This study examines the emerging phenomenon of urban middle-class Chinese leisure sports consumption in contemporary China. It is based on historic reviews and in-depth interviews conducted by WeChat, consumption-related theoretical analysis, and the adoption of Western middle-class lifestyle in relation to leisure sports practices in the People’s Republic of China. The findings firstly show that leisure sports have established an economic space by which contemporary China signals and engages with rising living standards and increasing economic-oriented policies. Secondly, leisure sports consumption is positively attributed to the ability to make money, consume, climb the social ladder, and take care of oneself as a valorising commodity, regaining the urbanites’ social recognition and therefore building up identity. Finally, the consumption of leisure sports provides a growing psychological escape for a large portion of the urban middle class. Meanwhile, activities such as purchasing luxury sports goods, registering in fancy leisure sports clubs or participating in money-oriented leisure sports provide a certain ‘freedom’ for the urbanite Chinese in contrast to daily routine and work, and therefore, an avenue by which the consumer seeks temporary release from constraints associated with Chinese social class hierarchy and obligations.
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Gong et al. (2023) studied this question.