中国民众主观社会地位的地域差异基于对CFPS2012成人问卷数据的“虚拟情境锚定法”分析

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

本文基于"中国家庭动态跟踪调查"的2012年成人问卷数据,通过"虚拟情境锚定法"研究中国民众的主观社会地位差异,探讨当前中国社会的分层现状。研究显示,当前中国社会居民的主观社会地位存在地区差异。在中国现代化发展程度较高的地区,个体的后致性因素(如教育、职业等)对社会地位认同具有更加显著的影响,而在欠发达地区,还没有形成稳定的评价标准。本研究体现了"虚拟情境锚定法"善于处理主观抽象概念的特征,这种方法在未来的社会科学研究中将会有很广泛的应用空间。

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.