无关的流动感知：中国社会“阶层固化”了吗？

Irrelevant Mobility Perception:Has Class Become Solidified in China?

学界对当代中国社会是否已经"阶层固化"存在分歧,亦缺乏明晰的科学检验方法。本文考察公众对自身阶层流动情况的感知和对"阶层固化"话语关注之间的关联,以对这一命题进行实证检验。我们认为,如果"阶层固化"渐已成为社会现实,那么在宏观层面,过低的流动率会使得公众总体的自我流动感知恶化,触发人们对"阶层固化"的关注:流动感知越向下,固化关注度就越高。反之,如果"阶层固化"并非现实而只是一种预警,社会流动率并没有降低到危险点,那么公众对"阶层固化"的关注和自身的流动感知就不会存在关联。就此,我们构建起"阶层固化"话语列表,利用其在百度的被检索热度来生成各省历年"阶层固化"关注度指数,并将其与中国综合社会调查(2008-2012)的流动感知数据及统计年鉴资料相匹配。基于省域面板数据的多模型分析揭示了"无关的流动感知"这一重要现象:当代中国公众基于自身经历的代内流动感知和代际流动感知,与"阶层固化"关注度均没有负向的统计关联。这一发现意味着"阶层固化"在当代中国更多的是一种预警而非社会现实。

Vast disagreement has been raised about whether the social class in China has become increasingly solidified over time, however, there is often a lack of a scientific method to test this proposition. To fill this gap, we attempt to examine the relationship between public concerns of class solidification and individuals’ perception of their own class mobility in this analysis. The inner logic is, if"class solidification"has become a social fact at the macro level, the low mobility rates would translate into the low perceived level of class mobility, which in turn would trigger the high public concern of"class solidification". That being said, the lower the level of class mobility perception, the higher the concern of class solidification. On the contrary, if"class solidification"is not a social fact, but rather an early warning sign, meaning that the de facto social mobility rate has not fallen near the dangerous point, then the"class solidification"concern may not associate with self-perception of class mobility as expected, which we term as"irrelevant mobility perception". In this regard, we constructed a by-province"class solidification"index based on the Baidu search of a list of"class solidification"related keywords. By matching the index with the Chinese general social survey(CGSS) data from 2008 to 2012, and provincial socio-economic statistics from statistical yearbook, we conduct a series of analysis to investigate whether self-perception of class mobility is indeed associated with"class solidification"concerns among the public. The results from the provincial panel data provide supporting evidence of"irrelevant mobility perception":"class solidification"is more of an early warning sign than a social fact in contemporary China.