Author(s) Tony Huiquan Zhang Keywords China, princelings, elite reproduction, Communism and post-Communism Abstract How have China’s princelings benefitted from their family backgrounds in their careers? This study seeks to answer the question and, in so doing, to add to the existing factionalist and meritocracy approaches to Chinese political elites. Based on biographical data of 293 princelings, quantitative analyses show that princelings have various advantages over non-princeling officials on the Central Committee. This is not simply familial advantage, however, as regression analysis finds parents’ rank and longevity do not significantly affect princelings’ career outcomes. Rather, the findings suggest that princelings benefit from membership in an affiliative status group, which differs from factions. The qualitative analysis find princelings’ status is formed and reproduced in a “collective” manner: (1) princelings’ status and early advantages originated in the state’s centralized resource allocation system; (2) princelings’ education and career choices are intertwined with the state’s practical and ideological goals; (3) princelings’ shared life courses strengthens their collective identity; (4) princelings’ career advantages are secured by the partystate’s cadre management system. These factors combine to reproduce princelings’ elite status within the party and state, what I term “collective elite reproduction.” Author(s) Bio Tony Huiquan Zhang (tonyhuiquanzhang@gmail.com) is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Macau. He was awarded his doctorate degree by the University of Toronto and has worked at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His research interests include public opinion, social movements and politics in China. His works have been published in the British Journal of Sociology, the Chinese Sociological Review, Sociological Forum, and Weather, Climate and Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2019.11