In this part, we focus on the first theme – redistribution and stratification dynamics in the 45–year history of the People's Republic of China. We present a series of empirical studies to document, illustrate, and assess the impacts of redistributive institutions of state socialism and shifting state policies on individual life chances over time. The order of these chapters follows more or less the sequential stages of one's life course. We begin with patterns of educational attainment, especially focusing on variations in the association between social origins and educational attainment across historical periods (Chapter 3). We then examine the next major life event in one's life course – patterns of entry into the labor force (Chapter 4). Again, our focus is on how the association between social origins and first-job attainment varied over time, reflecting the interplay between redistribution and shifting state policies. In Chapter 5, we take a closer look at a special cohort – the children of the Cultural Revolution – and examine the dramatic impacts of state policies on their entry into the labor force and how this event affected their subsequent life experiences. Finally, we present a systematic examination of bureaucratic career patterns in work organizations, including patterns of recruitment into the Communist Party, entry into and promotion within the Chinese bureaucracy (Chapter 6). These studies shed light on the stratification dynamics, and the critical and time-varying impacts of state policies on all social groups, through changes in both opportunity structures and allocative mechanisms.