Li Wei is now Director and an associate research fellow of the Center for Sociological Research and Development Studies of China under the Institute of Sociology at CASS. In 1999, he graduated from the Department of Sociology of the Graduate School of CASS and received his doctorate in law. In September 1996, he worked in the Institute of Sociology at CASS. Currently, he serves as Director of the Center for Sociological Research and Development Studies of China, Project Executive of “Chinese Social Survey”, a major subject of CASS. He also works as Director of the Chinese Sociological Association and a member of the China National Standardization Technical Committee on Market Opinion and Social Research under the Standardization Administration of China. From 2002 to 2003, he was a visiting scholar at Yonsei University in South Korea.

Main research fields include sociology of development and sociology of economics.

Since 1999, he has mainly engaged in social stratum research. Since 2005, he has served as the main designer and executive of CASS’s major subject “Chinese Social Survey” Project. The project serves as a long-term sustainable survey on a national scale. The pioneering project has become an academic brand in field of CASS’s social survey for its standardization and academic value. The project has also become one of the large-scale academic survey projects currently known in China and has received the high praise of international peers.

Since 2006, he has published altogether 360,000 words including papers, research reports and co-authorship works on the basis of data and materials from the Chinese Social Survey.