ABSTRACT
Here we provide an interpretative survey of the social consequences of the political, policy and economic system transformation under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) watch. By focusing upon the last 20-year period, we identify the pre-existing root causes of, and new sources of, social inequalities in relation to dynamic processes such as marketization, migration, urbanization and the reconstitution of government functions concerning the redistribution and provision of public goods. Recent surveys (Whyte and Han 2008; Whyte 2010; Xie and Wang 2009) have produced conflicting findings suggesting on one hand the prominence of social inequality as a cause of dissatisfaction among the Chinese populace and, on the other hand, a fatalist understanding among the public that social inequality may be a logical outcome of the People’s Republic of China’s developmental stage and political legacy. We shift our attention toward equal opportunity —encompassing entitlements in access to a secured livelihood, options for upward mobility, and partaking in the spoils of economic expansion—as an emerging principle for assessing societal progress and policy efficacy. Reviewing the available evidence on social inequality and mobility that addresses the past two decades, we find strong evidence for both market and policy roots in creating more complex, highly stratified and less fluid socio-economic relations in China.
