When I was in graduate school, a few Wharton students who took our sociology class argued that the intergenerational transmission of wealth and educational advantages should be understood as intergenerational effort and was therefore legitimate. This perspective stood in stark contrast to the sociological perspectives held by those of us being trained to critically examine structural inequalities. While the classroom debate was unresolved, it highlighted complex dynamics about opportunity, effort and inherited advantage. Most importantly, it raised a crucial question about the role of time, not merely as chronological passage, but as an inherited resource that accumulates or depletes across generations, families and national boundaries. This is precisely the question that The Time Inheritors seeks to theorize in a bold and ambitious way.
The Time Inheritors is a conceptually comprehensive book that uses education as an empirical point to explore how temporal inequality underpins broader patterns of social inequality. Drawing on interviews with 113 students from diverse class backgrounds in mainland China and Hong Kong, conducted between 2013 and 2022, Xu proposes a “time inheritance framework,” suggesting that time operates as a key conduit for the reproduction of inequality. Extending Bourdieu’s conception of capital as accumulated labour, Xu reconceptualizes labour-time as a kind of currency – one that can be exchanged for other forms of capital, varies in value across different social fields, and one that can be transmitted intergenerationally, shaping both advantage and disadvantage.
In this framework, privileged individuals inherit “banked time,” allowing them to spend time on leisure, personal growth and other non-remunerative activities, while having a sense of temporal security about the future. By contrast, less privileged individuals inherit “borrowed time,” which leads to immediate-focused planning with few long-term benefits. Xu also distinguishes family, national and global levels of time inheritance, arguing that global temporal inheritance can override advantages at lower levels. For example, affluent urban Chinese students may inherit time wealth at the family and national levels, but they inherit global time debt in the forms of linguistic and bureaucratic barriers when competing internationally. Through this conceptually rich framework, Xu contends that differences in time inheritance constitute a fundamental source of global inequality.
The time inheritance framework is broad and operates at a macroscopic level. Drawing on Serafin’s distinction between objective and subjective time, it encompasses key elements of Bourdieu’s theories, including various forms of capital, habitus and field. Xu measures temporal wealth using indicators like education, family background, networks, political identity and citizenship. The outcomes examined include socioeconomic status, education paths, peer relations and emotional wellbeing. While the empirical focus is primarily on education, Xu broadens the framework’s application in chapter 11 by discussing students’ political identity, suggesting its relevance beyond educational contexts. In the concluding chapter, she outlines future research directions, including potential studies on gender and racial inequality. These suggestions reflect Xu’s commitment to developing a generalizable framework with broad applicability, inviting readers to consider the wider significance of temporal dynamics in understanding social inequality.
This book reminds us that inequality is not only spatial or material, but also temporal. Among the many markers of social status, most are subject to change. Income may rise or fall, occupational prestige can shift with career moves, and educational attainment may be completed or interrupted. Time, by contrast, is uniquely irreversible. Once spent, it cannot be recovered. And unlike financial wealth, individuals cannot choose whether to accept their temporal inheritance. This makes time inheritance a vital dimension of inequality, opening new paths for research.
Another strength of this book is its balanced view of education as both a vehicle for social mobility and a tool for status reproduction. While much research focuses on one or the other, Xu shows that education serves both roles simultaneously. She shares memorable examples, from disadvantaged youth working low-pay jobs despite their college degrees, students rising from rural China to study in Britain, and privileged students whose parents invest in their businesses to secure British visas. By allowing readers to compare the trajectories of different groups of students, these stories highlight how education-based mobility and reproduction coexist within societies and globally.
Scholars of China studies will likely find the book’s use of empirical cases from mainland China and Hong Kong to advance a macro-level theory thought-provoking. Xu ambitiously connects Chinese educational experiences to global patterns of inequality, illustrating how Chinese cases can and should inform broader theoretical debates. Readers will also appreciate the book’s nuanced, longitudinal portraits of student trajectories. The diversity of these outcomes is striking; while some students are able to leverage their inherited temporal wealth to gain admission to elite universities, they may still face burdens of “temporal debt” during college. By drawing on cases from China, which is a society marked by stark inequality, this book powerfully illustrates that privilege in one domain does not guarantee advantage in all others.
One potential area for further exploration is the role of culture in shaping time inheritance. Given the focus on Chinese students, it would be interesting to consider whether a cultural dimension of time inheritance exists and how it might shape individuals’ experiences of time. While the empirical data supports Xu’s theoretical framework, it also points to areas where additional detail could enhance the framework’s robustness. For example, a fuller account of Bian’s academic trajectory or a more nuanced analysis of his experience of scholastic marginality could strengthen the empirical grounding. Cases like these would benefit from further elaboration to clarify and deepen the theoretical insights.
Thinking back to that classroom exchange, I believe the Wharton students could have benefited from reading The Time Inheritors. Through it, they would have gained a deeper understanding of how time functions as a form of temporal inheritance, ranging from trust-fund level wealth to burdensome debts that may take multiple generations to settle. Viewed as a type of capital and disposition, time emerges as a crucial factor in the transmission of inequality. Xu’s framework sheds light on how advantage and disadvantage unfold across generations, offering insights into the complexities of inequality in both local and global contexts.
