“Mixed” subjective class identity: a new interpretation of Chinese class identity

The Journal of Chinese Sociology

Table 1 Results of the factor analysis

Personal social status		Parental social status		Spousal social status
Indicator	Factor loading	Indicator	Factor loading	Indicator	Factor loading
Years of education	0.392	Family social status at age 14	0.454	Years of education	0.447
Logarithmic income	0.474	Highest year of parents’ education at age 14	0.652	Logarithmic income	0.543
Party membership	0.401	Highest ISEI occupation at age 14	0.628	Party membership	0.408
alpha = 0.317		alpha = 0.412		alpha = 0.414a

Note: The alpha coefficient does not exceed 0.5 for two possible reasons: first, all of the factor analyses include only three indicators, and the alpha coefficient tends to be lower when there are fewer indicators; second, there may be inconsistencies in the social status of individuals across indicator dimensions, such as the fact that those with a higher education do not necessarily have higher incomes. However, in any case, because of the strong correlation between the indicators, if all the indicators are included in the model, the statistical results of some of the indicators will not be significant because of the problem of multicollinearity, especially when the test involves interaction terms, so extracting the common factor through factor analysis is the only feasible way