Self-Reported Social Status among Rural Residents: A Case in the Outskirts of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region

Abstract

China has in recent decades undergone profound changes and continues to do so – changes that are transforming the social fabric, motivating studies on how self-reported social status is changing in different parts of China. Applying a realist approach, the study emanates from theories on self-reported social status underlining the role of reference-groups, adding insights from the work of Pierre Bourdieu by introducing the terminology of habitus and types of capital. Furthermore, the study adds a spatial scale, thereby contributing to theoretical development. Hence, the empirical study asked villagers to provide self-reported social status at village, county, national levels. The statistical analyses include objective and subjective conditions, representing economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital, as well as other factors. The results confirm the relevance of the reference-group theory, with self-reported social status decreasing from village to national level. Based on multivariate analyses, the study identifies two segments of habitus at the village level, one at the county level and one at the national level, facilitating high scores on self-reported social status. These habitus segments underline the importance of incorporating spatial scale as a theoretical dimension. Doing so, the study reveals that a habitus segment including cultural capital of farming competence is important at village and county levels but is replaced at the national level by a segment including the social capital of instruction sources related to farming, and not wanting to move. Furthermore, a habitus segment revolving around the economic capital of jobs outside farming, younger generations, and wanting to move is active at the village level. In addition to revealing reference-group differences this habitus segment also indicates that large-scale, national transitional forces are at work, facilitating new drivers for self-reported social status locally.