Collaborative Research: The State and Life Chances in Urban China

这是一个研究中华人民共和国从计划经济向市场经济的过渡，重点是公民社会的诞生，可以形成后来的民主化的基础，以及这些巨大的变化如何影响个人的生活道路和生活机会。该项目将收集和分析3,000份城市居民分层代表性样本的回顾性生活史。 它将研究国家社会主义再分配系统中独特的分层机制的影响：1）职业和组织的等级秩序，2）政治变化，包括政治运动和国家政策的突然急剧转变。 分层的动态将使用事件历史框架建模。 此外，研究报告还将审查近年来作为经济改革一部分而引入的新的分层机制。 %%% 本研究将有助于科学地理解国家政策与生命历程之间的相互作用，并为分层系统的比较分析提供见解。 对这个选择了向市场经济进行激进演变、同时又阻碍政治民主化的人口最多的国家进行研究，将大大有助于政策制定者做出决策所依据的知识基础。

This is a study of the transition of the People's Republic of China from a command economy to a market-oriented economy, focusing on the birth of a civil society that can form the basis of later democratization and on the ways that these massive changes affect the life pathways and life chances of individuals. The project will collect and analyze 3,000 retrospective life histories of a stratified representative sample of urban residents. It will examine the impacts of the distinctive mechanisms of stratification in state socialist redistributive systems: 1) the hierarchical order of occupations and organizations, and 2) political changes, including political campaigns and sudden, sharp shifts in state policy. The dynamics of stratification will be modeled using an event history framework. In addition, the study will examine new stratifying mechanisms introduced as part of the economic reforms of recent years. %%% This research will contribute to scientific understanding of the interplay between state policies and the life course, providing insights for comparative analysis of stratification systems. Research on the most populous nation, that has chosen to undertake radical evolution toward market economy while holding back political democratization, will contribute greatly to the knowledge base on which policy makers can base their decisions.