Table of Content

30 September 2015, Volume 1 Issue 3

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The guanxi influence on occupational attainment in urban China

Yanjie Bian, Xianbi Huang

2015, 1(3):  307-332.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15593709

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This article addresses a long-standing controversy about whether or not the influence of guanxi on occupational attainment has been on the decline during China’s market reforms. The authors argue that guanxi continuously plays an influential role in facilitating occupational attainment when China’s labor markets face a great deal of institutional uncertainty. A large-scale survey of job seekers shows that the number of Chinese job seekers who used guanxi contacts to secure employment increased from 40 percent in 1978 to 80 percent in 1999. Job seekers’ ties to guanxi contacts were predominantly strong rather than weak, and these ties were used to obtain both job information and the influence of guanxi favoritism. As compared to information gainers, influence gainers were significantly more satisfied with job outcomes, more satisfied with work relations, and better able to obtain soft-skill jobs when market reforms were deepening in the 1992–1999 period.

Statistical coherence of primary schooling in IPUMS-International integrated population samples for China, India, Vietnam and ten other Asia-Pacific countries

Robert McCaa, Lara Cleveland, Patricia Kelly-Hall, Steven Ruggles and Matthew Sobek

2015, 1(3):  333-355.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15593710

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IPUMS-International disseminates harmonized census microdata for more than 80 countries at no cost, although access is restricted to bona-fide researchers and students who agree to the stringent conditions-of-use license. Currently over 270 samples are available, totaling more than 600 million person records. Each year, 15–20 additional samples are released, as more countries cooperate with the IPUMS initiative and the integration of 2010 round census samples is completed. With so much microdata so readily available, questions of data quality naturally arise. This article focusses on the concept of statistical coherence over time for a single concept, primary schooling completed. From an analysis of the percentage completing primary schooling by birth year for pairs of samples for 13 Asia-Pacific countries, outstanding coherence is found for four countries – China, Mongolia, Vietnam and Indonesia – with mean differences of less than 0.5 percentage points, regression coefficient (b) ranging from 0.93 to 1.07 and R² = 0.99. For the 13 countries as a group there is considerable variation overall with mean absolute difference as high as 16 percentage points, b ranging from 0.62–1.44 and R² = 0.65–0.99. As a whole, statistical coherence of primary schooling is outstanding. Nonetheless, to make expert use of the harmonized microdata, researchers are cautioned to carefully study the IPUMS integrated metadata as well as the original source documentation. National Statistical Offices not currently cooperating or that have not yet entrusted 2010 round census microdata are invited to do so.

Assimilation paths of immigrant children: Asian Indians and Filipinos compared

Zhenchao Qian and Priyank Shah

2015, 1(3):  356-379.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15594077

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Modes of accommodation and adaptation may influence minority immigrants’ assimilation outcomes. Using census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, we follow the Asian Indians and Filipinos who were 0–19 years old in 1980 and immigrated to the US in the 1970s. We apply cohort analysis to compare their educational attainment when they became 20–39 years old in 2000 with that of their parents in 1980 and 1990. Educational attainment, on average, was lower among Filipino immigrant children than among their parents but higher among Asian Indian immigrant children than among their parents. We then explore differences in educational attainment and intermarriage patterns between Asian Indians and Filipinos. Asian Indians were much more likely to complete college, but far less likely to marry whites than Filipinos. These findings offer the basis for the discussion of different paths of assimilation among middle-class immigrants.

The Communist Party of China’s local leadership, organizational form, and rural society in the 1920s, illustrated by Zeng Tianyu and the Jiangxi Wan’an rebellions

Xing Ying and Xia Li

2015, 1(3):  380-418.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15593712

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The Communist Party of China (CPC) transplanted the democratic centralism of the Soviet Union’s Communist (Bolshevik) Party as its own organizational system in its founding days. This system underwent difficult adjustments during the process of the Chinese revolution. After the meeting on 7 August 1927, the CPC started organizing rebellions in rural areas, which presented severe challenges to its organizational principles and capabilities. The particular circumstances of armed rebellion complicated the relationship between the local party members who organized the rebellion and the upper levels of the party, as well as the relationship between the local party leader and the party system. The Jiangxi Wan’an rebellion was one of the rebellions organized by the CPC after the 7 August meeting. Zeng Tianyu, head of the Wan’an rebellion, represents a certain type of local leader of the early CPC. Moreover, the conflicts in the CPC organizational system exposed in the organizing of the Wan’an rebellion were also typical during the period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War. Employing documents, data of organizations, memoirs, gazetteers, and journals in the fields of CPC history, social history, and the history of the Republic of China, this article investigates Zeng Tianyu’s life history and ethos, the background and process of the Wan’an rebellion, and the effort and failure of the upper level of the party in its attempts to strengthen the CPC organization in Wan’an. This article uncovers three kinds of tension in the organization of the early CPC: (1) tension between the officials’ authority and personal factors, (2) tension between the effectiveness of the organizational discipline and the autonomy of local leaders, and (3) tension between the organizing of the revolution and the traditional resources and local interests. These tensions can also explain a series of the CPC’s organizational events that happened during the same period.

The Land Revolution in China from an academic history perspective: Changes of topics and paradigms

Qingyan Meng

2015, 1(3):  419-446.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15593713

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The Land Revolution is considered to be the most important factor that led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the completion of its military mobilization and the final revolutionary victory in China. It is also a hot research subject with regards to the revolution in modern China from the standpoint of many disciplines, including law, economics, political science, history, sociology and anthropology. This article presents a critical review of the studies on the issues relating to the CCP’s Land Revolution that focuses on three facets of the research in this area: problematique, theoretical paradigms and specific topics. The review uses a new framework to look at four traditional lines of research: studies of China’s revolutionary history in America since the 1950s, studies of the history of the Chinese Communist Party since the founding of New China, studies of Chinese social and economic history since the 1930s, and studies of oral histories since the 1990s. Based on a careful review of the current literature related to the issues involved in the CCP’s Land Revolution, the article is critical in clarifying the problematique process of the Land Revolution from the angle of academic developmental history in order to learn what internal roadmaps and developmental paths operated within academia, explore the problems and limitations of various research traditions and theoretical perspectives, and lay the foundation for future research on the Land Revolution.

The voice of migrants: How does hukou affect the public consciousness and participation in China?

Zhao Chen, Ming Lu and Yiqing Xu

2015, 1(3):  447-468.  doi:10.1177/2057150X15593719

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Based on the China General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2010, this article investigates the impact of hukou status on urban residents’ public consciousness and public participation. Public consciousness includes the self-reported ability regarding political participation, the self-reported confidence in evaluating the government’s activity, the anticipation of the effectiveness of public participation, and the individual attitude indicating public consciousness, while public participation includes voting for neighborhood committee members, voting for property owner committee members, participating in public activities in the local community, and being involved in group events. We find that non-local hukou status has some negative effects on migrants’ public consciousness, and the effects are not significantly weakened by increases in migrants’ income or education levels. Migrants are more passive in public participation, mainly because of the institutional constraints. However, concerning involvement in group events or attitudes toward unfair treatment from the government, migrants are not that different from local citizens. That is to say, if no institutionalized mechanism effectively responds to migrants’ reasonable appeals, migrants might fight for their rights by engaging in public activities, such as group events, which may lead to social instability. We also find that urban residents with higher education levels or more income have stronger public consciousness, although their public participation is not necessarily more frequent.