Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2017, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 216-242.

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Regional Differences of Subjective Social Status in China:Using Anchoring Vignettes to Analyse Data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies in 2012

SONG Qingyu, QIAO Tianyu   

  1. Department of Sociology, Peking University
  • Online:2017-11-20 Published:2017-11-20
  • Supported by:

    This research was supported by China Scholarship Council(201606010196)

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Abstract:

Subjective social status is a critical topic in the field of social stratification, because it can reflect an individual's position in social status hierarchy as well as his/her view of social structure. However, empirical subjective social status data often have the problem of interpersonal incomparability because respondents may understand questions in completely different ways in survey research. Previous studies assume that different individuals' criteria on evaluating subjective status are equal and thereby ignore the influence of criterial difference when assessing subjective social status,which lead to the potential risk of biased or even wrong results. In recent years,to address ameliorate these problems,many social scientists begin to introduce innovative methods to investigate the impact of the different criteria in subjective evaluation,and the Anchoring Vignettes method is one of them. Using data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies in 2012, this article uses the anchoring vignettes method to analyze the subjective social status in China. The anchoring vignettes method allow us to detect the accurate subjective social status by correcting interpersonally incomparable survey responses. After accounting for the criterial difference using the anchoring vignettes method,we find that there is a regional difference in subjective social status in China. Subjective social status was significantly influenced by one's achieved status such as education and occupation in economically developed areas. However,there is no common criterion in developing areas. This study suggests the complexity of the concept of subjective social status,which requires researchers to be cautious when use this concept. This research also showsthe strength of Anchoring Vignettes in analyzing subjective and abstract concepts and it has great implications for future research in social science.

Key words: subjective social status, Anchoring Vignettes, regional difference