Social Structure and Personality during the Transformation of Urban China: A Comparison to Transitional Poland and Ukraine

This article compares the relationships of social structure and personality of urban China during “privatization” to those of urban Poland and Ukraine during their transitions from socialism to nascent capitalism. These relationships are similar in pattern and nearly as strong in magnitude for China as for Poland, and stronger than for Ukraine. China differs from Poland and Ukraine, though, in that the job conditions that facilitate or restrict occupational self-direction, particularly the substantive complexity of work, do not explain nearly as large a portion of the relationships of class and stratification with personality for employed Chinese as for employed Poles and Ukrainians. This results from the unique situation of those self-employed rural migrants to urban China who are officially registered as having a rural residence.