Abstract:
The social class structure of rural areas under the background of urban-rural integration is an issue worth paying attention to. J village is a representative of the deep integration of urban and rural areas in the Chengdu plain. This article divides the villagers of J village into ten classes based on the occupational dimension and finds that the class structure of J village presents a "trapezoidal" shape that was not seen in rural areas before. This is an intermediate form transitioning from a "pyramidal" to an "olive" shape due to deep urban-rural integration. Data analysis shows that there is a considerable income gap among the villagers of J village, with different income disparities within each class; there is strong mobility within the same generation of classes, but weak intergenerational transmission. Compared with the national rural class, the class structure of J village is more rational. The study finds that land transfer has prompted the class structure of J village to begin to change. With the support of reform policies and making full use of the market environment, while leveraging the village's dynamic energy, under the pull of external factors such as policy guidance and market environment, and the push of internal factors such as the collective energy of the village and the individual energy of the villagers, the interaction of internal and external factors promotes a benign change in the social class structure of J village. This article proposes for the first time the "trapezoidal" structure of rural social classes, which may enrich the transitional forms of China's social class structure.