Hukou System Influencing the Structural, Institutional Inequalities in China: The Multifaceted Disadvantages Rural Hukou Holders Face

Jason Hung
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Jason Hung: Department of Sociology, The University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0SZ, UK

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: In this paper, the author investigates rural Chinese citizens’ encounters of structural and institutional inequalities and social (im)mobility. The author addresses social (im)mobility from a holistic perspective (i.e., in institutional, occupational, social, educational, cultural and political dimensions). In this regard, the author explores if a range of parental disadvantages serve as significant hindrances to the acquisition of social mobilising opportunities among the next generations in rural Chinese contexts. Here a holistic presentation helps understand the nuanced relationship between institutional barriers (i.e., rural hukou status) and alternative obstacles to social mobility; and explore, in part, how parental inheritance of rural hukou status would bar individuals’ from socially mobilising and result in some forms of unsustainability. Previous research on China restrictively measures social (im)mobility from limited perspectives, failing to fully and accurately reflect the extent of social (im)mobility Chinese populations face. This paper is a comprehensive literature review where relevant Chinese literature, exclusively found in the e-library system of the University of Cambridge, is included and thoroughly discussed. Articles that include the keywords of “ hukou ”, “China”, “social mobility” and (a) “economic”, (b) “social”, (c) “cultural”, (d) “linguistic” or (e) “political” are extensively studied, in a hope to understand the existing scholarship on multifaceted social (im)mobility in Chinese contexts. The author argues that, despite the 2014 hukou reform, further loosening the requirements for rural-to-urban hukou conversion should be prioritised by the Central Government of China in order to ensure the rural-urban divide and structural and institutional inequalities rural hukou holders face can curtain.

Keywords: social inequality; social stratification; social mobility; social reproduction; economic capital; social capital; cultural capital; political capital; China; migration; labour migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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