Research Projects
Social mobility and social capital in China and Britain, a comparative study
Principal Investigator: Prof Yaojun Li, Institute for Social Change, Manchester University
Co Investigator: Professor Yanjie Bian, Xian Jiaotong University
1 September 2011 to 31 September 2012
This project intends to conduct comparative research between China and Britain on social equality and social cohesion in the last two decades.
This project is to answer the call of the ESRC Pathfinder initiative by conducting Sino-British comparative research on patterns and trends of social inequality in the two countries (the ESRC theme of 'winners and losers amidst economic restructuring'). It also has the aim of helping the junior members in the team and the research students in the two institutions to improve their conceptual and quantitative skills in analysing large-scale social surveys relevant to the research areas. Furthermore, it wishes to build a strong evidence base for informing policy-making on social equality and social cohesion.
More specifically, we have three objectives:
Substantive research: we shall conduct systematic research on social inequality in China and Britain using the most authoritative and publicly available data sources in the two countries covering a period of nearly two decades (1996-2010). We put 'social mobility and social capital' in the title of the proposal because they are fundamental questions on social equality and social change where the two countries can be expected to display great similarity in the underlying regularities and also some systematic differences influenced particularly by China's political institutions. We wish to emphasise that we shall also conduct comparative analysis on education, employment, migration and possibly some other topics both during and after this project.
Capacity building: we shall (1) train the junior members in the team in terms of their theoretical/conceptual development and quantitative skills related to the project, (2) hold seminars/workshops for the research students in the two institutions to demonstrate the relevant theoretical issues and analytical skills so that they can develop an appreciation of the research potentials using comparative data in the two countries, and (3) develop a set of datasets with harmonised variables used in the project and deposit them to the UK Data Archive for the benefit of future researchers.
Policy relevance and impact pathways: we shall (1) develop a strong evidence base relevant to policy-making on the extent and changes of social differences in terms of educational and occupational attainment and social capital distribution in the two countries in the period covered, (2) disseminate the research findings as widely as possible by presenting them at the Summer Schools of the two institutions, at UK and international sociological conferences, at the ESRC-organised dissemination meetings, at special workshops for academic and government research communities, and via a project-specific website at the PI's institute for interested researchers to visit at all times.