In the last two decades of the twentieth century, following the worldwide collapse of communism, China ascended from being one of the most egalitarian societies in the world to one of the more unequal. Wang Feng documents the process of rising inequality in urban China during this period, and explores the underlying structural forces that define China's emerging social landscape.

By treating social categories created under socialism, such as cities and work organizations, as explicit forces generating inequality, the author reveals a pattern that embodies both enlarging inequality between social categories and persistent equality within them. This pattern is traced to China's post-socialist political economy and to a long-existing cultural tradition that places a premium on harmony and group solidarity. China's great reversal from equality to inequality is a powerful example of how social categories, not individual traits and preferences, structure and maintain inequality.

FENG WANG

Professor, Sociology

School of Social Sciences

Ph.D., University of Michigan, Sociology

Research

Interests Comparative demographic, economic, and social processes, social inequality in state socialisms, contemporary Chinese society

Academic

Distinctions Book Award. Asia and Asian American Section. American Sociological Association. 2009.

Allan Sharlin Memorial Award for Best Book in Social Science History. Social Science History Association. 2000.

Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Social Demography. Sociology of Population Section, American Sociological Association, 2000.

Distinguished Assistant Professor for Research, University of California, Irvine, 1999

Distinguished Service Award, the East-West Center, 1990