| From the fulfilling of the zero breakthrough of gold medal in1984Los AngelesOlympic Games to the winning of the right to host the2001Olympic Games inBeijing, China’s competitive sports began to be fully on the stage of the world’s sports.Especially on the Beijing Olympics with good timing, geographical convenience andgood human relations, the glory of Chinese competitive sports peaked. But behind theglory, the development of Chinese competitive sports has encountered many problems,such as the gradual shrinking of competitive backup talents caused by the difficultiesin enrollment for primary sports schools, and the unsmooth "export" of thecompetitive sports system caused by the plight of re-employment of professionalathletes after they retire. Zhejiang Provincial competitive sports have gained rapiddevelopment and have made remarkable achievements since the founding of NewChina. The research attempts to solve the shrinking of backup talents through thechanges in the social class structure, to analyze the re-employment path of retiredathletes using the perspective of social mobility, and to look for the reasons affectingtheir access to employment and to further put forward development suggestions.The main hypothesis of the research is as follows:1. The process of social mobility of professional athletes has a close relationshipwith the influence of the family and social class background.2. Family is an important social institution, and its lifestyle and values in social classhave a subtle influence on whether their children engage in competitive sportstraining; the higher the social class status, the smaller the possibility of theirchildren engaging in competitive sports training.3. Family and social class background, sport events, sports scores and other variableshave different levels of influence on the re-employment of retired professionalathletes.The whole idea of the research is based on a background, that is, the differentiation ofcontemporary Chinese social class and the social change; the two basic theories ofsociology, namely, social stratification theory and the theory of social mobility areused to carry out research in three areas, namely,①the analysis on the family andsocial class background of our elite athletes,②the analysis on the path of socialmobility of our elite athletes③the research on countermeasures; four main researchmethods are used, namely, literature, expert consultation, questionnaire and socialstatistics (multiple regression, R factor analysis, path model and path structuralequation, etc.); the main theoretical viewpoints and suggestions are put forward.The possible innovation points of the research are:(1) the family background ofprofessional athletes is incorporated into the perspective of social stratification;according to certain criteria for the classification of social classes, the status of sourceof their social classes is studied, and their sport events, performance and family and social class differences related to gender are compared, to develop a sociologicalperspective for the sports selection to training.(2) the general individuals into theranks of athletes, from the quasi-professional athletes to professional athletes, andfrom professional athletes to the social status after retirement are run through, fordepicting the trajectory of social mobility of elite athletes, and the paths of socialmobility of the special groups (groups of professional athletes) are revealed bycomparing the family and social class before their professional sport careers and thesocial classes after retirement.The specific content of this paper is divided into nine chapters:Chapter Ⅰ: IntroductionThe purpose and meaning, objects and methods, content and ideas, thinking way andmethods, research focus, difficulties and possible innovation points, conceptdefinition and main theoretical basis and their support contexts are mainlysummarized and described.Chapter II: Literature ReviewThe theories and research findings related to the domestic and foreign socialstratification and social mobility and sports are mainly reviewed and sorted out tomake clear the context of the research and its location.Chapter Ⅲ: The impact of the changes in social class structure of contemporaryChina and the social mobility on professional athletes is given.Since the founding of New China, there were two major changes in Chinese socialclass. The first time was in the early years after the founding of the People’s Republicof China to before the reform and opening up, it attempted to break the old classsystem, and establish the so-called "identity system" social stratification system; thesecond time was after the reform and opening up, when the hierarchy of identitysystem gradually converted to economic stratification as before, and a hierarchicalsystem of multiple standards was formed. The following contents of this sectionprovide a brief review of these two changes, and the major ripple effects of these twochanges on professional athletes are analyzed. The process of social mobility incontemporary China has gone through two phases and five times, so in the paper, theimpact of each flow period on the groups of professional athletes is preliminarilyanalyzed and discussed.Chapter IV: Family and social class background of professional athletes of ZhejiangThrough the descriptive statistics of survey data, it has been found that in regard to thesources of family and social classes, most of the professional athletes in ZhejiangProvince are from individual business sectors, accounting for about forty five percent;followed by industrial workers and agricultural laborers, accounting for eighteenpercent and ten percent respectively; in other words, the main sources of professionalathletes in Zhejiang are in the middle and lower middle classes of families in thesociety. Compared with the Social Class Structure of Zhejiang Province, professionalathletes are relatively more from individual industrial and commercial households,relatively more are from industrial worker families, and the relative minimum arefrom agricultural farmer families. From the mutual relationship between the socialclass and sport events participated in, the professional athletes from the upper class are mainly involved to ball, swimming and big ball games, while those from the socialbottom are mainly involved to athletics and heavy athletic games. From a genderperspective, relatively more male professional athletes of Zhejiang come from thelower social class of families.Chapter V: Analysis on the influence factors of general individuals involved incompetitive sportsAfter the influence factors of general individuals involved in competitive sports wereanalyzed using factor analysis model, it is found that there are mainly six majorfactors leading to ordinary young people to participate in competitive sports trainingin Zhejiang province, that is, sports information stimulating factor, self-realizationfactor, physical skill factor, family factor, material pursuit factor, and opportunityfactor in accordance with the descending order of influence.Chapter VI: Analysis on the path of quasi-professional athletes becoming professionalathletesAfter general individuals enter spare-time sports schools to participate in training,they want to be able to go into the provincial team and become a professional athleteas the next goal. However, an important prerequisite for them into the provincial teamto become a professional athlete is the outstanding sports results to be achieved; it isundeniable that there is no lack of some individuals directly enrolled withextraordinary potential, and of course, there are other variables such as social andfamily also play a role. In this chapter, the path of quasi-athletes becomingprofessional athletes is analyzed, trying to find out the variables that affect the pace ofgeneral athletes turning into professional athletes.Chapter VII: Differences between current re-employment situations of retiredprofessional athletes of Zhejiang and employment opportunitiesThe current re-employment situations of retired professional athletes of ZhejiangProvince are analyzed, and the difference distribution of retired athletes obtainingre-employment opportunities is examined using the logistic regression model.Chapter VIII: Analysis on social mobility of professional athletes of ZhejiangProvinceBased on the previous chapters, combined with the interviews and field observations,the intergenerational mobility and intra-generational mobility of different professionalathletes are analyzed. The results show that family and social class background have acertain impact on the intergenerational social mobility and intra-generational socialmobility of professional athletes of Zhejiang Province.Chapter Ⅸ: Conclusions, Recommendations and ProspectsThe basic conclusions of the research are as follows:1. The changes in the structure of China’s social class have some ripple effects on thehierarchy sources of professional athletes.2. The social mobility of professional athletes in China is deeply affected by thenational social mobility environment, and the national political and economic policychanges are an important driving force for the mobility of elite athletes. Meanwhile,the social mobility trajectories of elite athletes living with Chinese characteristicssports system are relatively independent in the flowing tide of contemporary Chinese society, and their social mobility, to a certain extent, is able to break the strangleholdof relevant policies and take the lead social mobility of other sectors.3. The professional athletes of Zhejiang Province are mainly from the middle andlower middle classes of families. The family and social class backgrounds and urbanand rural places of residence of different project categories of professional athletes areof significant differences. The professional athletes at the upper social class aremainly involved to mall ball, swimming and big ball games, while the professionalathletes at the bottom are mainly involved in athletics and heavy athletic events. Insmall ball, swimming and gymnastics events, the proportion of professional athletesfrom the urban households has an absolute advantage, but in heavy athletic events,professional athletes are more from rural families, representing forty six percent, andthe proportion of professional athletes from urban families accounts for only twentypercent. The parents of professional athletes of Zhejiang Province have relative lackof cultural resources, showing the status of low education, that is, their educationlevels are mainly at junior middle school, senior high school or technical secondaryschool. This situation shows that the higher education of the parents, the less likely toallow their children to engage in athletic sports training.4. Family and social class background has a significant impact on professionalathletes of Zhejiang Province to participate in competitive sports training at first. Inaddition, the stimulus of sports information, the motive power of self-actualization,physical skills base, materials pursuit and opportunities and others, to varyingdegrees，also reflect the reasons for professional athletes of Zhejiang to start training.5. Family and social class background has a significant relationship withquasi-professional athletes becoming a professional athlete, and the impact is negative.The main reason is because high social classes of families have a lot organizational,economic and cultural resources, their children face a wide range of career paths forchoice, and they are mostly engaging in professional sports to prepare a springboardfor future careers.6. Family and social class background on has a significant impact on there-employment of retired professional athletes. The higher the status of social classbackground of professional athletes, the higher the chance of their employment afterretirement, for instance, the re-employment opportunities for the retired professionalathletes with social middle background are2.8times the retired professional athleteswith lower social background, and the re-employment opportunities for the retiredathletes with social upper background are5.7times the retired professional athleteswith social lower background. Gender, sport events, and sports performance also havedifferent degrees of impact on the retired professional athletes of Zhejiang Provinceaccess to re-employment opportunities. The re-employment opportunities for theretired male professional athletes of women are about1.9times for the female, andthe re-employment opportunities for the retired professional athletes that took part intrack and field, gymnastics, big ball, swimming, and small ball events are about1.9times,4.8times,7.0times,8.9times and9.9times for heavy and competitiveprofessional athletes, respectively.7. Family and social class background has some influence on intergenerational social mobility of professional athletes of Zhejiang Province, that is, the advantage ofintergenerational mobility of the professional athletes with upper and middle uppersocial class background is that they after retirement will not be reduced to the bottomof society, while different proportions of professional athletes with the social middlelower class background shift to the rural and urban jobless, unemployed,semi-unemployed class after their retirement.8. Family and social class background still has some influence on intra-generationalsocial mobility of professional athletes, that is, the vast majority of the professionalathletes with upper and middle upper social class background can have a dominantposition in the occupational field and can’t go so far as to be downward involved tothe intra-generational social mobility, and most of the professional athletes withlower-middle social class background have experienced downward intra-generationalsocial mobility.In the research, the following suggestions are put forward:1. To further carry on social restructuring, and to promote the rationalized changes ofsocial class structure.2. The government in combination with the society sets up a re-employmentattraction institution for retired athletes.3. To encourage enterprises to set up sports companies to provide employmentopportunities for retired athletes.4. To innovate the model of vocational skills for training professional athletes, and toform diversified employment channels.5. To further establish and perfect the social security system of professional athletes.6. Professional athletes should understand correctly themselves and to make theirown efforts to improve their own literacy.The shortages of the research are below:The first is the research samples were divided, and the same research sample couldnot be used; the second is a non-probability sampling of retired athletes.The pending issues to be further studied include the variation trend of social classsources of professional athletes, all classes of knowledge of and attitude tocompetitive sports, the promotion of popularization of higher education and thesources of professional athletes. |
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