Fracture and Fragmentation: An Empirical Analysis of Social Class Stratification in Contemporary Chinese Society

Author: Li Chunling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: In recent years, the rapid expansion of income disparities and other socio-economic differences has attracted widespread attention. Theorists and scholars have proposed various perspectives on the current state and future trends of socio-economic differentiation. Sun Liping's "fractured society" suggests that the current differentiation has become polarized, while Lu Xueyi and others' "middle-class modern society" posits that a modernizing social structure with a middle-class trend is emerging. Meanwhile, Li Lulu's "structuralization" argues that a class structure with increasingly distinct boundaries has already formed, whereas Li Qiang and Li Peilin's "fragmentation" emphasizes the pluralistic nature of the differentiation and the difficulty in forming a class structure. This book employs rich empirical data and social stratification research methods to examine and validate these theoretical viewpoints, concluding that the prevailing trend of current socio-economic differentiation is a multi-layered structuralization. It further predicts that the future trajectory of this differentiation trend will depend on the competition and compromise between social classes and groups, as well as on national policy directives.