README. SOCIAL EQUALITY FORUM CHINA FOCUS GROUP TRANSCRIPTS

This data set relates to ESRC Project ES/J012688/1 Rising Powers: Unequal Powers, Authoritarian Powers, Unstable Powers?
by Professor Stephen White (PI), with Co-I's, Dr Neil Munro, Professor Ian McAllister and Professor Jane Duckett.

It consists of transcripts from 10 focus group discussions on themes related to social equality in China. The focus group discussions were conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy using a discussion guide written by the Investigators. They were held in nine cities chosen to represent east, west and south China, including four provincial capitals: Beijing, Changsha, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, and five prefecture level cities: Baoding, Fuzhou, Luoyang, Mianyang, and Suzhou. The respondents included a mix of ages, genders, blue and white collar workers, and included at least one migrant (from another province) in each focus group. Separate focus group discussions were held for respondents with mainly urban hukou (residence registration) and for respondents with mainly rural hukou. There were two discussions in Guangzhou, one for each residence registration category. The focus groups in Baoding and Suzhou were held only for respondents age 18-29.  
Details of recruitment and stratification are given in the document Instructions-for-recrutiment-and-stratification.rtf.

The focus group discussions dealt with household and national economic change, perceptions of social fairness, and welfare values. Specifically, respondents were asked about the state of the national and local economies, their household economy, how they define rich and poor people and how they position themselves in relation to these categories. They were asked about whether they perceived differences in wealth between individuals, regions and between urban and rural areas as fair, and whether such differences are increasing or decreasing. Finally they were asked about whether the rich should take more responsibility for the welfare of the poor, about their own personal responsibility and that of the state and businesses. The discussion guide is provided in English as FGD-discussion-guide.docx and in Chinese as FGD-discussion-guide-Chinese-version.docx.

Prior to taking part in the focus group discussions, participants completed a screening questionnaire, which also served to collect basic information about them, including gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, level of education, self-assessed adequacy of income, occupation, hukou, property ownership and type of neighbourhood. The screening questionnaire is provided in Chinese as Screening-questionnaire.docx. Basic information on participants is provided in the form of Excel files, one for each city. The files are named in the format Information-on-City Name-Participants.xlsx. 

The transcripts are provided in English and Chinese. The Chinese text was transcribed by Horizon from audio files by someone familiar with the local dialect. The English translations were done by a native English speaker with help from a Chinese assistant. The participants are identified in the transcripts by a seat number, which corresponds to the information on participants in the Excel files. Where individuals' names were disclosed in the discussion, these have been replaced by the seat number. Transcript file names are in the format Transcript-of-City Name.docx . There is also a file called Translations Notes.docx with brief notes from the translator. 

A parallel set of focus group discussions was conducted in Russia and is available as the collection Social Equality Forum Russia Focus Group Transcripts.