Discordance between subjective and objective social status in contemporary China

Abstract

This study investigates the divergence between subjective and objective social status in contemporary China, using the unique data assembled from 10 waves of nationally representative surveys from 2003 to 2012. We construct the measure of status discordance by subtracting objective status generated by latent class analysis from self-rated social position. We find that more than half of urban residents in China underestimated their genuine social positions, while more than half of rural residents overestimated it. Regression analyses demonstrate that (1) family income, education, and occupational prestige are negatively correlated with status discordance; (2) the perceived upward social mobility is positively correlated with status discordance; and (3) the effects of objective indicators and perceived mobility differ between urban and rural residents.

Relations Between Socioeconomic Status, Subjective Social Status, and Health in Shanghai, China

“…Recently, two studies have looked directly at the trends and factors related to SSS as the outcome of interest. The first of these studies found that, relative to the nation's average, rural Chinese's SSS reflects an overestimation of their objective SES while urban Chinese's reflect the opposite (Chen and Fan, ). The second study leveraged longitudinal data to show that, while rising, Chinese tend to place themselves lower on a subjective ladder than do their Western counterparts (Chen and Williams, ).…”

Subjective well‐being in the new China: religion, social capital, and social status

“…In the Chinese context, feelings of status have been shown to be a particularly acute determinant of well‐being, even when controlling for objective indicators of socioeconomic position (Zhao ). Existing survey evidence suggests particularly acute status anxiety in China (Chen and Fan ) and that this anxiety has been getting stronger as inequality has grown over the last two decades (Chen and Williams ). The connection between religion and feelings of status in determining well‐being has not yet been established in China, however, despite the strong growth in religion and status anxiety over this period.…”

“…Third, another strand in the existing literature purports that religious beliefs can act as a psychological buffer against life's changes and uncertainties, providing an enduring sense of meaning and purpose for adherents, independent of the (rapidly changing) socioeconomic context on feelings of self‐concept and well‐being (Norris and Inglehart ; Inglehart ). Recent survey evidence suggests a trend of growing status anxiety as one of the most salient consequences of rapid social change in China (Chen and Fan ; Chen and Williams ). As social status is a strong independent predictor of well‐being (Zhao ), and perhaps increasingly so, we conjecture if higher levels of well‐being are found for adherents relative to the non‐religious in China, this could in part be due to the higher sense of self religion affords to adherents, who we conjecture might be less psychologically affected by their socioeconomic conditions than the non‐religious.…”

The adjustment of social trust and Internet use on cognitive bias in social status: Perspective of performance perception

“…Referring to the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status developed by Ganzeboom et al (1992), occupational codes were transformed into occupational prestige, and then the occupational status was divided into five levels. This study referred to Chen and Fan (2015), and using latent category analysis fitting, the three indicators of income, occupational status, and education level were combined into an indicator of objective social status (Adler et al, 2000). The statistics of each latent class model are shown in Table 1.…”