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Subjective well‐being is a crucial index measuring the mental health of medical staffs, and it is necessary to examine the changes in subjective well‐being (SWB) level of Chinese medical staffs with time. A cross‐temporal meta‐analysis was performed using papers that measured the SWB level of Chinese medical staffs between 2004 and 2020. Moreover, a time‐lag analysis was conducted to define whether the macro‐social indicators can explain the changes in SWB. A total of 47 papers were included in the final sample. The results revealed that score of SWB was significantly negatively correlated with the year. Score of SWB was significantly associated with six social indicators of economic condition (the residents' consumption level, housing prices, and old‐age dependency ratio), social connectedness (the divorce rate and the urbanization level), and overall threat (the crime rate), which indicated that social change may account for the decline of Chinese medical staffs' SWB level. Our study revealed a decreasing trend of Chinese medical staffs' SWB level over time, which was associated with macro‐social changes in diverse areas. In addition, combined with the corresponding macro‐social indicators, a three‐dimensional theoretical framework is proposed to explain the SWB for medical staffs as a group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the group identity is constructed in the process of individualization by reconstructing the public life of square‐dancing groups. The study finds that, on the one hand, groups whose members retired from the work‐unit and whose family structure is waning obtain institutional identities and group membership through external forces. On the other hand, groups play different roles, relying on three types of capital including power, ability, and relationships, and they ultimately reshape the collective identity of the groups with the internally made identity consensus and the externally assimilated identity mechanism. With the social changes in China, the groups have achieved identity construction during the interaction between the state and the individuals. The mutual influence of the reflexive actions of individuals and the support of the state system is also addressed in this paper. Thus, in the interaction between the state and the individual, the basic question of whether free individuals can achieve a universal connection that allows them to maintain public life is answered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by a set of evaluators building evaluation capacity in China, India, and Chile, this paper applies a conceptualization of evaluation influence to evaluations and evaluation capacity building related to inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, China has undergone tremendous economic and social change as a consequence of the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. This paper examines a key feature of this transition - the privatization of the state-owned enterprises ( SOEs) - through both a theoretical model and empirical analysis. Using newly collected primary data from a variety of sources, we study how privatization of listed SOEs affects employment, wages, profits and other aspects of economic performance at the firm level. Our major finding is that privatization results in substantial downsizing of employment, increased labour productivity and rising profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the socialised affordances of social media in the processes of collective action, exploring the role of technology in the under-researched area of civil society. We examine the case of Free Lunch for Children (FL4C), a charitable programme in China based on the microblogging platform, Weibo. Adopting the perspective of affordances-for-practice, we draw upon the collective action model to better understand the sociomaterial practices and social processes involving social media, and seek to address the 'when' and 'how' questions of affordances. The study generates theoretical and practical implications for understanding the role of social media in social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

ABSTRACT Psychoanalytic psychotherapy developed in the China in the context that mental health has become a significant social and public health problem due to the remarkable social and economic changes in the last 30 years. This paper uses the development of psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Shanghai Mental Health Center as an illustration of its benefits for China, and the difficulties and obstacles it encounters in Chinese culture. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has experienced dramatic transformations over recent decades, which has significant implications for childrearing. This study examined whether Chinese parents' perceived social change would mediate the association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's involvement in various learning activities in the home, community and extracurricular contexts. The study included 312 urban Chinese parents with preschool‐aged children. Parents completed measures on perceived social change, their involvement in children's home literacy, numeracy and play activities, as well as children's participation in community‐based activities and commercially provided extracurricular activities (EAs). The results indicated that higher‐SES parents perceived more opportunities and prospects and less work‐related risk and adversity as a function of social change. Parents who perceived more opportunities and prospects were more involved in almost all types of children's learning activities except EAs. Parents who perceived more work‐related risk and adversity only showed decreased involvement in home literacy activities. Parents who endorsed new values more strongly were more likely to enrol their children in EAs and demonstrate greater involvement in children's home literacy activities. The findings revealed substantial within‐group variations in parents' subjective experiences with social change and how parents' perceived social change might shape their ways of organising children's learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about interaction in the clinic of Dr. Song Yujin, a physician who practices “Chinese medical psychology” in Beijing, China. In particular, we highlight how Dr. Song challenges deep‐seated ideas about family, personhood, and healing among his patients. Through close study of one interaction that Dr. Song has with a patient and her family, we demonstrate how Dr. Song draws upon prosody, gaze, teaching talk, and terminology to construct a local metapragmatic framework within which his utterances, gestures, and other semiotic devices can be interpreted as appropriate and familiar yet also strange and challenging. By examining Dr. Song's approach as it occurs in a contentious clinical “border zone” involving texts, bodies, and medical practices, we demonstrate how an emphasis on the micropolitics of interaction in specific clinical contexts can complement the scholarly study of cultural, social, medical, and personal change over time. This approach, we argue, has broad implications for the ways in which linguistic anthropology can contribute to the ethnographic study of cultural change as it emerges in complex interactions that often hinge on the tension between cooperation and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family Structure is a core social unit and fundamental social change necessarily involves a redefining of such a basic structural element. The leadership of the People's Republic of China, largely through specific attention to mate selection and marital arrangements and rituals, has attempted to strengthen the conjugal bond and weaken the filial bond in the Chinese family. Information gathered from press reports, and more importantly, Chinese families, suggests significant changes have occurred in the area of mate selection. It was found that a marriage between two well-acquainted individuals characterizes one-half of rural marriages and all urban marriages of respondents since 1958. The socially and geographically mobile youth are most likely to many freely because they are beyond parental control, and they have participated in heterosexual peer relationships in school and on the job. Closer examination reveals, however, that changes in the more complex areas of obligations and responsibilities to the household and parents are much slower to manifest. The ultimate form and style of the family relationships will be in large part determined by the balance between the community and peers and the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the transition to its new status as a Special Administrative Region of China, the future of Hong Kong was the focus of the world's attention. This paper looks at the futures that were projected at the time of the transition, frequently on the basis of reference to the need to preserve some special key to the successes that the city had accomplished in the past Much of this future is already imminent in the infrastructural projects that are in already in progress, and which are based on expectations about the role of Hong Kong in China and the world. Finally, the essay explores how ordinary citizens have been living the transition. [Hong Kong, China, future, planning, transition] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociolinguistics of globalization has emerged as an important research paradigm in response to the challenges of global social change. As a country undergoing some of the most drastic changes during the past few decades, China provides a rich site for exploring the issue of language and globalization empirically and theoretically. This article seeks to map out the new socio-cultural values being produced or re-conceptualized in the process of China's transformation, with a view to understand the materiality of language use under the current conditions of global economy and geopolitics. It reviews recent research mainly from four perspectives: identity, social stratification and consumerism; English and neoliberal globalization; diversity, ethnicity and race; state and nationalism, and concludes with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines non‐farm employment in the context of Chinese rural institutional change, based on evidence from discrete‐time logistic models for event history analysis using the Life History and Social Change survey. We find the transition to non‐farm sector rose rapidly during the Great Leap Forward and market reform, while the Cultural Revolution saw it reach the lowest ebb. While male advantage prevailed exclusively during the Cultural Revolution and early marketization, education possessed a stable positive effect in all historical periods. Although the returns to different kinds of political capital vary along with institutional dynamics, intergenerational reproduction was greatly reduced after the Cultural Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will study the role that new media plays in shaping social memory by exploring China's grass-root narratives existing in blogs. By conducting a content analysis, the main features of China's storytellers are illuminated. While emphasizing the role of narratives in shaping a nation's social memory in China, explanations for the source of a new social memory are being searched. In doing so, the linear-model of cause and effect between technology and social change, including McLuhan's term 'digital village' are being questioned. The author predicts that, under today's circumstances, China's memory policy including an internalized self-censorship will still have its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of social identities in the context of international students' transition to China. Sojourners usually confront perceived threats, including adjustment to life‐changes in a new society. The transition has a general capacity to disrupt the patterned behaviour of individuals that undermine their health and well‐being. Previous studies informed by the Social Identity Model of Identity Change demonstrate that group membership and associated social identities can buffer the adverse effects of transition. However, China's story concerning international students' social identity change is not yet researched. To address this issue, in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with sixty‐three international students. The results revealed that being disconnected from old social networks due to internet restriction leads to potential identity threats during early transition. However, new group memberships with co‐national and multinational peers, communication technologies and host‐culture adaptation enhanced sojourners' well‐being and help to adapt to life‐changes in Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gradual transformation of Australia's relationship with Asia over the past half century has been accompanied by major shifts in public opinion. These changes have been prompted by numerous changes in the social composition of the electorate, by globalisation which has brought many foreign firms to Australia, and by the political elite's changing approach to engagement with Asia. There is, however, considerable elite anxiety concerning the economic and military rise of China, and these concerns are expressed in public debate and attitudes. Using opinion surveys collected over half a century, the first part of this article examines the trends emerging from debates over Australia's economic and political relationship with China. In the second part, we use the 2018 and 2020 Lowy Polls to explain who changed their views of China and why. The results suggest that the dramatic shift in attitudes towards China between 2018 and 2020 was mainly driven by concerns about foreign influence in Australian politics. Overall, public opinion towards China has become more polarised, between economic opportunity on the one hand and fear of an authoritarian neighbour on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As human society enters an 'urban age', the need to interrogate the nature of cities and urbanization processes has become more imperative. To advance this endeavour, this article suggests that the entrenched epistemological distance between the political economy and everyday urbanism approaches must be addressed and bridged. It furnishes a theoretical approach which examines how political economic changes are shaped and contoured by sensibilities and relations around urban lifestyles, identities and the phenomenology of being urban. Above all, it is interested in how urbanization acts as an organizing logic for people to envision and build everyday projects, meanings and identities. This article illustrates these arguments by developing a reading of The Chronicle of Zhalie, a novel that is also a saga of urbanization, authored by the Chinese writer Yan Lianke. Working within the genre of mythical realism, Yan provides important points of entry into theorizing the co‐production, co‐evolution and mutual constitution of urban political economy and the social, cultural and political changes at the scale of the everyday and the local. Our analysis is conducted by way of two analytical registers: the urban desiring machine and a conception of power that is relational, performative and interactive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last one hundred plus years, China, under the impact of modernization, has undergone the most significant change in the past 5,000 years. Modernization is a continuous process of protest and change. At each stage of modernization, outcomes may be regarded as the result of complex strategies and responses to those demands. This paper will address the strategies and responses that Chinese have adopted in their attempt to deal with the pressure and challenge of modernization. As a background to understanding these strategies and responses, the following four perspectives will be delineated. First, my perspective is mainly at the micro level, but I will occasionally shift to the macro level when needed. Second, my analyses will largely rely on results from empirical research. They will be supplemented by daily-life observations and appropriate conceptual or theoretical analyses. Third, Chinese intellectuals have been playing a guiding role of enlightenment, criticism, and promotion and their responses have been influential in formulating, directing, or channeling the views of the general public. A comprehensive analysis of relevant ideologies and strategies endorsed by Chinese intellectuals will be provided. Finally, the analysis of Chinese responses to modernization will be based upon the relevant literature from all the three major Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China). In addition, this paper will clarify the basic modes and specific mechanisms of adaptation to drastic environmental changes. They will be applied as conceptual tools for the analysis of Chinese intellectuals' ideological responses to modernization and psychological processes involved in accommodating cognitive and behavioral changes in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for greater recognition of the value of Mannheim's work on generations was made by Pilcher (1994). This paper will describe the ways in which one case study employed the generational perspective in an effort to understand the main trends of thought and behaviour amongst a specific social group, i.e. the 'reform generation' of young intellectuals in 1980s China. The application of Mannheim's concept to the delineation of this social generation and how it was distinctive from its immediate predecessor will be described. The idea of a social generation being more than a group of similarly aged people will be explored with respect to the empirical work carried out in the Chinese context. The subsequent identification of possible sources of internal subdivisions will also be discussed and how sample members were classified in terms of intra-generational units. The possible links between these specific groups within a generation and the process of social change will also be raised. The value of some of Mannheim's key concepts will be assessed as they were applied in the case study and the main difficulties which arise in practice will be considered. The identity and particular self-consciousness of the 1980s generation emerged during the fieldwork and there were indications of their distinctive social characteristics such as self-confidence and acceptance of the notion of playing a leading role in Chinese society which will be discussed. Whilst this article does not set out to explain the outbreak of the 1989 student- led democracy movement, it should contribute to our understanding of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent changes in China have created an unprecedented experiment in social change. In a few short years, women have moved from a position of virtual serfdom within the family system to one of economic independence in relatively egalitarian marriage relationships. This paper reviews the history of women's status before, during and after the Chinese Communists' attainment of power, and analyzes societal forces which have either promoted or inhibited family reform. Evidence suggests that despite gains made under socialism, the revolution has fallen short of its own goal of a classless society in which women have coequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on motivational patterns in Southeast Asia with special reference to the Chinese case. The motivational concerns, which favor economic and social modernization, are more prominent in the Communist Chinese stories than in the China-Taiwan stories at nearly every point. The greater impact of the Revolution on the Mainland is really not surprising: Communism has always stressed the importance of ideology, of propaganda, of whipping up enthusiasm for a new regime whereas the Western democracies have generally been cautious about trying to influence directly the values of countries they help materially. The Chinese case suggests that ideas are in fact more important in shaping history than purely materialistic arrangements. The ideological fervor, which the Russians exported to China, has been more influential in modernizing the country than all the material aid that the Western democracies have exported so far either to China-Taiwan or other countries like India. This is just one piece of evidence to support the growing conviction among social scientists that it is values, motives, or psychological forces that determine ultimately the rate of economic and social development.

The rise of the Household Responsibility System has been widely viewed as a significant contribution to China's agricultural growth. However, this empirical conclusion is rested upon a convenient but doubtful presumption that the process of institutional change, also known as decollectivization, is exogenous. We contribute to this literature by explicitly recognizing the endogeneity of institutional changes, and exploit exogenous variations in lagged weather shocks and initial fixed assets for consistent estimation. With improved data on irrigation, mechanization, weather and institutional changes in a provincial panel data during 1970–1987, the results of panel instrumental estimations reveal that the Household Responsibility System had a significantly positive effect on China's agricultural growth, which was larger than indicated by OLS estimates that suffer from adverse selection and attenuation biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the current environmental situation and social change in China, we explored the relationships between the Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) and environmental attitudes (beliefs regarding environmentally related issues), and the mediating roles of future orientation (the tendency to plan for meeting long‐term objectives) and place attachment (the emotional connection with the place of residence) in these relationships. Using a national sample from all 31 provinces of mainland China (N = 998), we found that the psychometric structure of the Dark Triad was well confirmed under Chinese culture. The Dark Triad as a whole was negatively related to environmental attitudes, but narcissism was not significantly associated with environmental attitudes when the three Dark Triad traits were considered as the predictors simultaneously. Future orientation and place attachment mediated the association between the Dark Triad and environmental attitudes. These findings enrich our understanding of the relevant variables of environmental attitudes and provide references for China's government and other developing countries to improve environmental issues. The uniqueness of narcissism could expand the understanding of the commonality and diversity among the Dark Triad traits, and an efficient tool of the Dark Triad was provided under Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article uses the city of Shanghai as a case study to analyze the changing institutional mechanisms for the new urban poverty stratum in China. Specifically, the article examines urban poverty in relation to economic restructuring and the transformation of the welfare provision system in three stages of market reforms. The article first examines the overall economic growth strategies at the national level, and then examines local government policy outcomes at the city level. The impacts of institutional changes on urban poverty and social inequality are subsequently. Finally, the article assesses the current poverty reduction policies and proposes a “social inclusion” framework to alleviate urban poverty in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When western multinational enterprises (MNEs) build end-to-end supply chains (SCs) to produce and distribute a product or deliver a service in emerging economies, the process is called supply chain localization. These companies encounter institutional environments with regulative, normative and cognitive characteristics very different from those in their home countries. SC localization uncovers and creates institutional voids; we argue that SC localization is a process of institutional change, requiring the MNE to build new institutional infrastructure. To the best of our knowledge, little is known about the institutional process of SC localization and its effects. We carry out a longitudinal case study to investigate SC localization of four MNEs in China. These MNEs are leaders of sustainable business practices in their industries, a distinction that highlights institutional voids in their SC settings. Based on the idea of fields in institutional theory, we build a mid-range theory by introducing the notion of the supply chain field. Our study identifies and contextualizes the key elements of an SC field. It recognizes MNEs, government and semi-government entities, and other participants as institutional actors who serve as architects and builders of the new SCs. We find that SC localization is an institutional process, taking place at both actor and field levels, where continuous ideation of new operations practices leads to structuring of the both the SC and SC field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Worldwide breast cancer incidence correlates with socioeconomic status and increases in parallel with westernization, however urban–rural disparity and trends have not been adequately investigated in China. Methods: The age standardized rate (ASR) of female breast cancer by population‐based cancer registration was compared between urban Shijiazhuang city and rural Shexian County in relation to socioeconomic status. The increasing trend of breast cancer in Shexian County from 2000–2015 was examined using Joinpoint analysis and the correlation with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was analyzed. Results: In 2012, the ASR of female breast cancer in Shijiazhuang was more than three times higher than in Shexian County (45.5/1 00 000 vs.13.8/1 00 000; P < 0.01) when the GDP per capita was 2.6 times higher (US$6964.80 vs. US$2700). In parallel with rapid socioeconomic development and urbanization, the biennial ASR of female breast cancer in Shexian county has increased significantly from 2.8/1 00 000 in 2000–2001 to 17.3/1 00 000 in 2014–2015, with an average biennial percent change of +10.2% (P < 0.01). The Pearson correlation between ASR and GDP was significantly positive (r = 0.94, P < 0.01). Conclusion: The incidence of breast cancer in women in China is increasing along with lifestyle westernization and changing reproductive patterns associated with socioeconomic development and urbanization. Urgent prevention measures, including the development of a healthy diet, giving birth at a younger age, an increase in breastfeeding, limiting menopause estrogen therapy, and control of alcohol consumption, are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research points to Chinese people's elevated tendency to make positive self-evaluations, despite the general claim that East Asians do not self-enhance. We present three studies in support of a novel prediction that sociocultural change in China plays an important role in augmenting self-enhancement. We operationalized self-enhancement primarily in terms of the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and accounted for trait desirability or importance. We found that: (i) compared with Chinese Canadians, Chinese showed a stronger BTAE; (ii) within the Chinese, identification with contemporary Chinese culture uniquely predicted a stronger BTAE; and (iii) priming contemporary (vs. traditional) Chinese culture led to a stronger BTAE. Finally, we provided further evidence that motivation, in part, underlies the rising Chinese BTAE. We conclude by discussing the importance of both socioeconomic and cultural perspectives for understanding how and when of self-enhancement in contemporary China and other societies undergoing social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the aspects of ethics, religion, values and the development in China. Topics discussed include the role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in the social development in the country considering their roles in providing social services, the growth on the social and political spaces for FBOs, and the contributions of Chinese scholars in promoting the role of religion.

Chinese people have held collectivistic values such as obligation, giving to other people, obedience and sacrifice of personal interests for thousands of years. In recent decades, China has undergone rapid economic development and urbanisation. This study investigates changing cultural values in China from 1970 to 2008 and the relationship of changing values to ecological shifts. The conceptual framework for the study was Greenfield's (2009) theory of social change and human development. Changing frequencies of contrasting Chinese words indexing individualistic or collectivistic values show that values shift along with ecological changes (urbanisation, economic development and enrollment in higher education), thereby adapting to current sociodemographic contexts. Words indexing adaptive individualistic values increased in frequency between 1970 and 2008. In contrast, words indexing less adaptive collectivistic values either decreased in frequency in this same period of time or else rose more slowly than words indexing contrasting individualistic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an in-depth analysis of gender differences in performance pay in China based on a unique dataset - the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China - that provides information on the different components of pay including performance pay and base pay as well as a wide array of pay determining characteristic. The share of performance pay is documented and its determinants, including gender, analysed. Particular attention is paid to gender differences in the different dimensions of performance pay: the probability of receiving it; the magnitude conditional upon receiving it; and their product being the overall unconditional magnitude. Gender differences in these dimensions are decomposed into components due to male-female differences in the endowments of characteristics that explain these dimensions of pay, and gender differences that arise even when men and women have the same endowments of such characteristics with the later component, often taken to reflect discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective In China, the rapid socioeconomic transition and the consequential traditional culture change had significant influences on Chinese older-adult depression. In the present study, the prevalence, the potential risk, and the protective factors of depression in the Chinese older population were investigated. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a nationwide representative Chinese sample of 4945 older adults; the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used as the measurement tool for depressive symptoms. Demographic and other self-reported related factors were taken into consideration. Results The prevalence of self-reported depressive symptoms (CES-D ≥ 16) in the total study population was 39.86% (pre-old: 39.95%, young-old: 39.84%, old-old: 39.65%, oldest-old: 45.19%); CES-D score was significantly higher in the oldest-old group than in the three younger groups. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis indicated that age itself was not an effective predictor for depressive symptoms, whereas family support and health status explained most of the variation. Conclusions The present study found a higher prevalence of depression in the Chinese older population compared with those reported two decades ago. Family support and health status were the most significant protective factors for depression in Chinese older adults. Traditional Chinese culture, which values family significantly and contributed to the previously reported lower prevalence rate, changed dramatically, which may explain the current higher prevalence. In addition to the deterioration of family support, the worsening of health status is another significant factor. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization and its related social, cultural, and economic changes have significant mental health outcomes for young people. However, mental health disorders among youth are seldom included in the range of problems linked to globalization. It is imperative that these multifaceted associations are considered in light of the substantial and increasing burden of disease caused by mental illness, particularly in Asian countries, which are comparatively young and in next few decades will be the major sources of the growth of world's young population. The evidence reviewed in this study makes an argument that globalization has increased [relative] poverty and deprivation, social and income inequality, migration, occupational stress, educational competition, and educated unemployment in India and China. Simultaneously there is evidence which shows that these variables are causally linked with mental health of young people. Altogether, these phenomena are accompanied by higher rates of suicide among lower class, migrant, and student youth. This substantiates the proposition that globalization has significant consequences for the mental health of young people. Some interventions for debate and discussion are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centred on two Republican-era Chinese sexologists, Zhang Jingsheng (1888-1970) and Pan Guangdan (1899-1967), this article explores the intellectual context in which the western category of 'homosexuality' was introduced to Chinese culture, thereby highlighting its production of a key epistemological rearrangement in the social significance of same-sex desire in modern China. The article proposes and develops the analytic rubric of 'epistemic modernity' to illuminate the pertinent discursive apparatus of cultural translation and negotiation, on the basis of which explicit claims of (sexual) knowledge-making were imbricated with implicit claims about cultural indicators of traditionality, authenticity and modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the ongoing process of postsocialist transformation at the intersection of cultural and economic forces in an urban environment through the example of the so-called “urban villages” in Shenzhen, China, a booming southern Chinese city and former Special Economic Zone next to Hong Kong. This essay ethnographically examines the role of former rural collectives encircled by a city that has exploded from farmland to an export-driven city of over 14 million people in little over one generation. These villages form an internal other that is both the antithesis and the condition of possibility for Shenzhen city. By co-opting the market economy in ways that weave them into the fabric of the contemporary global city, the villages become as much an experiment as the Special Economic Zone itself. This essay analyzes the urban–rural divide as complicit in each other's continued production and effacement and explores how village and city exploit the ambiguities of their juxtaposition in the making of Shenzhen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at forty-two decisions in civil pollution cases in China as a window onto judges' political logic and the accompanying implications for environmental enforcement. The starting point is a typology of judicial decision making in one-party states based on two dimensions of decisions: the degree of legal formality (e.g., how closely judges adhere to the letter of the law) and individual autonomy (e.g., judges' power to make decisions in individual cases). Mapping pollution decisions onto this typology highlights shifting judicial strategy. While Chinese judges typically comply with instructions when the political pressure is dialed up, a combination of shifting incentives, uncertainty about the law, and political ambiguity can also allow de facto discretion in low-profile, run-of-the-mill cases. Everyday cases tend to cluster under the rubric of “rough justice” in which judges weigh competing political priorities and aim for a livable compromise that dents but upholds the status quo. This sample of cases also shows judges occasionally innovating at the margins by offering new legal interpretations or validating new types of claims. Although Chinese courts remain weak tools for environmental protection, limited innovation suggests that they can help nudge along local incremental social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like income inequality, housing inequality in urban China is strongly affected by state policies that give preferential treatment to insiders. In this case, the key policies are related to their residence status, which involves not only their migration history but also their legal position. Using data from the Chinese census of 2000 for eight large cities, this study shows how residence status affects access to various pathways to housing. In addition to the well-known marginal housing situation of the recent ‘floating population’, it documents surprising advantages for migrants with urban registration status and persistent disadvantages for rural migrants regardless of how long they have lived in the city. Résumé Comme l’inégalité de revenu, l’inégalité de logement dans les villes chinoises est nettement affectée par les mesures étatiques qui privilégient les résidents en place. En l’occurrence, les politiques déterminantes s’attachent au statut de résidence, ce qui recouvre à la fois l’historique migratoire des individus et leur situation juridique. À partir des données du recensement chinois de 2000 dans huit grandes villes, l’étude montre comment le statut de résidence influe sur l’accès aux différents canaux conduisant à un logement. Outre la condition de logement marginale bien connue de la «population flottante» récente, sont exposés les surprenants atouts des migrants qui sont enregistrés comme urbains, et les inconvénients persistants que rencontrent les migrants ruraux quelle que soit la durée pendant laquelle ils ont vécu dans la ville. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market transition in China has resulted in significant social inequality, including housing inequality, in a formerly egalitarian society. This article provides both a conceptual framework and an empirical analysis of housing inequality in transitional urban China. Using the 1995 1% Population Survey and the 2000 Census data for Beijing, it shows that there was significant housing inequality between different socio-economic and institutional groups, and that the reforms in the late 1990s aggravated it. While emerging market mechanisms began to contribute to housing inequality, socialist institutions such as the household registration ( hukou) system continued to be significant in the late 1990s, although there is evidence of the declining importance of other institutional factors such as political status. This study contributes to the market transition debate by arguing that different elements of the socialist institutions follow different paths in the reform and thus have different impacts on social inequality. Résumé En Chine, le marché de transition s’est traduit par une inégalité sociale considérable, y compris en matière de logement, dans une société autrefois égalitaire. Cet article fournit un cadre conceptuel et une analyse empirique de l’inégalité du logement dans la Chine urbaine en transition. Exploitant les données de l’enquête sur 1% de la population nationale de 1995 et celles du recensement de 2000 pour Beijing, il montre qu’il existait une nette inégalité de logement entre différents groupes socio-économiques et institutionnels, laquelle a été aggravée par les réformes de la fin des années 1990. Tandis que les mécanismes d’un marchéémergent se sont mis à alimenter l’inégalité de logement, des institutions socialistes telles que le système d’enregistrement des ménages (hukou ) ont gardé leur prépondérance, même si on peut démontrer le recul d’autres facteurs institutionnels comme la position politique. Cette étude s’inscrit dans le débat sur le marché de transition en affirmant que différents éléments des institutions socialistes suivent des trajectoires différentes dans le cadre de la réforme, ayant donc des impacts différents sur l’inégalité sociale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution evaluates the geopolitical and technical issues involved in climate stabilization and discusses alternative technical paths towards the required emission reductions in the US, China and the world. There are no plausible scenarios in which climate stabilization is compatible with a pace of capital accumulation required for economic and political stability under a capitalist system. Meaningful and effective actions towards climate stabilization presuppose and require fundamental social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research in the West has established major socio-demographic correlates of fear of crime. The interpretation of these correlates is typically based on the concept of physical or social vulnerability of individuals. These correlates are implicitly regarded as invariant to social or community contexts, reflecting universal human behavioral patterns. The present study argues that social change may alter patterns of perceptions associated with fear among socio-demographic groups, thus affecting socio-demographic correlates of fear of crime. We explore how social changes in China have created a generational gap that influences the effects of age and education on fear of crime. The study finds that, in contrast with the well-established patterns in Western communities, the young and educated exhibit a higher level of fear of crime in urban China than their counterparts. The study also finds that consistent with Western literature, females are fearful and that personal victimization experience increases the level of fear. We discuss the social and community processes that produce these interesting patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“There is beginning and ending. There is cause and consequence in everything. Knowing what comes first and what comes later is close to Tao.” Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic political, economic, and social changes in China over the past several decades have been accompanied by much discussion in popular media and among academics of a fundamental transformation in Chinese sexual behavior. Several studies have examined current Chinese sexual behavior but have been limited to particular provinces or cities and have been based on non-random samples. The potential threat of a generalized HIV epidemic in China highlights the dearth of population-based information on current patterns of sexual behavior that could help design better intervention strategies and prevent misguided ones. This article uses data from the first national probability survey of adult sexual behavior in China completed during 1999–2000, along with a historical and literature review, to address three key questions: 1) Has there been a revolution in sexual behavior in China? 2) Is China unique compared to other countries in these transformations? 3) What are the implications of these findings for China's risk of a generalized HIV epidemic? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's development over the last few decades has been characterized by high rates of economic growth, large-scale migration from rural areas to the fast-growing cities accompanied by changes in lifestyles, and steady population growth. These developments have left deep marks on resource availability and quality. In this article we conduct a scenario analysis of how lifestyle changes and other major developments might affect water resources. China has the longest tradition in river and water resource management in the world. Its civilization has sought to control the effects of floods and drought for thousands of years and has utilized water flows for irrigation and navigation. In the last century, competing uses such as domestic, municipal, and industrial water consumption have also become reasons for the regulation of and large-scale abstraction of water. To investigate the major changes in economy and society and their effects on the water situation in China, a set of scenarios is developed and analyzed within a structural economics framework. A hydrological model that represents water flows in the major watersheds is linked to a regional input-output model that represents socioeconomic activities in the major economic-administrative regions of China. The regional analysis shows that the North and Northwest regions are water-scarce and that lifestyle changes and technical shifts are the most important factors driving future water consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses tabulations from the 2000 Population Census of China along with a micro level data sample from the census to provide a picture of China's floating population. The "floating population," or "hukou" refers to the large and increasing number of migrants without local household registration status. The growth of this population group reflects fundamental social and demographic changes in Chinese society since the early 1980s. It would have been very difficult to imagine such a large number of individuals living outside of their places of household registration 30 years ago, for the simple fact that one could not survive in cities without local hukou status at that time. China's market reforms since the late 1970s have significantly weakened the government's control over geographic mobility and its ability to enforce the hukou system. Despite the demographic importance of this population, estimates of its size are wide ranging and little is known about its impact on communities of origin and destination.

Rapid urban growth in China has been accompanied by rising social inequality and marginalization of disadvantaged social groups such as laid-off workers of the state-owned enterprises and rural migrants. The Chinese government has officially acknowledged the existence of ‘marginal groups’ and prioritized combating the new urban poverty as an urgent task to eliminate the root of potential social instability. This article proposes the concept of ‘poverty of transition’ from the institutional change perspective to examine how the ‘new’ urban poverty is created by the disjuncture between the old and new institutions. Specifically, the poverty of transition suggests that the main cause of the new poverty is structural, i.e. economic restructuring and the release of redundant workers previously hidden inside the workplace, and the increasing migrant population who are excluded from the formal urban institutions. A sizable underclass is now under formation in the sense that they are institutionally detached from mainstream urban society. To close the disjuncture between the marketization of laborers and the transition in welfare provisions requires more than just a policy of poverty relief; instead it requires a fundamental vision of the new ‘citizenship’ in the Chinese city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Social movements transform participants' identities. Why they do so is an unresolved puzzle. I argue that for participants, social movements are liminal phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. As such, the transformative power of social movements depends on their degree of liminality. Those that approximate most to the pure type of the liminal offer to the participants high degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. They transform identities most powerfully. In the 1960s, China's Red Guards experienced a profoundly liminal movement. As a result, an age-cohort that was coming of age began to recreate itself. The personal transformations of the Red Guards would persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 Chinese student movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FOUR THEMES ARE evident in the studies of urban China (Taiwan, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China) over the last thirty years: the relationship between state policy and economic development; the urbanization and transformation of Chinese society; socialism's impact on the urban infrastructure; and, more recently; the effect of market reforms on urban stratification, family composition and organization, and forms of cultural expression. This essay presents a bibliography of writings on urban China (1949-1998). Much of this literature is drawn from disciplines other than anthropology and is relatively recent, (51 percent or n=143 out of 240 were published in the last eight years). The essay also discusses the thematic topics and more recent writings representative of research in the field. [China, cities, market reform, social change] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]