Stratifying lifestyle and social class in urban China

Abstract This study adopts Bourdieu’s relational analytical strategy to investigate the relation between lifestyle and social stratification in the Chinese urban population. Multiple correspondence analysis and clustering illuminate a typology of four lifestyles: (1) disengagement from consumer culture, (2) self-restrained consumption of highbrow products, (3) preference for intellectualized and ephemeral leisure activities, and (4) economically and culturally well-established consumer-buyers. A multinomial logistics regression validates the association of lifestyle with cultural and economic capital. Capital structure seems less influential in China than in Western European societies, while generation emerges as a unique differentiator under rapid social transformation.