China is capturing increasing attention globally. However, due to the lack of systematic survey microdata, the objective reality of China’s microcosmic society remains blurred, and that has kept scholars both at home and abroad from seeing the “whole elephant”.

ZJU solutions

A special database focusing on Chinese households was officially released at Zhejiang University in December 2017. This is China’s first family database which integrates offline sample survey data, Internet-based big data and statistics from governments. With this comprehensive database, the University aims to set a baseline for China Study, enabling the world to understand the country better.

What we do

From 2011 to 2017, researchers from ZJU’s Social Science Experiment Center (SSEC) and the Research Center for Social Survey conducted four rounds of panel survey. They collected numerous variables of tens of thousands of urban and rural families in China (around 6000 variables per family) and further enriched the data through an inter-university sharing mechanism.

The database includes information of the basic household structure, employment, income, expenditure, land use, migration, social security, education, etc. “The database is primarily based on data from offline surveys, which we hope will truly support social studies and decision making”, said ZJU Vice President LUO Weidong. According to YU Yangang, deputy director of SSEC, the entire survey process was computer-aided and strictly monitored by faculty and senior researchers to ensure data quality.

Implications

The database will provide first-hand and down-to-earth information for humanities and social science researchers as well as policy makers. In June 2016, ZJU released the results of China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS), which already utilized the survey data collected by SSEC in 2015 and the previous years. The bluebook reveals paradigms and problems in China’s rural development and serves as an invaluable reference for policy formulation.

Through continuous matching, aggregation and expansion of statistics, the database will continue to upgrade its scale and widen the range of applications. “It is expected to help China to take the lead in family research”, said GAN Li, director of SSEC.