Research On The Influence Of Rural Residents’ Household Wealth On Status Identification

Status identification has always been a popular topic in sociological research.People’s subjective status identity identification not only reflects their objective social status,but also influences people’s subjective attitudes and behavioral orientations.Along the tradition of social stratification theory,studies have been conducted to explore in depth the influence of various indicators representing objective status,such as occupation,income,education,housing and consumption,on status identity,but fewer domestic studies have analyzed the influence of family wealth on status identification.With the deepening of China’s social transformation,the gap between rural residents’ household wealth has gradually widened and the degree of wealth inequality has intensified,so it is necessary to explore the influence of wealth on social status identity,which is an important symptom of contemporary social inequality.Therefore,this study attempts to examine the unique role of the size and structure of rural residents’ household wealth on individual status identification and explore the formation mechanism of status identification of rural residents.Based on a hybrid structural-constructive theoretical perspective in the study of status identification formation mechanisms,this study argues that individual status identification is not only underpinned by the fundamental role from objective structural factors,but also that people perceive the order of social stratification in real social life.This implies that the impact of household wealth indicators,which characterize objective dimensions,on people’s status identification varies when people position their social status according to different reference groups and systems.Thus,this study examines the impact of household wealth size and structure on rural residents’ status identification and analyzes the differences in the impact of household wealth on individual status identification in both community and social frames of reference.Based on this,this study conducted a field survey in Jili City,Hubei Province,and obtained empirical data from a total of 629 rural household samples,completed the analysis of the basic characteristics of the samples,established a multiple linear regression model,and obtained the following research findings.First,the size and structure of household wealth of rural residents.Based on the household size of 5.12 persons,the mean value of net wealth of rural households living in the city in 2021 is 111,000 yuan,and the median value is68,000 yuan.The median value is only about half of the average value,which is more in line with the "thick-tailed distribution" of wealth distribution.In the composition of rural household wealth,housing assets are the largest part of the household,with the net value of total household property accounting for56.65% of the net value of household wealth.Second,the level of status identification of rural residents.Compared with the status identification of individuals in society as a whole,the trend of "status identification within the community" is more obvious,with "middle level identification" accounting for 44.83% of the total sample.44.83% of the total sample,i.e.,the majority of individuals consider themselves to be in the middle class of their community.Third,the influence of household wealth size and structure on status identification.After controlling for other variables,the size of household wealth has an independent and significant effect on the status identification.Second,the explanatory power of different composition dimensions of household wealth on the level of individual status identification varies;specifically,the higher the value of household housing assets,financial assets and durable goods,the higher the level of people’s status identification,while the size of land and productive fixed assets does not have a significant effect on the status identification of rural residents.Fourth,after introducing the relative household wealth variable,the differences in the effects of household wealth on individual status identification in the society as a whole and in specific community contexts are analyzed.The results of the study show that relative wealth does not have a significant effect on individuals’ status identification when they take the whole society as the contextual orientation of status identification,but absolute family wealth still significantly affects individuals’ self-hierarchy orientation in the whole society.On the other hand,when individuals were contextually positioned in the community,both absolute and relative household wealth significantly influenced the level of status identification within the individual’s own village community.Overall,this study analyzes the impact of the size and structure of household wealth on social status identification based on the examination of rural residents’ household wealth and social status identification.Further,based on the concept of "internal and external groups" in Merton’s reference group theory,this study distinguishes the differences in the impact of objective relative wealth variables on status identification of rural residents in two different reference frames: community and society.