Indeed, all five articles included in this issue are exclusively
based on analyses of data from probability sampling surveys, some
of which were designed for international comparative projects (e.g.,
Taiwan Social Change Survey [TSCS] and China General Social Survey
[CGSS]). Even if the themes of these papers might not be directly com-
parable to each other, they are certain to stimulate research interests in
similar topics in other societies. Our understanding of economic and
social changes in the region will thus be enriched and we will have
additional empirical sources for further theorization on institutions,
culture and social stratification across and within cultures.

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