Civic Participation and Demographics in Rural China
Goal
The goal of this exercise is to examine the relationship between demographic characteristics and different forms of civic participation in China. Crosstabulation will be used.
Concept
Demographics and civic participation are very closely linked in political science research. Civic participation is the involvement in activities intended to influence public policy and leadership. Though voting is the most popular form of civic participation, there are many ways that citizens can get involved in the political process.
After China moved away from the commune system, they introduced a system of local (village) councils and committees. As a result, civic participation in China is more about people being a part of the discussion about political decisions than making political decisions, per se. Some non-traditional forms of civic participation in rural China include attending village meetings, voicing opinions, and contacting delegates.
Examples of research questions about demographics and different form of civic participation in China include:
- What is the relationship between certain demographic categories and local participation in China?
- Which forms of participation are most popular among Chinese citizens in the countryside?
- Were rural Chinese citizens in 1990 interested in local elections?
- How does participation in rural China differ from participation in Chinese cities?
The Four-County Study of Chinese Local Government and Political Economy focuses on the views and behaviors of the mass public in China with respect to economic and governmental factors at the local countryside level in the post-Mao era. The data were collected approximately eight months after the June 1989 conflict in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in the household by advanced students from Beijing University. Major topics addressed include perceived seriousness of problems such as health care, pricing, public order, industrial development, economic well-being, consumer behavior, personal problems and how to overcome them, perceived local problems, views about leaders and important groups, political interest, media behavior, civic competence and political reform, and perceptions of injustice. Demographic variables include sex, age, ethnicity, education level, occupation, marital status, military service, household income, political party affiliation, age and number of children, and the number of people in the household. The results are not generalizable outside the sample. The data used for this analysis are not weighted.
List of variables used:
- Respondent's sex (M8001)
- Respondent's year of birth (M1001)
- Years of schooling (M1030)
- Village meeting attendance (M3090)
- Party meeting attendance (M3100)
- Voicing opinion (M3120)
- Contact with delegate (M3130)
Respondents were asked about four types of local civic participation: "Village meeting attendance: Have you attended an all-Village meeting recently?"(M3090), "Party meeting attendance: Have you attended a local party meeting recently?" (M3100), "Voicing opinion: Have you ever written a letter to a cadre or offered an opinion or suggestion to a cadre?" (M3120), and "Contact with delegate: Have you ever contacted a delegate of the county people's congress or township people's congress or a member of the Village council?" (M3130). Response options for all four questions were "yes" and "no."
We will focus on three demographic variables: Age, Education, and Gender as these are some of the factors that influence participation in the United States.
Age and Participation
In order to create the AGE variable, we subtracted the year the respondent was born (M1001) from the year the survey was administered (1990). For ease of analysis, we created the AGEGROUP variable by grouping respondents into three age groups: "16-35," "36-55," and "56-79." Previous research suggests that younger and older respondents typically participate less, while middle-aged respondents typically participate more. Consider AGEGROUP and the four types of local civic participation. Overall, what percentage of respondents reported attending a local village meeting? Among these respondents, which age group was most likely to report attending a village meeting? Which group was most likely to report no village meeting attendance?
Local party meetings are another opportunity for civic participation. Was attendance at local party meetings very popular among these respondents? Overall, what percentage of respondents from all age groups reported attending a local party meeting? Which age group had the highest percentage of respondents say "yes"?
Respondents were also asked if they had voiced an opinion. Is there a similar relationship between age and voicing an opinion as between age and attending a meeting? Overall, did a majority of Chinese citizens say, "yes" they voiced an opinion? Which group was most likely to say "no"? Which group was most likely to say "yes"?
Finally, look at the responses about contacting a delegate. Which age group reported the most contact with a delegate? Which group reported the least? How do the last two tables look different from the first two tables?
Education and Participation
Educational attainment (M1031) was recoded from 6 categories: "less than primary," "primary school," "junior secondary school," "senior secondary school," "vocational secondary school," and "college or university" to four categories. Given the few respondents who attended senior secondary school, vocational secondary school, and college or university, we combined those three categories. We called this variable EDUCATION: "less than primary, "primary school," "junior secondary school," and "senior secondary school or more." Note that there are still not many respondents who have senior secondary school or more.
Take a look at EDUCATION and the four types of civic participation in China. Let's see if those with more education participate more than those with less education in rural China in 1990. What percentage of respondents with less than primary school reported attending a village meeting? What percentage of respondents with SR secondary school or more reported attending a village meeting? Were those with more education more or less likely to attend local party meetings? What percentage of those with a SR secondary school or more said they had attended a local party meeting? What percentage of those with a primary education said they had not attended a local party meeting? Which group indicated the second highest percentage of attendance at local party meetings?
Now look at voicing opinions. How many respondents with at least JR secondary school education or more said "yes," they had voiced their opinion? How many respondents with a primary school or less said "no," they had not voiced their opinion? Finally, consider the relationship between education and contacting a delegate. Which group was least likely to contact a delegate? Which two groups were most likely to contact a delegate?
Gender and Participation
Look at GENDER (M8001)and the four types of civic participation. Does gender seem to be associated with civic participation in rural China in 1990? Consider all four types of civic participation: which one is the most popular? Which one is least popular? Were men more likely than women to attend local village meetings? Look at local party meeting attendance. Were women very active in terms of attendance at local party meetings? What percentage of women reported not attending a local party meeting? Now, look at voicing an opinion. What percentage of men said they had voiced an opinion? What percentage of women said "yes"? Finally, were men or women more likely to have contact with a delegate?
Think about your answers to the application questions before you click through to the interpretation guide for help in answering them.
Age and Participation
Overall, what percentage of respondents reported attending a local village meeting? Among these respondents, which age group was most likely to report attending a village meeting? Which group was most likely to report no village meeting attendance?
Was attendance at local party meetings very popular among these respondents?
Overall, what percentage of respondents from all age groups reported attending a local party meeting? In which age group did the most respondents say "yes"?
Was there a similar relationship between age and voicing an opinion? Overall, did a majority of Chinese citizens say "yes" they voiced an opinion? Which group was most likely to say "no"? Which group was most likely to say "yes"?
Which age group reported the most contact with a delegate? Which group reported the least? How do the last two tables compare to the first two tables?
Education and Participation
What percentage of respondents with less than primary school reported attending a village meeting? What percentage of respondents with SR secondary school or more reported attending a village meeting?
Were those with more education more or less likely to attend local party meetings? What percentage of those with a SR secondary school or more said "yes," they had attended a local party meeting? What percentage of those with a primary education said "no," they had not attended a local party meeting? Which group indicated the second highest percentage of attendance at local party meetings?
How many respondents with at least JR secondary school education or more said "yes," they had voiced their opinion? How many respondents with a primary school or less said "no," they had not voiced their opinion?
Which group was least likely to contact a delegate? Which two groups were most likely to contact a delegate?
Gender and Participation
Does Gender seem to be associated with civic participation in rural China in 1990? Consider all four types of civic participation: which one is the most popular? Which one is least popular?
Were men more likely than women to attend local village meetings?
Were women very active in terms of attendance at local party meetings? What percentage of women reported not attending the local party meeting?
What percentage of men said "yes" they voiced an opinion? What percentage of women said "yes"?
Were men or women more likely to contact have with a delegate?
Interpretation
Things to think about in interpreting the results:
It is important to look at the amount of missing data in each relationship and think about the ways in which that might affect the generalizability of the results. Weights (mathematical formulas) are often used to adjust the sample proportions, usually by race, sex, or age, to more closely match those of the general population. The analyses used in this guide did not use any weights, which may reduce the generalizability of the findings, but the resulting tables are accurate descriptions of the relationships found between these variables among these respondents.
Reading the results:
The numbers in each cell of the crosstabulation tables show the percentage of people who fall into the overlapping categories, followed by the actual number of people that represents this sample. The coloring in the tables demonstrates how the observed number in a cell compares to the expected number if there were no association between the two variables. The accompanying bar and pie charts display the patterns visually as well.
The use of column percentages, as shown in these tables, allows for the comparison of answers to the "outcome" of interest across values of the grouping variable. For example 60.8% of those respondents with a primary school education reported not attending a local Village meeting.
The analyses show the following:
Age and Participation
Overall, 37% of all respondents, regardless of age, reported village meeting attendance. 41% of respondents ages 36-55 reported village meeting attendance. 63.6% of respondents ages 56-79 said they had not attended a village meeting. As for local party meeting attendance, it is not very popular among these respondents. Overall, 8% reported attending a local party meeting. Respondents ages 36-55 had the most respondents who said "yes," with 46 respondents giving that response.
An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that they had not voiced an opinion. Overall, 88% gave this response. 91.6% of respondents ages 56-79 said "no," they had not voiced an opinion. The middle aged respondents were slightly more likely than the youngest respondents to say that they had voiced an opinion, but still the percentages are very low (13.1% and 12.6%, respectively). Almost one-fourth of respondents ages 16-35 reported contact with a delegate (23.4%). Respondents ages 56-79 reported the least contact with a delegate with 12.3%.
Taken together, meeting attendance (village and local) and voicing an opinion seem to follow the traditional pattern of civic participation, where middle-aged respondents participate at higher levels than younger and older respondents. Contact with a delegate appears to be an exception to this pattern.
Education and Participation
31.6% of respondents with less than primary school said they attended a village meeting. 44.8% of respondents with SR secondary school or more said they attended a village meeting. As for local party meetings, those with more education (SR secondary school or more) were most likely to attend a local party meeting (16.8%). 97.3% of those with less than primary school said they had not attended a local party meeting. Respondents with a primary school education were second most likely to have attended a local party meeting, with 9.9% giving this response.
Voicing opinions shows the traditional education and participation relationship. 86 respondents with a JR secondary school education or more said "yes" they had voiced an opinion. A total of 747 respondents with a Primary School education or less reported they had not voiced an opinion. As for contact with a delegate, respondents with less than primary school education were least likely to report contact with a delegate (90.8% said "no") while respondents with more education were most likely to say they had contacted a delegate (37.8% of those with SR secondary school or more and 26.4% of those with JR secondary school education).
Gender and Participation
Yes, there seems to be an association between gender and civic participation in rural China in 1990. We saw that village meeting attendance is the most popular form of civic participation, with 37% of the respondents saying they had attended a village meeting. The least popular act of civic participation was attending the local party meeting, with only 7.9% of the respondents saying "yes." Men were more likely to say they attended the local village meeting (42.4% of men compared to 30.9% of women). Women in this sample were not very active in terms of local party meeting attendance. Only 2.7% said they had attended a local party meeting. Men in this sample were also more likely to say they had voiced an opinion (17.3% compared to 5.9% of women who gave this response). Finally, contact with a delegate shows a similar pattern: 27.2% of men said they had contact with a delegate, while only 11.5% of women in this sample gave this response.
Summary
In this exercise, we saw that the relationship between demographics (age, education, and gender) and local civic participation patterns in rural China looks like most patterns of participation in other places: younger and older respondents participate less than middle aged respondents, respondents with more education participate more, and men participate more than women. Overall, attending local village meetings is the most popular form of participation among these respondents. The next popular form of participation is contacting a delegate, then voicing an opinion, and finally attending a local party meeting. Although local civic participation in China is not autonomous (all the activities are state- sponsored activities), it appears that many of the respondents in the sample took advantage of the opportunity to participate in local politics. Future research may consider whether or not Chinese citizens are interested in other forms of civic participation.
CITATION: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Civic Participation and Demographics in Rural China: A Data-Driven Learning Guide. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-07-31. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3886/China
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