Party matters: Essays on social stratification in reform era China

Over the past two decades, China has experienced rapid economic growth, which has fundamentally altered the social and economic fabric of society. The implementation of economic reforms and GDP annual growth rates over 8 percent raise questions about the consequences of this transformation for social and economic stratification. This dissertation is comprised of three distinct essays related to stratification in reform-era urban China. These essays explore the consequences of this economic transformation for earnings inequality and the emerging reward structure. The essays reveal significant changes in the reward structure in reform-era urban China. Multiple processes are converging to concentrate the benefits of economic reform in an elite class of highly educated Communist Party members.; In the first essay, I use data from two large-scale economic surveys to assess the changing distribution of earnings. I apply hierarchical-linear models to examine both temporal and regional variation in earnings inequality, decompose the structural and residual components of this change, and identify the relationship of regional variation in earnings inequality to regional variation in economic growth. I find that the earnings returns to both schooling and to Communist Party membership increase substantially between 1988 and 1995. In fact, the association between earnings and Communist Party membership approximately doubles. I also find that the increases in aggregate inequality and the return to schooling are inversely related to the regional rate of economic growth.; In the second essay, I further examine the relationship between earnings and Communist Party membership. I apply multiple statistical approaches, including propensity score based-methods and various econometric selection models, to determine whether this association represents causation, selection, or both. I illustrate the sensitivity of causal inference to the assumptions underlying each analysis. The association between Communist Party membership and earnings appears to have components attributable both to causation and selection.; In the third essay, I examine the reciprocal effects of higher education and Communist Party membership in an effort to assess the conjunction of the two status hierarchies. I estimate discrete-time proportional hazard models of party membership and college entry to determine whether the processes differed in the pre and post-reform eras. I find evidence supporting the hypothesis that three mechanisms contribute to the conjunction of higher education and Communist Party membership: selective recruitment, structural advantage, and common factors. People with higher education are significantly more likely to join the party, and party members are more likely than non-members to enter college. Moreover, both joining the party and entering college are similarly affected by a common set of factors, including ability and parental political capital.