Deborah Davis
Deborah Davis joined the Yale Department of Sociology as a lecturer in 1978 and retired as Full Professor in 2018 during which time she held fellowships from the National Academy of Sciences, National Institute of Aging, Luce Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the ACLS. During her forty years on the Yale faculty Davis served as Director of Academic Programs at the Yale Center for Study of Globalization , Chair of the Department of Sociology, and Co-Chair of the Women Faculty Forum. Since 2016 she has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and on faculty of the Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. She also serves on the editorial boards of The China Quarterly and The China Review and is a Trustee of the Yale China Association. Currently she is working with Professors Pierre Landry (CUHK) and Chen Juan (HKPU) on the social consequence of uneven urbanization for residents of Chinese cities and with Professor Tian Feng at Fudan University on marriage and housing arrangements among the 80后 generation in Shanghai.
Audio Visual
Online
- (2014) Re-Placing the Rural Urban Binary. Tan Chin Tuan lectureship, Yale-NUS College.
- (2011) The MacMillan Report: Marriage and Divorce Trends in China. Professor Davis organized a workshop at Hong Kong University as part of a larger project on post-socialist marriage and sexuality. During this online interview, she talks about the changing trends of marriage and divorce in China.
- (2009) Great Issues Forum: Power of Education. Held at the CUNY Graduate Center, this forum features James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan; Deborah Davis, former director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; Enrique Dussel Peters, Professor of Economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico; and Yu Lizhong, President of East China Normal University. William Kelly, President of the Graduate Center, moderates.
Recent Publications
Books
- (2014) Wives, Husbands, and Lovers: Marriage and Sexuality in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Urban China. Edited by Deborah S. Davis and Sara L. Friedman, Stanford University Press
- (2009) Creating Wealth and Poverty in Post-Socialist China. Edited with Wang Feng, Stanford University Press. Chapter One.
- (2007) SARS: Reception and Interpretation in Three Chinese Cities. Edited with Helen Siu, Routledge Contemporary China Series.
- (2003) 中国城市的消费革命 (The Consumer Revolution in Urban China) with new introduction by Lu Hanlong, (Shanghai Academy of Social Science)
Chapters
- “We Do: Parental Involvement in the Marriages of Urban Sons and Daughters,” (2021) in Chinese Families Upside Down edited by Yunxiang Yan ( Brill): 31-54.
- Davis, Deborah and Jianying Wang (2010) “China’s New Upper Middle Classes: The Importance of Occupational Disaggregation.” in China’s Emerging Middle Class; Beyond Economic Transformation, edited by Cheng Li (Washington DC; Brookings Institute):157-178.
- Davis, Deborah (2006). “Urban Chinese Homeowners as Citizen-Consumers,” in S. Garon and P. Maclachlan (eds.), The Ambivalent Consumer, pp. 281-299. Cornell University Press.
- Davis, Deborah (2004). “Talking About Property in the New Chinese Domestic Property Regime,” in F. Dobbin (ed.), The New Economic Sociology, pp. 288-307. Russell Sage Foundation.
- Davis, Deborah (2003). “From Welfare Benefit to Capitalized Asset: The Re-Commodification of Residential Space in Urban China,” in R. Forrest and J. Lee (eds.),Chinese Urban Housing Reform, pp. 183-196. Routledge.
- Davis, Deborah (with Kin-man Chan) (2003). “The Consequences of Home Ownership in Post-Handover Hong Kong,” in Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2001, pp. 233-248. Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
- Davis, Deborah (2002). “When a House Becomes His Home,” in P. Link, R. Madsen and P. Pickowicz (eds.), Popular China, pp. 231-250. Rowman and Littlefield.
Articles
- Felicia F. Tian & Deborah S. Davis (2019): Reinstating the Family:Intergenerational Influence on Assortative Mating in China, Chinese Sociological Review, DOI:10.1080/21620555.2019.1632701
- Chen Juan, Deborah Davis, Kaming Wu, Haijing Du (2015) “Life Satisfaction in Urbanizing China,” Cities 49: 88-97.
- Davis, Deborah (with Juan Chen, Shuo Chen, and Pierre F. Landry) (2014) “How Dynamics of Urbanization Affect Physical and Mental Health in Urban China.” The China Quarterly.
- Davis, Deborah (2014) “Privatization of Marriage in Post-Socialist China.” Modern China, 40:6 (Nov. 2014) :551-577. Published online before print June 4, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0097700414536528, Direct Download.
- Davis, Deborah (2014) “Demographic Challenges for a Rising China” MIT Press/Daedalus.
- Davis, Deborah (2013) “Who Gets the House? Renegotiating Property Rights in Post-Socialist Urban China.” Chinese Translation: Social Sciences Academic Press, Vol 4 in series entitled 家庭与性别评论 (Essays on Family and Gender) edited by 马春华 (Ma Chunhua) Direct Download>Chinese Translation.
- Davis, Deborah (2010) “Who Gets the House? Renegotiating Property Rights in Post-Socialist Urban China.” Modern China, first published on June 22, 2010 as doi:10.1177/0097700410373265 hard copy in fall 2010. Direct Download>English.
- Davis, Deborah (with Pierre Landry and Shiru Wang) (2010). “Elections in Rural China; Competition without Parties”, Comparative Political Studies, 43.6: 763-90.
- Davis, Deborah (with Pierre Landry, Yusheng Peng and Jin Xiao) (2007). “Gendered Pathways to Rural Schooling,” The China Quarterly, 60-82.
- Davis, Deborah (with Shaoguang Wang and Yanjie Bian) (2006). “The Uneven Distribution of Cultural Capital: Book Reading in Urban China,” Modern China, 32 (3): 315-345.
- Davis, Deborah (2005). “Urban Consumer Culture,” The China Quarterly, 183 (September): 677-694.
- Davis, Deborah (with Yanjie Bian and Shaoguang Wang) (2005). “Multiple Capitals,” Social Transformations in Chinese Society, 1 (November): 31-58.
- Davis, Deborah (with Yanjie Bian, Ronald Breiger, and Jospeh Galaskiewicz) (2005). “Occupation, Class, and Networks in Urban China,” Social Forces, 83 (4).
- Davis, Deborah (with Hanlong Lu) (2003). “Property in Transition: Conflicts Over Ownership in Post Socialist Shanghai,” Arch.europ.sociol.XLIV/European Journal of Sociology, April: 77-99.
- Davis, Deborah (2000) “Social Class Transformation: Training, Hiring and Promoting Urban Professionals and Managers after 1949,” Modern China (July): 251-275.