Social Profile of a Typical Chinese

This research provides a social profile of the typical individual in Mainland Chinathe Peoples Republic of China. Where appropriate, contrasts are made on a regional basis, north versus south, as an example. More often, however, the relevant contrast is between urban and rural Chinese.

Officially, there are 56 nationality, or ethnic, population groups in Mainland China. In the 55 smaller groups, there are 70 million people (greater than the population of most countries) who are distributed over 60 percent of China's geographic area (Waddle, 1987). The country's largest ethnic groupthe Han Chinese, however, number in excess of onebillion persons. Therefore, the typical Mainland Chinese must be viewed as an ethnic Han. There are great differences, however, within the Han ethnic group. Eight mutually unintelligible language dialects are spoken by the Han, each of which contains several subdialects, and differences in cuisine, dress, and custom also characterize the Han residing in different regions of the country (DeGlopper, 1987). The Han Chinese, however, consider such differences "as minor and superficial" (DeGlopper, 1987, p. 101). One great unifying characteristic of the Han Chinese is the written language, which does not reflect the differences between the spoken dialects and subdialects (DeGlopper, 1987). Circa 200 A.D., Han ethnic unity was developed by the centralized imperial state of

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significantly. Unfortunately, significant prices increases have also occurred in the open market, and this change was not widely welcomed by urban Chinese. Extended families in Mainland China tend to live within the same household, particularly in the rural areas, but to a great extent also in urban areas. The one child per couple population policy has been relatively successful in the country's urban areas, but far less successful in the rural areas (Hsu, 1990). The lack of success in the rural areas led to the policy revision discussed above, which permits rural couples to have a second child after four years, when the first child is a girl. Thus, while it may be assumed that the typical urban couple in the 2540 year old age group has one child, it is difficult to make an assumption about rural couples. Certainly, the average is more than one child, although how much more is not known. With the migration from rural to urban areas, however, the population control policy may become more effective.Income and Employment Income in Mainland China is determined largely by the type of work unit to which an individual is assigned (Gottschang, 1987). There is also a wide variation in incomes between urban and rural work units
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Approximate Word count = 2133
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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