The extent to which the social structure in late imperial China permitted upward mobility has been much debated. Some researchers argue that the imperial exam system, which emphasized meritocracy, facilitated social mobility (Ho 1980[1967]); others view it as an institution that served no more a purpose than the mere reproduction of wealth. The latter group argues that success in exams was largely dependent on lineage wealth (Hymes 1986), and point out that official titles could be purchased (Marsh 1980[1961b]). By drawing upon various historical data sources, I construct unique datasets to test these important yet unresolved competing hypotheses....[ Read more ]

The extent to which the social structure in late imperial China permitted upward mobility has been much debated. Some researchers argue that the imperial exam system, which emphasized meritocracy, facilitated social mobility (Ho 1980[1967]); others view it as an institution that served no more a purpose than the mere reproduction of wealth. The latter group argues that success in exams was largely dependent on lineage wealth (Hymes 1986), and point out that official titles could be purchased (Marsh 1980[1961b]). By drawing upon various historical data sources, I construct unique datasets to test these important yet unresolved competing hypotheses.

In the first essay, I examine the determinants of exam success by regressing the probability of passing the national (jinshi) and provincial (juren) exams on father's education, the age at which the candidate passed the lower level exam (which I employ as proxies for ability), and father's office rank, other ancestors' office ranks, the number of wives of a candidate's father and grandfather (which I employ as proxies for family wealth). The results show that ability, not wealth, was the key determinant of exam success in Qing China.

In the second essay, to test the idea that the purchase of official titles may have undermined meritocracy in the late Qing period, and therefore affected social mobility (through career advancement), I examine the determinants of career advancement by regressing the rank of the highest office held by an official on ability and lineage wealth. The results show that, despite the fact that office purchase became increasingly popular during the late Qing, it did not replace ability as the key determinant of career advancement. Although father's official rank is positively correlated with office purchase, career advancement remains crucially dependent on ability.

Therefore, social mobility in late imperial China—whether measured in terms of imperial exam success, career advancement or both—was still based primarily on merit.