Abstract: Political trust is crucial for the legitimacy of a regime. Hence, the impact of social mobility on political trust is an important topic concerned by the scholars who care about the political consequences of social mobility. Using the data from China General Social Survey (CGSS) 2006, this study not only measured the inter-generational occupational mobility, inter-generational educational mobility, and intra-generational occupational mobility of the Chinese citizens in objective dimensions before 2006, but also measured the Chinese people’s perceived social mobility and expected social mobility in subjective dimensions. Based on the respondents’ trust in the government institutions and the central media across eight social issues, a “Political Trust Index” was constructed by using factor analysis. This study further examined the effects of social mobility on political trust in China. The results showed that: (1) the political trust not only had a vertical structure, i.e., people’s trust in the government departments  at different levels of political hierarchy, but also had a horizontal structure, i.e., people’s  trust in the same government departments across different social issues; (2) the reform and the great economic development in China over the past three decades provided great opportunities for Chinese citizens to achieve upward social mobility, and brought them hopes to live a better life in the future. The experiences of intergenerational and intra-generational upward mobility, the perception and the expectation of upward social mobility all enhanced Chinese citizens’ trust of their government; (3) however, Chinese people’s experience of downward social mobility before 2006 didn’t significantly undermine their political trust yet during that time period. These findings, on one hand, explain the reason why Chinese citizens still held a relatively high political trust in their government around 2006; on the other hand, they indicate that the experience and expectation of upward mobility largely due to socioeconomic development might have contributed to the social and political stability in China.

Key words: political trust, intra-generational mobility, inter-generational mobility, perceived social mobility, expected social mobility