Investigating Postmaterialist Topics in the Greater China Area with Transnational Survey Data: A Comparative Study across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Author: Peter Chai, peterchai@fuji.waseda.jp
Department: Graduate School of Political Science
University: Waseda University , Japan
Supervisor: Willy Jou
Year of completion: In progress
Language of dissertation: English
Keywords:
Family Values
, Gender Stereotypes
, Environmental Concern
, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment
Areas of Research:
Political Sociology
, Comparative Sociology
, Social Psychology
Abstract
This doctoral dissertation investigates Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel’s postmaterialist thesis, which is primarily based on observations from Western societies in the context of the Greater China area through using transnational survey databases such as the Asian Barometer and the World Values Survey. It breaks down the postmaterialist package into various topics such as attitudes to family structure and gender roles, concern for environmental protection, and sentiment toward immigrants and analyzes the relationships between selected question items that represent these attitudes and a set of demographic indicators such as age, education, income, and urbanization which are relevant to the “socialization” and “scarcity hypotheses” in the postmaterialist model. It uses the latest three waves in the survey data and employs a two-step approach to conduct not only separate regressions for the three waves but also aggregated regressions with the three waves combined to capture longitudinal changes in the demographic patterns and emphasize the differences in the separate and aggregated results. It also employs a comparative approach which compares across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to shed light on the regional differences and emphasize the importance of not looking at the Greater China area as a monolithic whole. Through the two-step and comparative approach, it shows the large inconsistencies that exist in how the demographic variables perform across the question items, waves, and regions, and through aggregating the latest waves, it gives a general picture of the regions and addresses the generalizability of the postmaterialist hypotheses and the relevance of the “Asian uniqueness” in the context of the Greater China area. This doctoral dissertation ties recent topics with the help of the postmaterialist model and finds that the demographic variables do not perform consistently for the attitudes toward the postmaterialist topics, and wide differences exist in how they perform across the waves and regions. The unclear longitudinal trends and inconsistent demographic patterns for all the attitudinal indicators and regions in the Greater China area suggest the existence of the “Asian uniqueness.” This dissertation can describe some contemporary realities about the citizens’ attitudes toward some New Left issues, shed some light on who participate in social movements with regard to these issues, and serve as references for future policymaking regarding these issues. It suggests the use of other research methods to look at specific aspects of the attitudes, improve sample qualities, and provide more qualitative discussions behind the inconsistencies found in the statistical results. This doctoral dissertation, which investigates attitudes to family and gender, concern for the environment, and sentiment toward immigrants, compares them across time and across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and uses transnational survey data, positions itself in the intersections of various research fields such as political sociology, comparative politics, public opinion, cultural studies, and area studies, especially Asian and China studies.
