China poses great challenges and opportunities to scholars who want to understand this vast and rapidly changing society.

At Brown University among the first social scientists to initiate research on China after the Cultural Revolution were sociologists Sidney and Alice Goldstein. They provided the definitive analysis of urbanization and migration in China in the 1980’s, including books on Urbanization in China: New Insights from the 1982 Census (1985) and Population Mobility in the People’s Republic of China (1985).

The Watson Institute's China Initiative, S4, and Population Studies and Training Center are supporting our current work on contemporary social change in China and its relations with the international community. Much of this activity is being conducted through the Urban China Research Network (UCRN), which involves leading social scientists around the world.

Major research funding by the Andrew Mellon Foundation made it possible to organize a series of conferences and working groups and to sponsor a small grant program that supported over 100 young scholars during 2000-2005. The co-directors are Zai Liang (University at Albany) and John R. Logan (Brown University).

Infrastructure support is provided by the University at Albany (Center for Social and Demographic Analysis), Brown University, and Xian Jiaotong University.

Links to China Data Sets