Comparisons Of Intergenerational Social Class Mobility And Income Mobility In China

Intergenerational social mobility has been of interest to economists and sociologists in recent years because it is a superior indicator for measuring the changes in the socio-economic status of the father and son in the family and can well reflect the fairness and openness of the society.Social class and income as the most intuitive reflection of individual socio-economic status have become the focus of research on intergenerational social mobility.However,basing on the research of developed countries,it has been found that studying income mobility and class mobility separately often led to some conflicted findings.As a major developing country,the class mobility and income mobility of China attract the widespread concern of economists and sociologists from around the world.Since the economic reform and open up,the social class structure has undergone tremendous changes,and income distribution has also experienced serious inequalities,and there is no strict correspondence between class levels and income levels.Both class and income can be used as indicators to measure social mobility,but there is likely to be potential inconsistency between the two.After reviewing the relevant literature on intergenerational income mobility and intergenerational class mobility in China,we find that there are contradictions conclusions between the intergenerational income mobility and class mobility.In this article,we attempt to answer the following questions:Is there a significant difference between intergenerational class mobility and income mobility in China?Is the level of social mobility obtained using only a single variable of class or income reasonable and credible?To answer these questions,the research in this paper uses the China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS)data and has some innovations in analytical methods.Under the framework of the mobility table,the sample data are divided into two birth cohorts(born before 1970 and born after 1970).We examined relationships and differences between intergenerational social class mobility and income mobility by implementing a series of tests based on the following measures:log-odds ratio,global log-odds ratio and Altham's metric.And we found that:(1)the association of fathers and sons in class hierarchies is significantly higher than in the income hierarchies which implies that the intergenerational income mobility is easier than the intergenerational class mobility in China;(2)intergenerational class mobility exist significant differences between these two cohorts,but the intergenerational income mobility does not change in the survey period;(3)in cohort A,the differences of income and class mobility mainly focus on the downward mobility,while in cohort B,the differences of income and class mobility mainly focus on the upward mobility;(4)there is a very obvious status barrier between the lowest level and the higher level in both class and income mobility.Under the framework of regression model,we used the PRE method and kernel density estimation to estimate intergenerational class and intergenerational income mobility by years of birth.And we found that:(1)class mobility has shown an upward trend,then a steady trend and finally a downward trend over time,while income mobility has increased first declined later slightly after a long period of stabilization;(2)adding the survey year as the control variables increased the influence of social origin on the occupation and income of the children,but the difference between before and after adjustment was small,so it can be considered that the difference of the survey year did not cause too much deviation in the estimation of intergenerational mobility.When estimating intergenerational social mobility in China using household panel data,there is a sample selection problem which must be taken into consideration.It is possible that only the intergenerational pattern of fathering among resident fathers,those men who choose to live with their children can be observed in China,and in the absence of data of non-resident fathers and sons,a bias on our mobility estimates could be generated.We tried to adjust the bias brought about by the co-resident sample and found out that it is still possible to get reliable empirical comparative study results based on the biased sample.In conclusion,the empirical analysis shows that there is strong evidence to support the class mobility and income mobility of China having non-consistency in both fluidity levels and trend changes.When studying the intergenerational mobility in China,it is necessary to consider the impact of class mobility and income mobility.The innovations of this paper are mainly as follows.First,set up the unified comparative analysis model.There are contradictions between the results of intergenerational mobility research based on class and income,respectively.However,there is a lack of rigorous statistical empirical research on the systematic measurement of the intergenerational class mobility and intergenerational income mobility in transitional China.We put the social class mobility and income mobility tables together in a unified framework to study the differences between them.Second,build a complete comparative analysis framework.Basing on the contingency table analysis tests the relationship and difference between intergenerational class mobility and intergenerational income mobility.Then on the basis of the regression model,the PRE method and the kernel density estimation method are used to compare the smooth trend changes of intergenerational income mobility and class mobility.