Middle Class Identity in China: Subjectivity and Stratification

Abstract

In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the Chinese middle class as a potential driver of domestic sociopolitical change. This article argues that in its current stratified and fragmented form, the so-called Chinese middle class lacks a coherent social consciousness, which prevents it from taking any meaningful sociopolitical action. Interviews from Ningbo, Zhejiang, reveal a strong tendency for respondents who would be counted among the “middle class” by commonly used objective criteria to identify themselves as “salaried class”. There is a significant sense of relative deprivation found among the self-identified salaried class, who place greater emphasis on financial indicators as the primary determinants of class, compared to the self-identified middle class, who stress the importance of cultural indicators that separate them from the “parvenus”. In constructing their respective class identities, both groups use similar imaginings of the ideal “middle class”, whose cultured lifestyle rests upon strong economic foundations. The point of contrast is usually made through exclusion, rather than inclusion, which suggests that while class-based social comparison is commonplace in China, class-based social cohesion is still lacking.

关于目前日益壮大的中国中产阶层会对中国的社会政治现状带来何等影响是近年来社会学界热门的研究主题。来自浙江宁波的实证研究表明，目前中国的中产阶层存在内部分化，缺乏统一的社会凝聚力。由于相对剥夺感的作用，有一部分符合中产条件的受访者自我认同为“工薪阶层”，他们在生活中更注重金钱相关的社会分层指标，与此同时，自我认同为“中产阶层”的受访者在生活中更注重文化相关的分层指标。这两种人群在将自己和他人的社会阶层身份对比时，往往注重其与他人的不同之处，而非相同点。这说明在现阶段日常的中国社会里存在着阶层性的对比，但缺少的是阶层性的凝聚力。

Keywords:

• China
• middle class
• subjective class identity
• social stratification
• relative deprivation