Towards a Labour Market in China

Studies the move towards a free labor market in China, including the current status of the labor market and how it might, and should, develop. Draws on five data sets: the 1988 and 1995 national household surveys of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; the 1994 national rural labor force survey of the Ministry of Labour; the 1995 four-city survey of rural migrants employed in urban enterprises, conducted by the Ministry of Labor; and the 1999 urban household survey of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Provides a brief account of the Chinese labor and wage system under central planning. Describes the labor market reforms, their evolution, and general consequences. Analyzes changes in the structure of wages and increasing wage inequality in the urban labor market over the period 1988-95; the spatial behavior of urban wages; rural migrants in urban enterprises; redundancies, unemployment, and migration; and the immobility and segmentation of labor in the urban labor market. Investigates the allocation of rural labor among farm work, local non-farm employment, and temporary employment elsewhere. Generalizes about the imperfect labor market, examining the roles of information and social networks in securing employment and determining wages. Considers policy implications and the political economy of the labor market reform in China, both past and future. Knight is Professor of Economics in the University of Oxford and Fellow and Vice-Principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Song is Reader in Chinese Economy and Society at Nottingham University. Name and subject indexes