Who Get Ahead And Who Fall Behind?Structure And Determinants Of Public Beliefs About Stratification:A Comparison Of The United States And China

The study examines a related but rarely studied issue in social stratification research:how the public believes about social inequality and what determine their beliefs.Two specific dimensions of inequality are chosen as the dependent variable in this study,whether people believe in a meritocratic society and how they would explain the causes of poverty/wealth.The study takes on a comparative perspective to examine the public stratification beliefs in the two largest economies,the United States and China,using national representative data from 2010 General Social Survey,201 6/17 Pew Political Survey of the United States,and 2010 China Family Panel Survey.The descriptive statistics,OLS regressions,and logistic regressions have uncovered several important findings about the structure and determinants of the beliefs.First,though the two societies have been through increasing social inequality during the decades,people in both countries are still convinced by the dominant ideology of meritocracy,believing in the importance of meritocratic elements in getting ahead in life.Second,for the determinants of the beliefs in the United States,it is shown that young,more educated Whites are more likely to believe in meritocracy and attribute poverty to individual factors.Older,lower class racial minorities,in contrast,are more likely to recognize the importance of non-meritocratic elements and provide a structuralist explanation for being poor/rich.In China,it is the more disadvantaged rural citizens that hold stronger faith in meritocracy.Higher education predicts stronger belief in meritocracy.Women are less likely to endorse meritocratic values.Third,for the variation in determinants by race,the regressions show that in the United States the positive associations between education/political conservatism and belief in meritocracy are unique to Whites,suggesting the cross-class consensus among racial minorities on inequality.However,in China,the positive effects of education on meritocratic beliefs are even stronger for the disadvantaged rural population.The comparison between stratification beliefs in the United States and China reveals the similar dominant meritocratic ideology in two societies on the one hand;on the other hand,it also demonstrates the differential social construction of categorical inequality(race in the US;hukou in China),different level of social and informational segregation related to the two types of social categories,and the nuanced role of education in reaching ideological consistency.