Family background and life chances in urban China, 1950--1996

This dissertation provides a better understanding of social stratification in socialist China from an inter-generational perspective. Overall, I present empirical evidence from a nationally representative dataset from China and demonstrate the impact of family background on the attainment of education, communist party membership and occupation.; I first investigate China's socialist revolution: the composition of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revolutionaries, the transition from a revolutionary party to a ruling party for the CCP, and the impact of the revolution on life chances. I argue that China's socialist revolution was a manifestation of elite competition. The CCP members who joined the revolution before 1949 were from relatively well-off families. During the power takeover in 1949, the CCP quickly formed a new elite with superior human capital and managerial know-how through three steps: relocating highly-educated party members into the urban sector, promoting highly-educated party members into leadership positions, and dividing and co-opting the old elite. After the dust of the socialist revolution subsided, China embarked on a journey whereby supporters of the CCP were rewarded and dissenters punished in the name of social equality.; Under China's socialist regime, different families (new elite families, party member families, old elite families, and humble families) competed for life chances: education, party membership, and occupation. While the CCP attempted to carry on the spirit of revolution and enforce state intervention in the name of social equality during 1950--1977, it achieved limited success. While state intervention was designed to combat the inherited family advantage of old elite families, it lacked the mechanism to rein in the advantage of new elite families and party member families. In fact, state intervention even amplified their advantage by providing them with more favoritism than the humble families received. After state intervention officially ended in 1978, new elite families and party member families gained further freedom to use their political connections for personal gains, and old elite families recovered from the previous discrimination and excelled in educational and occupational attainment. Throughout 1950--1996, social equality was as elusive as ever, and humble families were robbed of the promised equality of a socialist state.