Life And Modernity Of City Residents In Republican China, 1928-1937

Human society has become more and more vulgar since the modernization; human beings themselves have been considered as the criterion of life and history. Modernity turns to be a key to the analysis of social change. It is necessary for us to focus on the metric analysis in order to ensure the reliability of our research about life and modernity of the city residents in Republican China. Our metric analysis is based on a lot of statistical data about the Republican China. Since human life is full of variety, it is necessary for us to construct a social indicator system. The social indicator system we construct consists of three first-stage indicators: material life indicator, group life indicator, and mental life indicator.The cities in modern China are of new characteristics in many aspects. The total urban population increases continuously. The number and size of cities increase too. Urbanization is driven by industry and commerce, and is of characteristics of locality, classification and congenital limitations. There have been great developments in cities droved by the government and the market since the establishment of Nanking Government. There are no general standards for us distinguishing urban population from rural population. No matter what standard is taken, the proportion of urban population in total has risen in the same period. From the population registers in voting areas in 1936, we can estimate roughly urban population and its distribution, and determine our beginning of study on the life and modernity of city residents in Republican China.Material life can be measured with three second-stage indicators, which consist of income and consumer price index, expenditure and structure of consumption, and public health circumstances. Because of a great variety of occupation, position, location, property and other aspects, city residents remarkably differentiate themselves in income and consumption. Their consumption in 1928-1937 keeps steady at the level of necessities. Their consumption is higher than that of rural residents. Public health circumstances in cities are better than that in villages; and these decrease the possibility of prevalence of infectious diseases, reduce the death rate, display the effects of modern medicine, and influence people's ideas of life, diseases and death.Group life, which focuses on the relations among people, can be measured with four second-stage indicators, which consist of family life and women status, activities in organizations and associations, general interactions, and social deviances. Marriage is more advantageous to individuals in cities than to those in villages. Family size becomes smaller than before. Nuclear family becomes the main family type. Democracy appears more and more in family. And women get more and more rights and chances. Organizations and associations become the schools of cultivation of individuality, and people can be there consciousness of their person and rights as citizen, and develop their abilities for social participation. And with the development of communication means, the interactions in cities become also less emotional. The less steady relations of persons lead to a decrease of social integrityand an increase of social deviances. It seems to me that to ascribe the increase of social deviances to the factors such as poor and family conflict is wrong.Cultural life can be measured with three second-stage indicators, which consist of education and culture conditions, learning and relaxation, mentality and aspirations. There are remarkable improvements in elementary, secondary, higher, and social education and in mass media in Republican China. Cities, especially big cities, have better conditions than country. This not only means an inequality of education chance, but also segregates rural residents from modern civilization. The proportion of educated people in cities is much higher than that in villages, and the activities of relaxation in the former are much more modern than those in the latter. However, the fundamenta...