Showing papers by "Yu Xie published in 2017"

Redefine Statistical Significance

Abstract: We propose to change the default P-value threshold for statistical significance for claims of new discoveries from 0.05 to 0.005.

Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health in China: A Reassessment with Data from the 2010-2012 China Family Panel Studies.

Abstract: Despite well documented high levels of socioeconomic inequalities, health gradients by socioeconomic status (SES) in contemporary China have been reported to be limited. Using data from the 2010–2012 China Family Panel Studies, we reexamine associations between three sets of SES—human capital, material conditions, and political capital—and self-rated health among Chinese adults 18–70 years old, capitalizing on anchoring vignette data to adjust for reporting heterogeneity. We find strong evidence of substantial variations in reporting behaviors by education, cognition, and family wealth but not by family income or political capital. Failing to correct for reporting heterogeneity can bias the estimates of SES gradients in self-rated health as much as nearly 40 %. After vignette adjustment, we find significantly positive associations of education, family income, wealth, and political capital with self-rated health. Individuals’ cognitive capacity, however, does not predict self-rated health.

It's whom you know that counts

Abstract: Universalism—the evaluation of scientists' achievements based on merit alone rather than on functionally irrelevant factors ( 1 – 3 )—has long been an unquestioned norm in science. Its existence is best illustrated by the reactions of outrage whenever a violation of universalism in science is exposed. For example, a study by Moss-Racusin et al. received a lot of attention in the scientific community because it found that when assessing application materials, science faculty rated students with male names as more competent than students who were otherwise identical but had been given female names ( 4 ). In a recent study, Fisman et al. ( 5 ) find evidence for favoritism in Chinese science: The election of membership to the two most prestigious scientific organizations, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), appears to be influenced by “guanxi,” or social network, as measured by hometown ties between candidates and selection committee members.

Social determinants of household wealth and income in urban China.

Abstract: Using data from a nationwide household survey-the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS)-we study how social determinants-political and market factors-are associated with wealth and income among urban households in China. Results indicate that both political and market factors contribute significantly to a household's economic wellbeing, but the political premium is substantially greater in wealth than in income. Further, political capital has a larger effect on the accumulation of housing assets, while market factors are more influential on the accumulation of non-housing assets. We propose explanations for these findings.

Redefine Statistical Significance

Abstract: We propose to change the default P-value threshold for statistical significance for claims of new discoveries from 0.05 to 0.005.

Buying out of Familial Obligation: The Tradeoff between Financially Supporting versus Living with Elderly Parents in Urban China.

Abstract: For Chinese families, coresidence with elderly parents is both a form of support and a moderator of financial support. Previous literature on intergenerational support in Chinese societies has studied either coresidence or financial support independently, but not these two forms of support jointly. Using data from the 1999 "Study of Family Life in Urban China" in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Xi'an, we examined whether or not adult children, especially sons, buy out of the obligation to live with their parents by providing greater financial support. To account for the potential selection bias associated with coresidence, we treated coresidence and financial transfer as joint outcomes by using endogenous switching regression models. The results showed that children who coreside with their parents would have provided more financial support had they lived away, and children who live away from their parents would have provided more financial support had they coresided. These findings suggest a self-selection mechanism that maximizes children's interests rather than parents'.

Unequal Families, Unequal Effects: How Parental Divorce Differentially Impacts Children's Educational Attainment

Abstract: A substantial literature suggests that family disruption leads to lower educational attainment among children. We focus on how the effects of parental divorce on children’s education differ across families with varying likelihoods of disruption. Using U.S. panel data, with careful attention to the assumptions and methods needed to estimate total and mediating causal effects, we find a significant effect of parental divorce on educational attainment among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce, for whom divorce was thus a relative shock. We find no effect among children whose parents were likely to divorce and for whom divorce was one of many disadvantages, and thus less economically and socially disruptive. We also find that the observed effect of divorce on children’s education is strongly mediated by post-divorce family income. Children’s psychosocial skills also explain a portion of the effect among children with a low propensity for parental divorce, while cognitive skills play no role in explaining the negative association between divorce and children’s education. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children’s attainment.

Market Transition, Industrialization, and Social Mobility Trends in Post-Revolution China

Abstract: Stratification scholars have long speculated about the influences of political institutions and economic development on intergenerational social mobility. China provides a unique opportunity to evaluate these speculations, as it has experienced rapid industrial expansion as well as the demise of socialism since its economic reform that began in 1978. Analyzing intergenerational data from six comparable, nationally representative surveys between 1996 and 2012, we uncover two countervailing social mobility trends in post-revolution China. On the one hand, there is evidence of a decline in social fluidity following China’s transition from state socialism to a market economy, as the link between origin and destination in vertical social status has significantly strengthened. On the other hand, horizontal mobility between the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors has increased sharply during the country’s rapid industrialization. Despite its recent decline, social fluidity in China is still much higher than that in mature capitalist societies. Moreover, cross-national comparisons reveal that a faster pace of industrialization is associated with greater horizontal mobility between the farming and non-farming classes. Finally, mobility in China is characterized by disproportionate flows between the farming and the managerial/professional classes and between farming and self-employment—patterns that are unique products of the Chinese household registration (hukou) system.