As one of the main forms of social change, structural differentiation has an impact on modernization mainly through two mechanisms, namely, the promotion of social division of labor and specialized organizations reflected by heterogeneity, and the initiation and promotion of class diversification, social mobility and education popularization by role diversification and professional grade difference, both of which are helpful to eliminate feudal privilege and increase the proportion of individual's "self-induced" status. Therefore, many sociologists regard the degree of social structure differentiation as one of the main indicators to measure the modernization level of a country, and regard the form of structural differentiation as an important aspect to observe and describe the modernization process.

Since the reform, the most fundamental change in China's social structure has been from a totality society to a differentiation society, and the fundamental motivation for this change is the system reform. The impact of the reform on China's social differentiation is roughly such a process: 1. The rural economic system reform and the "decentralization and profit-sharing" of state-owned enterprises have produced free-flowing resources in society, that is, labor, capital, products, raw materials, technology and so on, which are not controlled and distributed by the state. These resources are increasing with the deepening of reform. 2. The emergence and increase of free-flowing resources lead to the change of the organization and distribution mode of the whole social resources, that is, from relying solely on the planning system and administrative means to combining planning with market, administrative means with economic means. 3. The development of various stakeholders and power subjects, such as various local and community governments and government departments. Non-governmental organizations, rural enterprises, urban and rural individual industrial and commercial households and so on. 4. The emergence and increase of organizations and role groups with specific functions gradually led to the initial separation between the state and society, politics and economy, economy and administration, administration and law and ideology. Since the reform, this process of structural change from an overall society to a differentiated society, as a historical necessity, indicates that China's modernization process has entered a new historical period.

At present, the most noteworthy points in the process of social structure differentiation in China are:

1. The system reform began in rural areas, and its greatest contribution to the change of rural social structure is to promote the rapid rise and vigorous development of rural industrialization. This process of rural industrialization has led to the sharp differentiation of the original homogeneous and equal social structure in rural areas, and a large number of new role groups and organizations have emerged, such as township entrepreneurs, nearly 1 100 million workers in township enterprises, new cooperative enterprises and private enterprises.

The dual characteristics of the original social structure in urban and rural areas determine that the differentiation process of urban social structure is different from that in rural areas, and urban social differentiation is mainly the differentiation inside and outside the system. After the reform, urban social differentiation first occurred in the most marginal part of the original system, and one of the results was that some social forces on the edge of the system took the lead in differentiating from the system, such as individual businessmen, private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises. With the continuous advancement of differentiation from the edge of the system to the central part of the system, the forces outside the system are also constantly strengthened. They are organized and operated in different rules and ways from those within the system. This process is constantly influenced by social differentiation within the system on the one hand and rural social differentiation on the other. Some cross-cutting groups and marginal groups that span the two systems and the two major social systems in urban and rural areas have begun to appear, such as self-employed people and migrant workers who work in cities. The emergence and increase of these new structural elements have strongly promoted the development of civil society.

2. After the reform, with the expansion of the autonomy of various social subjects (individuals, organizations and governments) and the clarification of interests, the hierarchical social differentiation originally determined by administrative level and status level has gradually changed into a four-block differentiation determined by generic and unit boundaries, and the original hierarchical elements that determine the status and interests of social members, such as ownership type, family class origin, political identity and administrative level, have greatly weakened their functions, while the development of the unit and community where the individual belongs and the occupational category to which the individual belongs. The transformation of social structure from hierarchical differentiation to lumpy differentiation means that the process of social stratification in China will be slow.

3. Compared with before the reform, the social differentiation in China has been greatly accelerated and deepened, but there are great differences between different regions, different social systems and different social groups. For example, the coastal areas are faster than the central and western regions, and the Wenzhou area in the east is more differentiated than the southern Jiangsu area. Another example is that the differentiation of economic system is faster than that of power structure, the differentiation of farmers is greater than that of urban residents, and the differentiation of narrow social structure is deeper than that of broad social structure. This unbalanced differentiation leads to the diversification of the original similar and isomorphic social structure of the whole society, and the dislocation of the original highly integrated three structures, namely, income, power and professional prestige structure, and the degree of integration among various social positions of social members is greatly reduced. The diversification of social structure and the dislocation of various social structures increase the tension of social structure and thus increase the difficulty of structural integration.

4. In most market countries, social members are divided and combined under the action of the market according to the needs of division of labor, and the differentiation of social structure is mainly reflected in a functional differentiation. With the deepening of division of labor, the differentiation of function-structure is the condition and inevitable process to realize social modernization. On the one hand, the differentiation of China's social structure after the reform reflects the process of this functional differentiation, such as the differentiation of state and social functions, the differentiation of party and government functions, the simplification of functions and the development of specialized organizations. But on the other hand, the social differentiation in China at this stage is mainly the result of system reform, and one of the core contents of system reform is the redistribution and adjustment of interests, so the structural differentiation is largely reflected as a kind of interest differentiation, and policy factors play an important role in it. Therefore, at this stage, there is a contradictory phenomenon in the changes of social structure in China, that is, the social structure has undergone drastic and profound differentiation after the reform. However, instead of making its functions more specialized and single with the deepening of differentiation and the acceleration of speed, various social organizations have shown a trend of "economy" or "enterprise" in an all-round way. The influence of functional differentiation on social structure is mainly to increase heterogeneity, while interest differentiation is mainly to expand inequality. After the reform, the vertical differentiation of social structure in China is faster than the horizontal differentiation.

Administrative integration and contractual integration

Social integration is generally achieved through two levels. One is political integration at the national level, and the other is social integration at the local level. The former aims to ensure the sovereignty of the nation-state, implement administrative control and management, and establish and maintain social order by administrative and legal means; The latter mainly plays a role at the community level by folk and non-political means, so as to maintain the basic order of social activities and establish a harmonious and cooperative relationship between roles, organizations and systems that undertake different functions.

In the traditional society of China, one of the outstanding characteristics of the integration mechanism is that social integration is strong, while political integration is weak; Between the two levels of integration, there is a lack of organizational connection, but mainly depends on the private relationship of the "gentry-landlord" group to link the two levels of integration mechanism, and partially replaces organizational integration with value integration. On the one hand, this integration system endows the whole society with flexibility and a solid foundation, so that it can maintain two jobs for many years, on the other hand, it also causes a fatal weakness of this social system, that is, the integration of the people. One of the results is that when it was invaded by western powers in modern times, it could not respond strongly as a whole. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "fragmented phenomenon" is the inevitable result of this integration mechanism. Especially under the impact of modern factors, the mechanism of social integration has been weakening, and China has fallen into the dual disintegration of politics and society. The new integration mechanism formed after 1949 was an effort to solve the double crisis of politics and society in China at that time.

After 1949, one of the outstanding features of China's integration model is that political integration is extremely powerful. Even in the grass-roots society, its integration is mainly realized by administrative integration means. In this sense, this integration system is characterized by political integration instead of social integration to a great extent. The reason is not difficult to understand. In the case that the political integration mechanism and the social integration mechanism have completely failed, the reconstruction of the political integration mechanism has not only become a top priority, but also is relatively easy from the resources possessed by the state and government at that time. To a great extent, the reconstruction of social integration mechanism is a natural evolution process, which takes a long time. Therefore, it is an inevitable choice to realize the reconstruction of social integration by rebuilding political integration. In this way, by the middle and late 1950s, this model of replacing social integration with political integration had basically taken shape. In rural areas, the typical form is people's commune (first agricultural production cooperatives); In the city, it is mainly based on the unit, accompanied by the street Committee system. Both rural people's communes and urban units are general organizations with various functions, in which political and administrative power C plays a core role. Specifically, the party's organizational system, administrative power system, workers, young women and other mass organizations are three important forces that play a role in this integration mechanism. One of the obvious advantages of this integration model is to eliminate the tension between social integration and political integration, make them highly consistent, and make social integration at the local level subordinate to political integration at the national level. In the traditional society of China, the friction between social integration and political integration often occurs. However, it must also be noted that the burden of political integration is greatly increased because folk social integration does not actually exist. At the same time, this integration model is quite rigid, and it must be based on the premise of constantly suppressing social differentiation, which is precisely one of the driving forces of social development.

In the 15 years of reform and opening up, this integration model, which lasted for more than 30 years, began to be impacted. Its performance is mainly in two aspects:

First, the preconditions for the existence of the original integration model are constantly being lost. The original integration model is based on two basic conditions. One is the comprehensive monopoly of resources by the state, and the other is the existence and effective operation of the top-down overall component organization system. But in the process of reform and opening up, these two conditions are changing. Due to the development of non-public economy, the state monopoly on resources has been obviously weakened; Due to the disintegration of the people's commune system, the overall organization in rural areas no longer exists; The enterprise reform in the city is also making the enterprise gradually become a purely economic organization, and the characteristics of the overall organization are obviously reduced. In this way, the country realizes the integration of grass-roots society through its overall organization. Second, the new social differentiation and the complexity of social life constantly put forward new requirements for social integration. In rural areas, the decentralized management of agricultural production, the specialization of economic activities in rural areas and the continuous differentiation of occupations and social strata all need to be re-integrated on a new basis. In cities, while the unit system is weakening, so-called activities outside the system appear in large numbers, the original household registration system and personnel system have been obviously relaxed, and cross-regional social mobility has led to a large number of immigrants in cities. Not to mention that the original integration mechanism is weakening, even if it can play an effective role, it is not enough to cope with this increasingly complicated social life.

Therefore, in a certain sense, the process of reform and opening up for more than ten years is also a process of constantly seeking a new social integration mechanism, and the basic feature of this new social integration mechanism is that it is dominated by contractual social integration. In other words, China's social integration has undergone a historical transformation from the pre-existing integration of traditional society (based on blood and geography) to the administrative social integration before the reform, and then to the contractual social integration. Leading in economic activities. Domain, this trend has been clearly demonstrated. In addition to macro-control at the national level, contractual relations in the market and intermediate organizations such as chambers of commerce and trade associations based on contractual relations are playing an increasingly important role in integrating economic activities. However, in the broader field of social life, the situation is more complicated and there are obvious differences between urban and rural areas. In rural areas, the pre-endowed form of family integration is reviving in quite a few areas. In other areas, the original village-level quasi-administrative organizations (or autonomous organizations) are still playing a powerful role, while in other areas, "capable people" are playing an important role in the integration of grassroots society. In cities, the framework of the new social integration mechanism is even more vague. In addition to the integration of the market, intermediary organizations and community autonomy seem to be playing a role. Generally speaking, although contractual social integration will become the basic direction of social integration in China in the future, we must never overestimate its current role. As far as social integration is concerned, China is still in a transitional stage. At this stage, there is a situation in which priority, administration, contract and other integration forms exist. During this period, there are three problems that need close attention: first, the current social integration obviously lags behind the process of social differentiation, which will lead to various disorders in social life; Secondly, there are both complementary relations and contradictions between different forms of social integration; Thirdly, how to integrate the new forms of social integration with the political integration at the national level is still a question to be discussed.

Organization and unit system

Social organization is the constituent element of modern society, which directly reflects the form and change of social structure. The reform in recent 15 years has changed the operating mechanism and even the nature of social organizations in China.

In rural areas, with the implementation of the household contract responsibility system and the withdrawal of cooperatives to build villages, the original quasi-administrative organization, the production team, was cancelled. However, the establishment of the autonomous status of newly-built villagers' committees and the lack of resources in their hands left many underdeveloped villages in an unorganized state. Rural village-level organizations with developed collective economy are operating normally, and there are also a few rural independent interests that expand and even compete with the state.

The administrative organization at the center of the original centralized management system has changed slowly and still bears the function of "component". Members have a strong dependence on the organization, but the personnel system has been loosened, and the impulse of units to seek their own welfare has been greatly enhanced. Many units have developed their own unplanned resources by setting up "flop companies" and other measures, thus making the nature of these units begin to become complicated.

Private enterprises that have grown up outside the planned system are not favored by the state in terms of resource acquisition, nor are they subject to the administrative constraints of the state. The personnel relationship of its members is either hung in the talent exchange center or placed in the street office, which does not belong to the original administrative management system. The relationship between enterprises and the state is dominated by market rules, while high wages are used to counter various risks and make up for deficiencies within enterprises. In terms of organizational structure, they often lack the ubiquitous party and group organizations of state-owned enterprises, thus showing obvious heterogeneity.

Affected by the above factors, enterprises and institutions, as the main body of the original "unit system", are also changing.

First, the function of the unit role. As the focus of national work shifts to economic construction, the political functions of enterprises and institutions are weakening and their professional functions are strengthening. Enterprises are no longer "components" that undertake the tasks assigned by the state, and institutions are no longer "agents" of the state in the past. They become functional whole to varying degrees.

Second, the interests of the unit are independent. The separation of government and enterprise makes the enterprise gradually break away from the supervision and intervention of the government, while the independent operation and self-financing make it a relatively independent interest subject. A series of measures, such as the government's refusal to invest in enterprises, full responsibility for profits and taxes, and letting enterprises digest the contradictions brought about by the reform themselves, have further made the independent interests of enterprises obvious. Accordingly, the fixed posts, fixed posts and financial responsibility of public institutions have to gradually change their over-dependence on the government and seek self-improvement, so that their interests are relatively independent.

Third, the unit responsibility is concretized and internalized. As the enterprise becomes the main body of interest and establishes a contractual relationship with the state, this makes the social responsibility undertaken by the enterprise concrete. At the same time, the responsibility of enterprises to improve the income and living standards of their members is unshirkable, and the state's restraint on enterprises is weakened, which makes enterprises change from extroversion responsibility to introversion responsibility, that is, from being fully responsible for the state to being mainly responsible for the employees of enterprises, and even the commitment of introversion responsibility is more important than that of extroversion responsibility. This also makes the enterprise become the real workers' interests, and the above characteristics of institutions are becoming more and more obvious.

Fourth, the "parent" role of the unit is strengthened. The formation of the unity of the interests of the members of the unit strengthens the awareness of the members in the same boat and the awareness of the enterprise's protection for its members. The unshirkable nature of these responsibilities and the social comparison mechanism generally strengthen the "parent" role of the unit.

In this way, since the reform, the relationship between the state and the organization has gradually changed from the overall survival mode to the independent survival mode. Organization is no longer a "part" of the country, but a "whole" with certain independence. Except in rural areas, the external characteristics of our society with organizations as the unit have not changed, but the functions of organizations are undergoing substantial changes. Although they undertake the function of social management, their central task is to meet the needs of members and seek organizational self-development. That is, it is changing from a "management unit" to an "interest-oriented unit". Therefore, China's social structure system is changing from "management-oriented unit system" to "interest-oriented unit system", and the characteristics of "unit system" have not weakened, but have been strengthened within a certain range. Regardless of the organization's unit consciousness, their care and struggle for their own interests, or the increase of employees' recognition and concern for organizations (units), they all reflect that they are forming a social * * * body that is relatively independent externally and closely dependent internally. It can even be said that the current organization is becoming a real unit. In the relationship between state, organization and members, "motherly state" is being replaced by "strict father unit". Unlike the country before the reform, the unit does not give universal care to the members of the organization and society without contribution, but gives more care to its members on the basis of the contract.

Classification of Identity and Social Mobility

Identity refers to the category symbol that society gives to individuals, is associated with occupations and other social roles, and indicates people's social status.

The reason for the formation of ownership identity category is the result of socialist transformation of ownership form by the state at that time I (coexistence of ownership by the whole people and collective ownership); At the same time, it is also the inevitable result of "limited resources". By controlling the distribution of living resources, the state controls the workers under collective ownership to become workers under ownership by the whole people, thus effectively maintaining this classification of identity. After the formation of ownership identity category, it reflects and maintains the social class in urban society from the economic structure.

As economic construction has become the center of all work, the political color in social life has begun to fade. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, removing hats for landlords and rich peasants, rehabilitating the wrongly drawn Rightists and implementing policies for the victims of unjust, false and misjudged cases in the "Cultural Revolution" undoubtedly corrected the wrong tendency of expanding class struggle. In connection with this, although the political review system still exists, its scope has narrowed, and it pays more attention to people's realistic performance. This means that the class identity series has lost the conditions on which it depends. The evaluation standard of society has also changed a lot. People judge a person no longer by his family background, but by his ability and achievements. Therefore, the original class identity series is weakening and tends to disappear in urban and rural areas.

The rural economic system reform with "all-in-one contract" as the main content gives farmers the autonomy of production and distribution. This first led to the loosening of the state's control over living resources. The development of urban and rural market economy has led to the emergence of free-flowing resources in both urban and rural areas. This has led to the increasingly loose household registration system and ticket system, which are closely related to the distribution of living resources. Since the reform of economic system, the development of economy outside the planned system in cities has given a large number of farmers the opportunity to change their status as farmers in cities. A large number of rural surplus labor force flows to cities and towns, and a large-scale floating army from different places appears. The weakening of the preconditions for maintaining the identity series of urban and rural residents will inevitably lead to the existence and development of various economic sectors in the city and create a large number of new employment positions outside the system. These employment positions also mean a variety of new professional identities, which cannot be covered by the original two identity series of cadres and workers. The result that cadres and workers in the system flow to these new employment positions outside the system under the drive of interests is to blur the original identity boundaries between cadres and workers, and develop a trend of using professional identity series outside the system to accommodate the identity series of cadres and workers inside the system.

The rapid growth of the economy outside the system, the flexibility of its management and distribution (which puts state-owned enterprises at a disadvantage) and the increasing tendency of people to evaluate enterprises' economic benefits have gradually blurred the boundaries of the original ownership identity and weakened the significance of the existence of ownership identity.

At present, the standard of social identity classification in China is undergoing drastic changes. A new, self-induced and changeable identity series marked by professional identity is gradually replacing the previous identity series in urban and rural areas. In this transitional period, what we see is a complex picture of the coexistence, blending and cross-dislocation of old and new identity series. The original identity series and evaluation criteria are still working, and people can make use of the resources they have obtained with their original identities to find a more profitable professional identity in the new professional identity series. The coexistence of political evaluation system and interest evaluation system leads to the multifaceted nature of people's identity series and social status, and also determines people's orientation in the new professional identity series. In the urban-rural mobility, the contradiction between the original identity and the new occupation and new residence has led to the emergence of a large number of marginal people and a large number of marginal groups.

With the loosening of these identity series, there are three major trends of social mobility. That is, the diversification of the flow of social elites; 80 million rural surplus labor force flows to cities and workers and cadres within the system flow outside the system. These three trends are changing the elite structure of China society, changing the spatial distribution of social position and population, and changing the proportional relationship between economic and social position inside and outside the system.

Therefore, the biggest impact of the loosening of identity categories on the current social structure of China is that it loosens the tie for the change of social structure.

Regional pattern and regional relations

Region refers to "a community composed of social relations and organizational principles". In a society, the relationship between regions and the basic regional pattern formed by it are an important aspect of social structure. During the 15 years of reform and opening up, a series of important changes have taken place in the regional relations and regional pattern of China. Analyzing these changes and their processes can help us to deepen our understanding of China's social structure and its changes.

In the process of reform and opening up in 15, a series of important changes have taken place in the regional pattern of China society, which is based on a game of chess in the whole country, homogeneous and isomorphic among regions, and emphasizes the local self-survival ability. Among them, the most obvious performance is:

First, the differentiation of interests, the local began to become the main interest. As mentioned earlier, in the overall system of a chess game in the whole country before the reform, local interests were largely suppressed. In the process of reform and opening-up, with the continuous decentralization of central power to local governments, the national chess-playing model began to be broken, and local communities represented by local administrative agencies began to become the main interests, and the trend of financial localization became increasingly obvious. In this case, the relationship between different regions is no longer linked by the central administrative power, and the interest relationship and the exchange and contract principles in the market economy have begun to become new ties linking different regions. The situation of free transfer between regions in the past no longer exists. Driven by local interests, local protectionism is becoming increasingly obvious.

Second, the heterogeneity between regions has obviously increased. Before the reform and opening up, the differences between different regions only showed the difference of development degree. But today, the isomorphism between regions has been broken to a great extent, and the heterogeneity between different regions has been greatly enhanced. The reason is that with the decentralization, the local ability to formulate policies has been strengthened; The central government gives special policies to some areas; Due to the different natural conditions and development levels in different regions, the adaptability of different regions to the market economic system shows obvious differences. Due to the differences in location conditions and historical heritage, the heterogeneity among regions is currently manifested in ownership structure, economic structure, economic operation mechanism and degree of economic development. The result is that the national unified policy has lost its foundation.

Third, the regional relations dominated by market principles have formed a "gap-widening dynamic system". Due to the differences in the deepening of reform and opening up, economic heritage and location, the development between regions presents an obvious gradient state. In this gradient pattern, a pattern similar to that of more developed, moderately developed and underdeveloped areas has been formed. A large number of statistical data can show that in the process of reform and opening up in 15, the development gap between these regions has not narrowed, but expanded, and there is a trend of further expansion. At the same time, we can also see that a regional division of labor pattern similar to the international division of labor pattern has begun to take shape, such as Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other developed regions, which have begun to become processing zones; Many areas in the mainland, including old industrial areas like Liaoning, are becoming suppliers of raw materials and markets for commodity sales.

Fourth, there are differences in development mechanisms in different regions. This difference is manifested in the different development mechanisms of developed areas represented by coastal areas and backward areas in the mainland. The disintegration of the regional pattern of a national chess game by means of administrative allocation and the initial formation of the national market have placed the development of various regions in this emerging market environment. However, due to the huge differences in the time and level of development in different regions, their competitiveness in this market shows obvious differences. For example, the developed areas with early development have strong market expansion ability because of their great advantages in technology and economic strength, and their enterprises also have strong development momentum and potential. In a sense, the development of these areas needs market conditions and free economic policies more. However, the situation in backward areas is just the opposite. Its obvious disadvantages in technology and economic strength, lack of capital, immaturity of entrepreneurs and other conditions make it at an obvious disadvantage in the competition with enterprises in developed areas. In such areas, it is very difficult to achieve smooth economic development and narrow the gap with developed areas without the intervention of administrative forces that can effectively promote economic development.

To sum up, in a short period of 15 years, the social structure of China has undergone and is still undergoing major changes, which is an essential overall change. This change is cumulative and revolutionary. Although the details of the new structure are still difficult to sketch, its outline is determined: it will continue to deepen and develop in the direction described above.