How Did Work Attitudes Change in Reform-Era China? Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Work Centrality

Abstract

Using a four-wave cross-sectional repeated dataset spanning 17 years (World Value Survey, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2007), this research examines changes in work centrality in China during the period of economic reform. The article utilizes a recently developed methodology, hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) models, to disentangle the effects of age, period, and cohort. Results show that age has a curvilinear effect: work centrality increases up to middle age, then levels off. For period effects, there is a downward trend in work centrality in China between the 1990s and 2000s that is explained by economic growth. Though overall cohort effects are marginally significant, the study reveals that work centrality tends to be high among the “revolutionary socialism generation” but lower for the “post-800 generation.”