Political Identity and Political Participation: China’s Post-80s Generation

By MINNA JIA

Introduction
China's post-80s generation has raised a great deal of interests of both scholars and practitioners not only for their unique characteristics but also for their roles in different aspects of Chinese society. However, most of the existing literatures on China’s post-80s generation study this group from economic or cultural perspectives. Studies on their political roles are rare. The current project tries to fill this gap by exploring how this group identifies themselves and their participatory behaviors.
This project defines the post-80s generation as a group of members who were born during 1980-1989 in Mainland China. They have the following characteristics: a. most of them are the single child of the family; b. received high education; c. can speak English or other languages; d. users of high technology; e. exposed to international information; f. have no impression on June 4th democratic movement.

This project uses both quantitative and qualitative methods by integrating survey study and semi-structured interviews and case studies. Supporting by the USCI Summer Fieldwork Grant, this study enlarged its original field survey sample size by including varied urban cities in China, which I believe enhanced the generalization power of the study. Together with the previous data collection, the quantitative data collection of the study was successful due to the financial support of the USCI summer fieldwork grant.

Sampling Method
This study uses stratified sampling method in order to help drawing specific inferences to the subgroups hypothesized in the study.

The total population of China’s post-80s generation is over 200 million in 2010. Considering the size of the subjects and their distributions across different areas, the possibility of attaining the sampling frame of the total population is slim. In order to include varied geographic characteristics, the first stage of sampling stratifies the whole population of urban Chinese post-80s into 9 different provincial areas: Jilin Province in the North, Guangdong Province in the South, Sichuan Province in the Southwest, Shaanxi Province in the Northwest, Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province in the Southeast. Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai were included for their unique political and economic roles.
 
For each province, the author selects the capital city as the sampling city. For each capital city, 140 individuals who are living in the current city were sampled including 120 students from the best comprehensive university of the city and 20 non-student individuals.

For each university, the probability sampling was used to select the 120 individuals. The basic sampling unit is the university dorm. The total number of the dorms was calculated and 120 dorms were selected based on same sampling distance. For each dorm, the interviewer knocks the door and asks for grant from the first person who randomly answers the door.

For the non-student sample, the sampling method is random sampling. The interviewer randomly distributes the questionnaire to a person who ages from 20-30.

The online survey sampling uses snowballing sampling method to enroll as many as possible samples. The author sends the Survey Monkey website address to those who knows as post-80s generation members. After these members finish their questionnaires, they forward the address to their friends who are post-80s members too and ask them to fill out the form. 

Distribution of the Data 
The distribution of the sample and the collected data is shown in the following table and figure. The complete student cases are 876, which has almost 85% successful rate.

Preliminary Conclusion
Although the collected data is in the process of dataset building and data analyses, the fieldwork is a process to have further understanding of China’s post-80s generation and some preliminary conclusions can be drawn based on previous data analyses. First, the post-80s generation in China has high levels of pro-democracy preferences. They are more knowledgeable on the political issues and show greater interests in politics than other age groups in China.  The most interesting conclusion is that when China’s post-80s generation members face the choice of political participation practices, they are more than conservative. It has a paradox that they have high levels of pro-democratic attitudes but low levels of political participations.

Fieldwork Summary
China's post-80s generation has raised a great deal of interests of both scholars and practitioners not only for their unique characteristics but also for their roles in different aspects of Chinese society. However, most of the existing literatures on China’s post-80s generation study this group from economic or cultural perspectives. Studies on their political roles are rare. The current project tries to fill this gap by exploring how this group identifies themselves and their participatory behaviors.

This project uses both quantitative and qualitative methods by integrating survey study and semi-structured interviews and a case stuty. Supporting by the USCI Summer Fieldwork Grant, this study enlarged its original field survey sample size by including varied urban cities in China, which enhances the generalization power of the study. Together with the previous data collection, the quantitative data collection of the study was successful due to the financial support of the USCI summer fieldwork grant. The sample size of the survey is 1090 and 876 complete cases were collected with 846 valid cases.

Preliminary conclusions can be drawn based on previous data analyses and the interview process. First, the post-80s generation in China has high levels of pro-democracy preferences. They are more knowledgeable on the political issues and show greater interests in politics than other age groups in China.  The most interesting conclusion is that when China’s post-80s generation members face the choice of political participation practices, they are more than conservative. It has a paradox that they have high levels of pro-democratic attitudes but low levels of political participations.

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