The objectives of the CGSS are: (1) to gather longitudinal data on social trends in China mainland, (2) to monitor Chinese behavior and attitude in radical social change, (3) to address issues of the oretical and practical significance, and (4) to serve as aglobal resource for the cross-national comparative study.

The CGSS aims to serve three kinds of people: (1) social science researchers and students of China, (2) comparative social scientists who treat China as a point of comparison, and (3) policy researchers in China, Asia, and else where in the world who use the data for various policy designs and evaluations in regard to China. The CGSS data want to act as a major public good and a global resource for the international scholarly community of China study and prompt data opening and data sharing in the academic community of China mainland.

The CGSS is aimed to systematically monitor the changing relationship between social structure and quality of life in both urban and rural China. Social structure refers to dimensions of social group and organization as well as networks of social relationships. Quality of life is the objective and subjective aspects of the people well-being both at the individual and aggregate levels. The CGSS aims to collect quantitative data about (1) measures of social structure, its stability and change, (2) measures of quality of life, objective and subjective, and (3) measures of underlying mechanisms linking social structure and quality of life.