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This authoritative volume - a large-scale empirical work comparable to Pitirim Sorokin's Social Mobility - is a penetrating and comprehensive study of social stratification and mobility in traditional Chinese society and a highly significant addition to the theoretical and factual foundations of contemporary social science. It offers an authentic portrayal not only of social mobility but of social life in China in general at the time of its original publication in the 1960s.It includes the life histories of the upper class - scholars, active and retired officials, merchants, and wealthy landlords - and an analysis of social statistics drawn from one Chinese county, which provides new interpretations of the processes of social mobility, the relationship of this class to society as a whole, and the motives of upwardly mobile individuals. Each life history comprises at least five generations and its resulting accounts touch upon the lives of 1,200 persons, and help place the development of the gentry in illuminating context within the population as a whole.Chow's book offers a welcome method of comparison of two societies that have both birth and mobile elites. As China entered the world system, its open class system changed from fluidity to disorganization regarding its character. As such it was transformed into an innovating society in which the earlier system could not, or did not, work. Social Mobility in Traditional Chinese Society is unique in its field for the successful correlation of conceptual framework with its detailed wealth of empirical findings. It will be welcomed by all students of social science, international relations, and Asian studies.
Written by one of the foremost historians of Chinese institutions, this book focuses on China's civil service examination system in its final and most elaborate phase during the Ch'ing dynasty. All aspects of this labyrinthine system are explored: the types of questions, the style and form in which they were to be answered, the problem of cheating, and the psychological and financial burdens of the candidates, the rewards of the successful and the plight of those who failed. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Chinese novels, short stories, and plays, this thought provoking and entertaining book brings to vivid life the testing structure that supplied China's government bureaucracy for almost fourteen hundred years. "Professor Miyazaki's informative work is concerned with a system. . . that was, in effect, . . . the basic institution of Chinese political life, the real pillar which supported the imperial monarchy, the effective vehicle for the aspirations and ambitions of the ruling class. Imperial China without the examination system for the past thousand years and more would have developed in an entirely different way and might not have endured as the continuing form of government over a huge empire."--Pacific Affairs "The most comprehensive narrative treatment in any language of [this] enduring achievement of Chinese civilization."--American Historical Review
"How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does this influence our children? More than we wish to believe! While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique -- tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods -- renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies. The good news is that these patterns are driven by strong inheritance of abilities and lineage does not beget unwarranted advantage. The bad news is that much of our fate is predictable from lineage. Clark argues that since a greater part of our place in the world is predetermined, we must avoid creating winner-take-all societies."--Jacket.
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines—typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?
Best Seller in China (2004)This book is the result of a six-year research project from 1998 to 2004. It presents analyses of social stratification and social mobility in contemporary China over the past fifty years since 1949 based on two nationwide questionnaire surveys. It is the first large-scale study on social mobility in modern China... More about the book:www.quant-media.com
A systematic and in-depth analysis and explanation of China's rapid increase in inequality in the last two decades.
This volume assesses the evolving role of guanxi (social networks) in China's transforming society.