Projects per year
Abstract
Economic inequality in China has increased significantly over the past four decades, and I examined the cultural resources that Chinese people have deployed to frame this new inequality. Based on 75 interviews with Chinese people, I identified three framings of inequality: The meritocratic framing views inequality as the result of differences in effort, ability or contribution; the developmental framing emphasizes that because everyone is doing materially better than four decades ago, it does not matter that economic inequality has increased; and what I call the difference-order framing, which emphasizes that individuals are born into different families with different levels of resources; therefore, they cannot be equal, which is not unfair. As such, even though China was a much more economically equal society just a few decades ago, available cultural resources enable Chinese people to frame inequality in ways that justify, rather than problematize, the phenomenon.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Socio-Economic Review |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 2 |
Pages (from-to) | 1083–1101 |
Number of pages | 19 |
ISSN | 1475-1461 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2023 |
Keywords
- China
- culture
- ideology
- inequality
- moral norms
- stratification
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Just Worlds
Frederiksen, M., Didia-Hansen, J. & Østerby-Jørgensen, A. M.
AAU strategi talentpleje og tværvidenskab, Independent Research Fund Denmark | Social Sciences, Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Carlsbergfondet
01/05/2018 → 31/12/2023
Project: Research