Xiaogang Wu

Xiaogang Wu is the Yufeng Global Professor of Social Science and Professor of Sociology at both NYU Shanghai and New York University. He is also the founding Director of the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) at NYU Shanghai. His research and teaching span Chinese society, education, inequality and social stratification, social demography, survey and quantitative methods, and urban sociology. As a leading scholar on social stratification and inequality in China, Professor Wu has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces. Over the past 15 years, he has led research teams conducting household panel surveys in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and most recently Guangzhou. Drawing on these data, the research team is investigating neighborhood effects and social dynamics in contemporary Chinese cities.

Professor Wu’s research has been supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the European Research Council (ERC), the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC), and the China National Social Science Foundation. Since 2011, he has served as Chief Editor of Chinese Sociological Review. In 2022, he was elected a member of the Sociological Research Association (SRA) and was recognized by Stanford University as one of 271 sociologists in the World’s Top 2% Scientists, both for single-year and career-long citations in 2024.

https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/xiaogang-wu-.html 

Select Publications

• Tang, Minghao, Angran Li and Xiaogang Wu. Forthcoming “Meritocratic Myth in Mind? Social Class and Shifting Beliefs about Meritocracy among College Students in China” Sociology of Education.

• Zeng, Donglin, Xiaogang Wu and Jia Miao. 2025. “Risk of Exposure to COVID-19 and Informal Social Control in Hong Kong: The Mediating Role of Social Cohesion.” Social Forces soaf067

• Miao, Jia, and Xiaogang Wu. 2023. “Social Consequences of Homeownership: Evidence from the Home Ownership Scheme in Hong Kong” Social Forces 101 (3), 1460-1484

• Zeng, Donglin, Xiaogang Wu and Zhuoni Zhang. 2022. “Residential and industrial enclaves and labor market outcomes among migrant workers in Shenzhen, China.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 48(3):750–772. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1867522.

• Wu, Xiaogang 2019. “Inequality and Social Stratification in Post-socialist China." Annual Review of Sociology 45: 363-382.

Education

• PhD, Sociology
  University of California, Los Angeles
• MA, Sociology
  Peking University
• BA, Sociology
  Renmin University of China