Scaling the Socioeconomic Ladder: Uyghur Perceptions of Class Status in Ürümchi Xiaowei Zang

1. Scaling the Socioeconomic Ladder: Uyghur Perceptions of Class Statusin Ürümchi Xiaowei Zang Professor and Head, School of East Asian Studies University of Sheffield

5. Do most Uyghurs perceive themselves to be middle class or lower class? • What are the major determinants of their perceptions? • To address these two questions, I draw data from a 2007 survey (N = 900) conducted in Ürümchi in China. • Class identification is a person’s belief about his or her location in the social hierarchy, which reflects his or her cognitive averaging of standard markers of SES situation.

6. Subjective social status is a key variable in the Marxian and Weberian theories that link objective class situation to class-based collective action. • If most Uyghurs considered themselves as lower class, they would have a feeling of illegitimate and a preference for drastic collective action to remedy the situation. • However, there is no source of information on the self-anchoring measures of subjective class status among Uyghurs since this is a politically sensitive issue in China.

7. I address this knowledge gap in this paper. • Socioeconomic Hierarchies and Class Identification • Classes are often perceived to be associated with socioeconomic hierarchies in society. • They are also seen to be correlated with distinctive beliefs, lifestyles, family, etc. that characterize different social groups. • Hodge and Treiman (1968) reported that the respondent’s education, family income, and occupation make significant contributions to his or her class identification.

8. Jackman (1979) found that education, income and occupation were involved in an individual’s assessment of his/her subjective social class. • Adler et al. (2000) found that subjective status was related to education and income. • Singh-Manoux et al. (2003; also Lundberg and Kristenson 2008) detected a close link between subjective status and objective measures of SES (i.e., employment, education, and income) in the West.

9. Lindemann (2007) reports similar findings from her study of subjective social status in Estonia. • This approach seems to be relevant to Uyghur class identification. • The CCP engineered social transformation in Xinjiang after 1949. • There are different Uyghur social groups (in terms of education, income, occupational attainment, and lifestyles) such as intellectuals, state workers, merchants, farmers.

10. Hypothesis 1: Education, occupational attainment, and income affect the choices of class identities by Uyghurs, everything being equal. • Psychological Well-Being • Hypothesis 1 cannot be taken for granted, however. Hodge and Treiman (1968) find that education, income, and occupation collectively explain less than one-fifth of the variance in class identification in their data set. • One plausible explanation is that there are other important determinants of class identification (also Lundberg and Kristenson 2008).

11. Some scholars have suggested that the perception of subjective class status is influenced by psychological well-being that includes both positive and negative affect (Adler et al. 2000; Lundberg and Kristenson 2008). • Reay (2005; 2008) argues that affective aspects of class—feelings of ambivalence, inferiority and superiority, visceral aversions, recognition, abjection and the markings of taste constitute a psychic economy of social class.” • This psychic economy contributes to the ways people are, feel and act.

12. The subjective experience of being left behind can affect how one rates his or her class status in society. • The psyche may be relevant for class identification in Ürümchi given rapid social changes in the post-1978 era. • Chinese people were accustomed to a way of life with few challenges thanks to the socialist system in Mao’s China. • Post-1978 market reforms have decreased welfare schemes and promoted competition. As a result, there have been more and more stress related health problems in China.

13. Like Han Chinese, Uyghurs have suffered psychological stress (Schuster 2009) in market reforms. • Post-1978 market reforms have promoted efficiency and profitability at the expense of equality and brought about widespread uncertainty, unemployment, risks, and poverty. • These have undermined the perceived ability to control one’s destiny, enhance an acute sense of hopelessness, depression, and pessimism, and lower one’s self esteem, which may lead Uyghurs to think they are lower class.

14. Of course, it is also possible that some Uyghurs are winners of the market reforms and consequentially hold high levels of mental health, optimism, and confidence. • As a result they are likely to consider themselves as middle class. • Hypothesis 2: There is a close relationship between the psyche and class identification. • Uyghur Ethnic Consciousness • Hypothesis 2 cannot be taken for granted. Existing research has produced mixed results about the relationship between perceived social status and psychological factors.

15. Also, the psyche is concerned about the outcome of individual life-paths and experienced by each individual. • Yet Uyghurs have experienced economic reforms not only as individuals but also as a disadvantaged group. • For example, high status Uyghurs face a paradox as both members of the middle class and members of a dominated minority group in Xinjiang. • The latter may challenge their middle class identity. The individual psyche and stratification within Uyghurs may be overshadowed by ethnic disparities in the discourse of class identification among Uyghurs.

16. Ethnic consciousness may weigh as heavily as the psyche and objective status characteristics such as education and income in Uyghurs’ conceptions of their social class. • Class may be experienced as an ethnic affinity as much as a psychological process or an objective, economic affinity. • How a person believes and feels about socioeconomic hierarchies is important in defining his or her subjective social class.

17. In particular, discriminatory attitudes and practices can influence how people perceive socioeconomic hierarchies and their class identities. • It is likely that class is “lived” in ethnic ways in Xinjiang. • Because of the Uyghur-Han differences in schooling, capital, access to bank loans and markets in China proper, etc., Han Chinese have been the main beneficiary of post-1978 market reforms. • It is found that “Uyghurs are poorer than the Han.”

18. Some Uyghurs have blamed Han chauvinism and discrimination for ethnic disparity in Xinjiang. • Most managers or directors are Han Chinese, who prefer Han workers over Uyghur workers. • Although many urban Uyghur youth have a university degree, they are unable to find a good job in the labor market. • Other Uyghurs have blamed the Chinese government for ethnic inequalities in Xinjiang.

19. Urban dissatisfaction stems from the fact that Uyghurs now have something to compare themselves with. • It is socio-economic inequalities, there, which lies at the root of a rapidly strengthening Uyghur national identity in opposition to Han Chinese and the Chinese government. • Rising ethnic consciousness is based on ethnic disparities and Uyghurs’ inability to remedy the situation in Xinjiang. • Rising ethnic consciousness is also related to government attitudes and Han chauvinism, which have made them feel that they are the second-class citizens in Xinjiang.

20. These factors are likely to affect the sense of class belonging among Uyghurs since subjective social status encompasses current opportunities, future prospects, as well as reflected appraisals from others (i.e. Han Chinese). • The higher a Uyghur’s ethnic consciousness, the more likely he or she thinks that Uyghurs are a dominated group in Xinjiang, the less likely he or she considers himself or herself as middle class. Hence: • Hypothesis 3: Uyghur ethnic consciousness is negatively related to class identification, holding main background characteristics constant.

21. Data • The above three hypotheses are examined with data from a survey conducted in Ürümchi, Xinjiang, in 2007. • The local collaborators chose ten neighborhoods with the highest percentages of Uyghur households among their residents in Ürümchi as the sampling clusters. • However, Badaowan （八道湾）Street and Toutunhe （头屯河）Street, which reported the seventh and tenth highest percentages of Uyghur households in the city, declined to corporate with the local survey takers.

22. Sangong （三工）Street, which was ranked the eleventh with 17.06 percent of Uyghur households among its residents in 2000, was used to make up the shortfall. • A total of 1,394 Uyghur households were selected from the nine clusters using probability proportional to size selection methods. • Data were collected by face-to-face interviews with one proxy respondent from each household (only those aged between 18 and 65 were selected). • Most interviews were conducted in evenings, weekends, or public holidays.

23. Among the sampled 1,394 households, 494 were not interviewed due to unavailability, refusals, or no access to gated residential buildings. In all, the completion rate for the survey was 64.7 percent (N = 900). • Variables and Measures • In the 2007 survey, the Uyghur respondents were asked to identify their class membership: ‘‘Considering all sorts of major socioeconomic indicators such as educational attainment and family income, with which of the following five common social status groups you identify: the upper class, the upper middle class, the middle class, the lower middle class, and the lower class.”

24. Three dummy variables are created as the dependent variables in data analyses below: (1) the upper middle class (vs. the middle, lower middle, and lower class), (2) the middle class (vs. the lower middle class and the lower class), and (3) the lower middle class (vs. the lower class). • Independent variables • Data analyses in this study involve the prediction of subjective class status from a cluster of 11 variables.

25. Conceptually, these 11 predictor variables fall into four categories: • 1. control variables (age, sex, married status, and urban status), • 2. socioeconomic measures (fulltime work, firm rank, income, education), • 3. psychological well-being measures (general life control and stress), and • 4. ethnic consciousness. • Results • Table 1 reports the key background characteristics of the Uyghur respondents.

26. Table 2 shows the correlations between class belonging and covariates. • Given the above discussions on the three hypotheses, direction is not predicted for the independent variables. • It is uncertain whether SES, psychological well-being, and Uyghur ethnic consciousness directly lead to the choices of class labels by Uyghurs. • Thus, two-tailed tests of significance for these variables are used in data analysis.

27. Table 2 shows that education and firm rank are statistically correlated to identification with the upper middle class. • Table 2 also shows that each and every SES indicator is related to the middle class and the relationships are statistically significant at .01 level. • Education, income, fulltime work, and firm rank are associated with the choice of the lower middle class over that of the lower class. • These findings partly support Hypothesis 1 about the link between SES variables and subject class status.

28. Table 2 shows no correlation between psychological well-being measures and Uyghur class identification. • This finding does not support Hypothesis 2. • Finally, Uyghur ethnic consciousness is correlated with identification with the upper middle class and the correlation is negative and statistically significant. • Uyghur ethnic consciousness is not related to the middle class and the lower middle class.

29. It is difficult to confirm Hypothesis 3 with these findings. • Next, three logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. • Models 1, 2 & 3 of Table 3 show the clear effect of education on the choices of class labels by Uyghurs. • Well educated Uyghurs tend to rate themselves high in the class status hierarchy, whereas poorly educated Uyghurs tend to consider themselves as lower class.

30. Uyghurs working in a workplace with high administrative rank are likely to identify themselves as middle class. • However, other socioeconomic variables are not important in determining class identification. • It is clear that fulltime work and income do not affect the choices of class identities by Uyghurs. • Overall, the empirical support to Hypothesis is limited.

31. Table 3 show that the two psychological well-being measures do not have a statistically significant effect on Uyghur class belonging. • These findings do not support Hypothesis 2. • Finally, Models 1 & 2 of Table 3 show that the choice of a class label for oneself is influenced by one’s ethnic consciousness.

32. Uyghurs with high levels of ethnic consciousness tend not to identify themselves as the upper middle class or the middle class, everything being equal. • Although Uyghur ethnic consciousness is not statistically related to identification with the lower middle class, the distinction between the lower middle class and the lower class is less critical than that between the upper middle class and the rest of the classes or between the middle class and lower middle class and lower class. • These findings support Hypothesis 3.

33. Discussion and Conclusions • This paper focuses on individualized and subjective hierarchical differentiation rather than theoretical debate on the nature of classes. • This paper has found three main findings about class identity among Uyghurs. • Firstly, class identity is not closely linked to occupational attainment and income. However, education is a key determinant of Uyghur class identification.

34. Secondly, psychological well-being measures are not the predictors of the choices of class labels by Uyghurs. • Thirdly, ethnic consciousness is closely related to class identification among Uyghurs. • It is possible that Uyghurs understand class status partly as a cultural property, which explains why education matters in defining their class positions. • It is also possible that Uyghurs consider their class status in a comparative perspective.

35. That is, it is ethnic inequality rather than on one’s psyche, occupation, or income that define class identity among Uyghurs in Ürümchi. • Scholars have focused on SES variables and psychological well-being measures in their studies of the self-anchoring measures of subjective class status. • Race/ethnicity has been used mainly as a control variable or one of the covariates in class status analysis.

36. The effect of race/ethnicity has been reported in a few existing studies. • Its effect has not been theorized, nor has it been used a main predictor of subjective class status. • The arguments and findings about the effect of ethnic consciousness on Uyghur class status from this paper contribute to the literature on class identification. • The findings reported in this paper also have policy implications.

37. This paper shows that 43.4% of the Uyghur respondents considered their social positions in Ürümchi unfavourably. • This proportion may not look alarming. • But in comparison, the vast majority of the people (over 90%) in both capitalist and socialist countries define themselves as middle class. • The Chinese government shall do its best to increase the size of the Uyghurs who would define them as middle class or upper middle class.

38. It shall also do its best to reduce Uyghur-Han inequalities given their link to Uyghur consciousness. • The findings from this paper suggest that Uyghurs give attention to their group concerns (intergroup inequality) in addition to their individual worries such as unemployment or stress in making the choices of the class labels.