Social Structure Changes in Central China's Provincial Capital Cities (Analysis of Social Classes in Hefei City)

Author: Wang Kaiyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-10
Features: The purpose of socialism is to continuously improve people's material and cultural living needs. Since the reform and opening-up, with the rapid development of economic construction in Hefei City, the income of urban and rural residents in Hefei City has also increased significantly. Over the past 20 years, the total wage of employees in Hefei City has grown at an average annual rate of 16.1% (excluding price factors). In 1997, the average annual wage of employees in Hefei City reached 6,254 yuan, and after adjusting for inflation, it increased by 144% and 46% compared to 1978 and 1991, respectively. The quality of life of urban residents has significantly improved, and the Engel coefficient has declined year by year, falling below 40% by 2000. Household daily consumer goods in urban families are trending toward multifunctionality, diversification, and high-end products. In urban families, color TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines have entered the stage of replacement, while air conditioners, telephones, computers, VCDs, and DVDs, which are characteristic of the 1990s, have entered and are entering the homes of ordinary citizens. With the acceleration of housing system reform, housing has become a new hot spot in consumer spending for citizens. Reform and opening-up have also brought huge changes to the lives of farmers in Hefei City. According to sample survey data, the per capita annual net income of farmers in Hefei City increased from 103 yuan in 1978 to 1,855 yuan in 1997 (excluding price factors). In 1997, the average living space per farmer reached 22.3 square meters, an increase of 5.38 square meters from 1991. On average, every 100 households of farmers in rural areas own 101.3 television sets, 9.27 washing machines, 11.6 refrigerators, and 1.95 motorcycles. Comprehensive modernization should include economic modernization, political modernization, and human modernization. Especially human modernization, establishing a people-centered value system in thought. Under the market economy, or during the transition from traditional society to modern society, taking people-centeredness as a value is because: on one hand, commodity economy is an equal economic relationship, where independent individuals or human independence are continuously generated in commodity exchange; on the other hand, the nature of the market economy determines the differentiation between people and the separation between individuals and society. At the same time, in the short term, without a people-centered value system, there can be no developed market economy; in the long term, without a society and human development stage that takes people-centeredness as a value orientation, it is impossible to produce independent individuals, and without the generation of independent individuals, there can be no union of independent individuals, that is, the free and comprehensive development of people, and thus no post-industrial civilization. The completeness of the people-centered value system is reflected in the coordinated relationship between individuals, collectives, and the state. Market economy, democratic politics, and people-centered values are the themes of modernization worldwide and also the themes of modernization in our country. The idea of comprehensive human development is an important idea of Marx about the generation and development of people. Summarized, it has the following basic connotations: First, comprehensive unity between humans and nature. Humans create their own image in transforming external nature, realizing their free will. Second, comprehensive unity between humans and society. Third, comprehensive realization of human essence. As Marx said, "Humans possess their comprehensive essence in a comprehensive way, that is, as a complete person." Fourth, comprehensive development of the body and mind of humans. People do not have fixed occupations and can freely develop according to their wishes. Modern behavioral science's incentive theory divides human needs into five levels: First, physiological needs (clothing, food, housing, marriage, etc.); Second, safety needs (job and career security, safety of property and housing, social insurance, etc.); Third, social needs (friendship among colleagues, welcome from social groups, etc.); Fourth, respect needs (self-esteem, reputation, respect, social status, etc.); Fifth, "self-actualization" needs (realizing one's ideals and ambitions, realizing one's potential talents and abilities, etc.). It can be summarized into two aspects, namely physiological needs and social needs, that is, material needs and spiritual needs. During China's social transformation period, based on the current situation in our country, the principle of prioritizing material incentives and supplementing them with spiritual incentives is an important principle for motivating human behavior, as well as the behavioral incentive principle of Marxist historical materialism. First, according to the current situation in our country, adhere to the principle of prioritizing material incentives and supplementing them with spiritual incentives. Second, whether using material incentives or spiritual incentives, the focus of mobilizing people's initiative must be placed on meeting people's needs before, rather than after, their needs are met. Society should create a mechanism that allows people to strive for their material interests and the fulfillment of their various needs. Third, a specific and measurable internal mechanism must be established between human needs and the fulfillment of those needs. During the deepening of reforms, not only is the satisfaction of the needs of the subject directly linked to the contribution of the subject to society, but the two are also proportional, that is, the greater the contribution to society, the greater the satisfaction of needs. Fourth, while meeting people's basic needs, attention must also be paid to meeting the reasonable needs of different people in different aspects and at different levels. Only by distinguishing the different reasonable needs of different people and creating conditions to meet these needs as much as possible can the initiative of people be fully mobilized. Fifth, attention must be paid to meeting people's continuously evolving needs. Only by meeting people's growing material needs while continuously meeting their political, cultural, and other higher-level needs can people's initiative be better unleashed.
Groups with Cultural Resources In the current stage of Hefei City, many groups or strata possess a significant amount of cultural resources, such as the aforementioned leadership stratum, managerial personnel stratum, administrative personnel stratum, and some members of the private enterprise owner stratum. However, the stratum that prominently possesses cultural resources and forms its own distinct class is primarily the professional and technical personnel stratum. The professional and technical personnel stratum consists of individuals engaged in professional and technical work who were evaluated for professional titles before 1983 or appointed to certain professional positions after 1984. It specifically includes engineering technicians, agricultural technicians, scientific research personnel (including natural science researchers, social science researchers, and experimental technicians), medical and health personnel, teaching personnel in various levels and types of educational institutions, civil aviation flight personnel, shipbuilding technicians, economic and business personnel, accountants, statisticians, translators, library and information management personnel, archival management personnel, cultural and museum personnel, publishing and printing personnel, lawyers, notaries, radio and television announcers, craft artisans, sports personnel, and artistic personnel. The specific position of the professional and technical personnel stratum in the overall social class structure is determined by the amount of cultural resources it possesses. However, since the qualification recognition of cultural resources is largely made by relevant government functional organizations, organizational resources from the government functional system have an impact on these social class positions.
Groups with Fewer or Little of Three Key Resources In the current stage of Hefei City, groups with fewer or little organizational, economic, and cultural resources can be roughly divided into three social strata: the worker stratum, the peasant stratum, and the stratum of people without stable employment. The specific composition of the worker stratum includes workers in state-owned and collective enterprises, workers in limited liability companies with state or collective control that were reformed from former state-owned and collective enterprises, employees in joint-stock enterprises, private enterprises, township enterprises, and some migrant workers. Categorized by industry, the worker stratum includes two subgroups: industrial workers and commercial and service workers. The peasant stratum consists of farmers with agricultural household registration who still primarily engage in agricultural production. The stratum of people without stable employment refers to those whose employment, income, and living conditions are unstable and lack necessary living guarantees. The main body of this stratum is unemployed and underemployed personnel, laid-off workers, retirees with low pensions, migrant workers who cannot find jobs, and elderly and disabled people who lack labor skills and abilities and other forms of economic support. The above three strata do not possess the three key resources and are directly or indirectly under the control or domination of one or more of these resources. The specific position of these three strata is not determined by the amount of the three key resources they possess but by their employment status. The largest difference within the worker stratum is: First, workers in public-owned economies still have the nominal right to share a portion of the benefits of public-owned assets, such as labor security, pensions, medical insurance, housing, and various benefits, although the benefits they can currently share are decreasing, many of them still enjoy these benefits to some extent; Second, there are also differences in employment status among employees in non-public economies. Some non-public enterprises, especially some multinational corporations, also provide benefits such as housing and medical insurance to their employees; Third, the difference with migrant workers is that they suffer employment discrimination caused by the dual urban-rural system. The main difference between the stratum of people without stable employment and the worker stratum and the peasant stratum is the instability of employment. The four basic groups we have divided—organizational resource groups, economic resource groups, cultural resource groups, and groups with fewer or no three resources—are only temporary. With the deepening of marketization and urbanization, inter-class mobility is also accelerating. Among these four basic groups, two groups—the organizational resource group and the economic resource group—hold an advantageous position due to their possession of key productive assets and are the dominant strata in the class system. The groups with fewer or no three resources, due to their lack of key productive assets, hold a disadvantaged position and are the dominated strata in the class system. For example, before the reform and opening-up, the social status and income level of public-owned workers in Hefei City were in the middle to upper tier of the social structure at that time. However, since the 1980s, with the deepening of reforms and the acceleration of marketization, the income level of the public-owned worker stratum has relatively declined, and their social power status has also gradually declined, placing them in the dominated stratum in the current social structure. Between the dominant strata and the dominated strata, there are some intermediate layers—professional and technical personnel stratum, administrative personnel stratum, and individual business owner stratum—which hold semi-autonomous positions. During the social transformation period, the influence of organizational resources is gradually weakening, while the influence of economic resources and cultural-technical resources is gradually increasing. Inter-class mobility is more frequent, especially the upward and downward mobility of intermediate layers. For example, if an individual business owner stratum invests successfully, they can quickly develop into the private enterprise owner stratum, while if the investment fails, they may fall into the employee stratum or the stratum of people without stable employment. Urbanization and marketization will make future social structural changes in Hefei City more influenced by economic resources and cultural-technical resources.
Peasant Stratum With the acceleration of urbanization and the increase in non-agriculturalization, the agricultural population in Hefei City is decreasing and is mainly concentrated in the suburbs. As mentioned above, the farmers referred to in this research report are those who are purely or primarily engaged in agricultural production. According to statistics from the Hefei Municipal Public Security Bureau, in 2000, there were approximately 148,000 farmers in Hefei City who were purely or primarily engaged in agriculture, accounting for about 15.6% of the city's labor force. The cultural level of this stratum is mostly junior high school or lower, with an average per capita annual income of 3,572 yuan in 2000, placing them in the lower average income level, but the income gap within the stratum is also relatively large, with income from specialized farming households being much higher than that of ordinary farmers.
Stratum of People Without Stable Employment (Unemployed, Underemployed, and Disabled) The stratum of people without stable employment mainly refers to unemployed, underemployed, and disabled people in Hefei City. After the founding of New China, with the development of Hefei City, the number of job opportunities has been increasing, and coupled with the influence of the "big pot" system, the number of people without stable employment decreased before 1980. Since the 1980s, commodity economy has gradually emerged in Hefei, and some of the original unemployed and underemployed (such as returned urban intellectuals, released personnel from "two-laws" facilities) have started individual business operations or established private enterprises, gradually transforming into individual business owners and private enterprise owners. By the 1990s, with the deepening of state-owned enterprise reforms and the intensification of market competition, some members of the original worker stratum were laid off and joined the stratum of people without stable employment. Some migrant workers who moved into the city also temporarily could not find jobs, causing this stratum to rapidly increase. The number of registered laid-off and unemployed people in Hefei City accounts for 3.5% of the labor force, in addition to many unregistered laid-off workers and those laid off internally within units. The proportion of disabled and those without a place to live is also around 4%. There are approximately 206,000 people without stable employment in the urban area of Hefei City, accounting for about 21.7% of the labor force in the urban area. Their educational level is low, they lack economic and organizational resources, and their income and social status are at the bottom of society. Their monthly income is below 300 yuan, and the average household monthly income is below 200 yuan. With the development of the social economy, Hefei City has produced some emerging strata, such as the managerial personnel stratum, the private enterprise owner stratum, and the individual business owner stratum. Below, we will briefly outline the characteristics of these emerging social strata.