Bargaining theory posits that both partners' utility shapes couples' migration decisions. Yet, most empirical tests focus on individual incomes, thus overlooking non-economic factors in couples' deliberations about spatial mobility. We argue that considering holistic indicators of utility, such as subjective well-being, can advance our understanding of couples' decision-making. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 1991-2021) and fixed effects panel regressions, we analyze changes in life satisfaction following work-related internal migration on both individual and dyadic levels. Moreover, we examine whether these changes depend on shifts in partners' economic bargaining power (EBP, defined as female partners' share of total household labor income), thereby evaluating the common assumption that couples' bargaining centers around income. Our results show that, on average, both partners experience increases in their life satisfaction following migration. Distinguishing whether women's EBP remains unchanged, decreases, or increases with migration, we find that women's life satisfaction gains are only weakly related to changes in their EBP. In contrast, men's life satisfaction only increases if their partner's EBP decreases or remains unchanged, but not if it increases-a pattern consistent with the notion of gendered expectations about the within-couple income distribution hampering men's well-being gains. Overall, our findings suggest that well-being is an important factor in couples' migration decision-making and that income-based measures of bargaining power provide only an incomplete account of partners' bargaining positions.
Workplace authority is a key individual and organizational resource to which women typically have more limited access than men. Yet, less is known about how parenthood shapes this gender disparity and how the relationship varies across employment regimes. Drawing on nationally representative, longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010–2022), I examine within-person changes in women’s and men’s access to supervisory authority following parenthood, with particular attention to variation across the state and private sectors. Fixed-effects results show that, overall, women’s likelihood of holding authority declines after becoming mothers, especially after having two or more children, whereas men experience little change. These dynamics differ by work sector. A considerable motherhood penalty is concentrated in the private sector, whereas a fatherhood premium emerges only in the state sector. Parenthood therefore widens the gender gap in authority in both sectors through distinct patterns. These findings suggest that employment regimes condition the gendered meanings of parenthood and how they translate into access to authority. In China, the state sector’s formal protections may buffer motherhood-related disadvantages, whereas its male-dominated hierarchy and pronatalist agendas may sustain fatherhood-related rewards.
This study maps the division of music in China and examines the mechanisms underlying its formation. Methodologically, it introduces multidimensional item response theory (MIRT), a latent-trait approach rarely used in cultural sociology, to identify the social divisions of taste before examining their social stratification through regression analysis. The findings reveal six taste profiles: high-status traditional music; pop music stratified into middlebrow Hong Kong and Taiwan classics, unstratified mainstream Chinese pop, and low-status local music; and foreign music divided into high-status selective forms and unstratified trendy foreign pop. These divisions do not cleanly align with genre categories, a highbrow–lowbrow hierarchy, or omnivore–univore patterns in established accounts. Instead, they reveal dual forms of high-status taste—state-consecrated heritage and cosmopolitan selective foreign pop—reflecting a multidimensional structure organized around region of origin, historical prestige, cohort, and popularity. More broadly, this study reveals how cultural stratification in China extends beyond Bourdieusian models centered on domestic field competition to encompass global flows, state-directed legitimation, and historical local trajectories. These findings extend theories of cultural distinction beyond the assumptions derived from dominant Western liberal-market societies and offer a framework for understanding how cultural hierarchies are constituted across wider national contexts.
This article investigates how civil society organizations (CSOs) advocate for immigrant access to social assistance in politically charged environments. It explores whether the frame choices of CSOs are shaped by their relationships with government bodies and examines the implications of these narratives for representing a highly diverse group of non-citizens. The article introduces a novel two-dimensional framework that categorizes advocacy frames along two axes: "scope of inclusion" (Targeted Inclusion vs. Universal Inclusion) and "justification for entitlement" (Individual Justification vs. Structural Justification). Findings from document analysis reveal a predominant reliance on frames that call for the inclusion of specific groups basing entitlement on individual characteristics independent of CSOs' relationship to the state. The most radical frame type (Structural Justification for Universal Inclusion), however, is more frequently used by independent CSOs. Analyses of interviews underscore that CSOs navigate a trade-off: aligning with targeted, individualistic frames can achieve incremental policy gains, but potentially reinforces stratified notions of "deservingness", contributing to internal hierarchies within immigrant communities. Conversely, advancing structural justification for universal inclusion carries the potential to challenge systemic inequalities yet risks limited immediate resonance within the political mainstream. These insights highlight the tension between short-term policy success and long-term systemic change in CSO advocacy strategies. The empirical findings, alongside theoretical discussions, extend beyond this specific policy field, offering broader insights into civil society strategies in adverse contexts.
