Chinese occupational prestige: A comparative analysis

Prestige ratings of 46 occupations from a 1988 sample of adult residents in Tianjin, a large industrial city of China, are reported and analyzed in this paper. Tianjin's prestige ratings are similar in overall pattern to rating scales from Beijing, Taiwan and the US and to Treiman's Standard International Occupational Prestige. However, certain occupations received significantly different ratings from Tianjin's raters than from those in these other studies. Both intra- and interstudy consistencies and variations in occupational ratings are examined. In addition to such conventional variables as education and income, the author suggests two macro-social factors to explain interstudy variations in ratings of certain occupations in Tianjin, Beijing and Taiwan.