Our understanding of gender, class, and stratification has almost always come from Western societies. Adopting a multicultural lens, Song examines social contexts that differ substantially from postindustrial democracies. For example, East Asian societies provide an interesting case where familial and gendered insitutions are historically upheld and rapid modernization are happening alongside extreme inequality.
So far, Song has focused this line of work on post-reform authoritarian China, where Confucianism, heteropatriarchy, Westernization, and radical socialism collied (including legacy institutions such as the hukou system and one-child policy). Combining national datasets and qualitative interviews, he shows how the unique political economies of China present a ripe opportunity to test and revise those classical theories based on the West.
Current Projects:
1- Revisiting Gender, Class, and Divorce in a Non-Western Context: National Longitudinal Evidence [draft ready]
2- The Aftermath of One Child Policy: Marriage Market, Social Class, and Gendered Marital Formation in Urban & Rural China (w/ Zhenchao Qian)[draft ready]
Publications:
1- Song, Jian, Tingting Qin, and Haoming Song. 2018. “Intergenerational effects of gender preference: Observations through desire and behavior of parents.” Population Research (in Chinese): 42 (2) 15-28. [link]
