Life Course Effects of Social Change

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This study will analyze the impact of government-initiated social change on individuals and families in the People's Republic of China. It draws on data from a survey conducted in Shanghai in the spring of 1988. At that time a random sample of 1200 residents, ages 25-65, were interviewed. The study has three principal goals. The first is to examine the effects of specific social changes, such as school closings and urban to rural migration, and to determine how these affected five different birth cohorts of men and women born between 1924 and 1963. The second goal is to examine family processes and structures and to determine how social changes have affected family life. The third goal is to examine the effects of social change on the degree of interdependency among individuals, both within the family and across generations. This study is important because it will document how dramatic social changes in this historical period have had profound consequences for individuals and families. Nowhere have these changes been more striking than in the People's Republic of China.