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Self-employment in Shanghai: A Research Note*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

During the 1980s market reforms proceeded more slowly in Shanghai than in other Chinese coastal cities. Bureaucratic procedures had continued to determine employment conditions and few city residents assumed the risks of entrepreneurship. The pace of marketization quickened in the early nineties and, between 1990 and 1995, the percentage of Shanghainese working outside the state or collective sectors grew by a factor of ten. For the first time since the launching of the economic reforms, private sector activity approached parity with Guangzhou (see Table 1).

Type
Focus on Employment Issues
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1999

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References

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3. These estimates actually understate the role of non-state employment for several reasons. First, many people whom the official statistical yearbook counted as state employees actually worked in private firms or were self-employed, only registering with their original state unit in order to remain in unit housing or receive medical insurance. Secondly, many urban residents held second jobs in the private sector that produced as much, or more, income than their “day job” in the state sector. As early as 1989, the State Statistical Bureau reported that in Guangzhou 30% of urban employees held second jobs. In Tianjin the figure was 20%, and Shanghai, 16%: Beijing Review, 6 November 1989, p. 25.Google Scholar Three years later Shanghai's Xinmin wanbao (27 July 1992, p. 1) reported that a majority of those working in commerce or service industries held second jobs and that when taking on new employees many employers only asked for an identification card and did not even query about other employment. Thirdly, in all these cities millions of migrants who did not have city household registrations but functioned as integral members of the urban economy were excluded from the official statistics.Google Scholar

4. In October 1986 new entrants to state jobs lost the de facto lifetime employment which had been the norm for state employees since the late 1950s. Henceforth all new staff would be hired on 3–5 year contracts. Initially less than 5% of employees worked on contract but by December 1995 the percentage had risen to 85% of those in production firms (qiye). Zhongguo jingji nianjian 1996 (Chinese Economic Almanac 1996) (Beijing: Tongji chubanshe, 1996), pp. 99103Google Scholar. For a detailed analysis of the history of the labour contracts and their expansion in Shanghai between 1992 and 1994, see Calhoun, Craig, “Rust in the iron rice bowl” (Johns Hopkins University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 1996).Google Scholar

5. In an effort to become profitable and raise both salaries and investment funds, state and collective firms which had routinely offered free medical care to employees and subsidized care to dependants introduced high levels of co-payments and scaled back coverage. In a 1991 survey of elderly in Wuhan, Shengzu Gu and Jersey Liang found that between 1981 and 1988 the government share of medical care for the old had declined from 30% to 19% while the share paid by enterprises and individuals both increased. Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Laonianren dui yiliao fuwu” (“The medical insurance care of the old”), Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Research), No. 6 (1993), pp. 5665. In my 1995 interviews in Shanghai I found all retirees from state qiye paid 10%, and those from collective units paid between 20% and 30% for all services. In addition, hospitals required either written guarantee of payment from former units or down payments of 5,000–10,000 yuan before any major surgery. In several cases enterprises would no longer issue the guarantee after July 1994 and respondents and their families borrowed from relatives with only vague hopes that they would finally be reimbursed during 1995.Google Scholar

For medical insurance experiments in Jiangsu and Jiangxi province see Xinmin wanbao, 19 June 1995, p. 8Google Scholar; for Heilongjiang reform see Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 9 August 1994, p. 2Google Scholar; for Beijing, Renmin ribao, 10 January 1995, p. 5Google Scholar; for Henan Zhuma district, Renmin ribao, 11 February 1995, p. 2Google Scholar; for Yantai city, Renmin ribao, 13 December 1995, p. 1.Google Scholar

In February 1993 the State Council issued a major circular announcing that co-payment should become a major component of future pension entitlements and in 1995 a State Council directive launched the new programme as an experiment in several cities. For text see Renmin ribao, 16 March 1995, p. 3.Google Scholar For a summary of the situation of urban retirees in the 1980s and early 1990s see Calhoun, Craig, “Inequality and insecurity among elderly in contemporary China,” in Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig (eds.), Old Age and Ageing in Japan and other Asian Cultures (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1996), pp. 131152Google Scholar, and Calhoun, Craig, “Unequal chances, unequal outcomes: pension reforms and urban inequality,” The China Quarterly, No. 114 (1989), pp. 223242.Google Scholar

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6. In the Shanghai legislation, which is the most complete I have seen, there is a very complex three-tier system: first, for those retired by December 1995, there will be a city-wide pool funded by enterprises, which will pay a minimum pension calibrated at 60% of average wages in the previous year. Secondly, there will be a hybrid system that combines a basic pension based on the number of years worked before 1993 plus a new IRA system. A third system is for those who began work after 1993, where pensions will be drawn entirely from interest-bearing IRAs created by employee and employer contributions and which individuals can bring with them from employer to employer. (Law No. 8 of the Shanghai City Government, issued 16 March 1995 by Shanghai City Social Insurance Bureau.)Google Scholar

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9. Calhoun, Craig, “The shape of labour market and changing employment pathways”; see also Xinmin wanbao, 9 July 1995, p. 1.Google Scholar

10. Rencai shichang bao (Labour Market News), 24 July 1995, p. 3Google Scholar; Xinmin wanbao, 9 July 1995, p. 1Google Scholar; Sensenbrenner, , “Rust in the iron rice bowl,” p. 227233.Google Scholar

11. Calhoun, Craig, “New bosses in the worker's state,” The China Quarterly, No. 140 (1994), p. 968.Google Scholar In Shanghai the number of officially-registered self-employed (getihu) rose from 0.655 million in 1990 to 0.754 million in 1995, Shanghai tongji nianjian 1991 (Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 1991) (Shanghai: Tongji chubanshe, 1992), p. 72Google Scholar; Shanghai tongji nianjian 1996 (Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 1996), p. 48.Google Scholar

12. Calhoun, Craig, “Back to the wok,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 24 (1990), pp. 124Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, Personal Voices (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig, “Fruits of ambivalence,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 58 (1985) pp. 427450.Google Scholar

13. In a June 1994 survey of 9,626 enterprises in Shanghai, 7% of females and 4% of males had been laid off. Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Chengshi funü jiuye” (“Employment of urban women”), Renkou (Population), No. 2 (1995), pp. 4647.Google Scholar When furloughed workers (daigang) are added, female unemployment in urban industry was even higher, 17.2% as opposed to an overall rate of 7.3%: Shanghai gaige (Shanghai Reforms), No. 12 (1995), pp. 2224Google Scholar

14. Calhoun, Craig, The Fabric of Chinese Society (New York: Praeger, 1953)Google Scholar; Hu, Tai-li, “The emergence of small scale industry in a Taiwanese rural community,” in Calhoun, Craig and Fernandez-Kelly, Maria Patricia (eds.), Women, Men and the International Division of Labour (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983).Google Scholar

15. In 1978, 77.6% of all births were first births – by 1981 this rate had risen to 96.9%, a rate that persisted until at least 1992. Shanghai tongji nianjian 1993 (Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 1993), p. 72.Google Scholar

16. In 1987 I drew a random sample of 100 households in one residential neighbourhood of western Shanghai as part of a study of cohort differences in occupational achievement among urbanites after 1949. Because I was most interested in assessing the inter-generational occupational mobility of those who entered the work-place before 1960 and those who entered after 1965, I selected households in which one woman was born between 1925 and 1935. In that way I increased the probability that each respondent would be able to give occupational histories of those who entered the work place in the 1950s as well as those entering after 1965. In 1990 I returned and re-interviewed 76 of the original 100 respondents, and in 1992 returned to re-interview 30. By 1995 only 59 of the original 100 respondents still lived in this neighbourhood, so I included 17 new households. But for the new households I selected those with at least one woman born between 1935 and 1945 in order to increase the number of young adults whose working lives began after 1980. As one would expect, the inclusion of the 17 new households lowered the average age of household heads by three years. But in terms of education level, CCP membership rates and percentage of those holding cadre positions – three of the best predictors of family status and human capital – there was so little change that the children of these two different groups of mothers could be merged into the sample. For example in 1990, 18% of mothers and 39% of fathers were CCP members, 6% of mothers and 18% of fathers had had some type of post-secondary training, and 16% and 41% respectively held some type of cadre or professional job. When the parents in the 17 new households are added to the households of the 59 original respondents, 20% of mothers and 36% of fathers were CCP members, 7% of mothers and 18% of fathers had post-secondary education and 16% and 41% had cadre or professional jobs. In short in 1995 as in 1987 I drew disproportionately from the better-educated and CCP-affiliated Shanghainese. In terms of family status as defined by fathers' occupational position, these are adult children drawn disproportionately from what I previously termed the “Maoist middle class.” See Calhoun, Craig, “Skidding: downward mobility among children of the Maoist middle class,” Modern China, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1992), pp. 410437.Google Scholar

17. Davis, , “Job mobility in post-Mao cities,” pp. 1062–1085.Google Scholar

18. Ibid. pp. 1069–80.

19. Calhoun, Craig, “Urban households,” in Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig (eds.), Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 5076.Google Scholar

20. When interviewing the mothers in these families in 1995, almost all spoke with approval when a child had become a boss, and – in contrast to 1990 when only one women agreed that her son aspired to owning his own factory – in 1995 almost all thought that being one's own boss was a good choice. However, most also stressed that it was extremely risky and that only those with determination and talent would actually succeed.Google Scholar

21. In conversations with many university faculty in July 1995 about the job searches of recent graduates from Shanghai universities, all stressed that new graduates expected to change frequently in the first 5–8 years until they found an “ideal job.” Young adults I met at the three job fairs I attended in July 1995 also explicitly said that they were always looking for new opportunities to “develop themselves.” Confirming patterns were also reported in the published record: see Rencai shichang bao, 24 July 1995, p. 3Google Scholar; Xinmin wanbao, 9 July 1995, p. 1Google Scholar; Hanlong Lu, “The shape of labour market and changing employment pathways”; Calhoun, Craig, “Zhiye xuanze yu jiuye shenghuo zhiliang” (“Choice of occupation and quality of occupational life”), Shehuixue (Sociology), No. 3 (1995), pp. 915Google Scholar

22. One such story was carried in Renmin ribao, 27 July 1995, p. 8.Google Scholar Another in the Hong Kong Far Eastern Economic Review estimated that for those aged 35 or under, the annual rate of firm-switching had reached 20%: Calhoun, Craig, “Looking next door,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 August 1996, pp. 4647.Google Scholar

23. Davis, “Job mobility in post-Mao cities”; Calhoun, Craig, “China's enduring state factories,” in U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, China's Economic Development in the 1980s (Washington, DC: GPO, 1991), p. 440454.Google Scholar

24. This was the actual experience of one of my respondents' daughters who, in order to move from her janitors' job in the textile factory where she had dingti'd her mother to a canteen job in the steel factory where her husband worked and where they had a nearby apartment, had first to find another manual female employee in the steel factory who wanted to leave the factory, but then because that person didn't want her job in the textile mill she and her network of kin and friends had to find a third person who would not only take over her job in the textile mill but would also open up a spot in a third enterprise (it turned out to be a plastics factory) where the person from the steel factory canteen would move.Google Scholar

25. Sensenbrenner, “Rust in the iron rice bowl,” p. 66, and Calhoun, Craig, “Implications of China's reform experience,” The China Quarterly, No. 144 (1995), p. 1155.Google Scholar

26. Zhongguo jingji nianjian 1994 (Chinese Economic Almanac 1994) (Beijing: Zhongguo jingji chubanshe, 1995), p. 338.

27. Renmin ribao, 15 January 1992, p. 3.Google Scholar

28. Renmin ribao, 11 September 1992, p. 2Google Scholar

29. Renmin ribao, 18 December 1992, p. 1Google Scholar

30. Renmin ribao, 16 December 1992, p. 1Google Scholar; Rencai shichang bao, 17 July 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar However, rates of firm-switching remained low. Based on a 1992 survey of 50,000 employees in 12 provinces, researchers found that workers in industrial units had changed enterprises only 0.4 times and high-level managers 1.35 times in their careers. By contrast in non-profit units (shiye) workers had changed 0.64 times, ordinary cadres 0.87, and chu-level cadres 1.86 times. In Party and government agencies (jiguan), workers had changed 1.04 times, middle management twice, and bureau-level workers 3.01 times. Calhoun, Craig, “1992–1993 Zhongguo zhigong qingkuang” (“Status of workers and staff between 1992 and 1993”), Shehui yanjiu (Sociological Research), No. 3 (1995), pp. 1424.Google Scholar

31. Xinmin wanbao, 17, 19 and 20 July 1992Google Scholar; Ming bao, 21 November 1992, p. 8.Google Scholar

32. Ming bao, 22 February 1988, p. 11.Google Scholar Branch campuses (fenxiao) had already eliminated guaranteed job placements as early as 1983, but reform intensified only after 1988 for the keypoint national universities and those local colleges under the central Ministry of Education. In fact as late as the spring of 1988, Renmin ribao still carried reports demanding that graduates accept whatever posts that they had been assigned. See Renmin ribao, 24 June 1988, p. 4.Google Scholar

33. Renmin ribao, 14 March 1988, p. 3Google Scholar

34. Zhongguo jiaoyu bao, 7 June 1988, p. 3.Google Scholar Evidence that the equation of freedom to choose and academic excellence persisted beyond the initial announcements is found in China News Analysis (12 March 1993), which reports that, in 1992, students whose scores on the college entrance exam were below the normal cut-off would be admitted if they agreed to accept a government job in teaching or healthcare in rural areas after graduation.Google Scholar

35. Renmin ribao, 12 November 1994, p. 3.Google Scholar

36. Rencai shichang bao, 24 July 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar However if their parents had rural hukou the graduate would be guaranteed a non-rural hukou even if they returned to their home village or market town. At least on paper, these terms were identical to those described in 1989 in Zhongguo jiaoyu bao, 2 February 1989, p. 1.Google Scholar

37. Between 1992 and 1994, it only rose from 2.3% to 2.8%. See Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1995 (Chinese Statistical Yearbook 1995), p. 106.Google Scholar

38. Xinbao (Hong Kong), 11 April 1995, p. 9Google Scholar

39. In June 1995 government reports estimated that there were 15 million surplus staff in urban enterprises and that as of 1995, at least 3 million people who were counted as employees were actually no longer at their units. See Renmin ribao, 15 June 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar

40. Quoted in Maurer-Fazio, , “Labour reform in China's transition process,” Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4 (forthcoming).Google Scholar

41. Xinmin wanbao, 7 July 1995, p. 1Google Scholar

42. Ming bao (Hong Kong), 19 November 1994, p. 13.Google Scholar

43. Renmin ribao, 31 May 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar

44. Rencai shichang bao, 26 June 1995, p. 1.Google Scholar

45. Laodong rencai changbao (Broadsheet on Labour Talent), 24 July 1995, p. 24,Google Scholar and Renmin ribao, 16 July 1995, p. 2.Google Scholar

46. See, for example, Guofa (State Council Directive) (No. 80 (1989))Google Scholar which called for a tightening up of hukou registrations to control the recent demographic disorder and excess number of births, Guowuyuan gongbao (The Bulletin of the State Council) (1989), pp. 874–87)Google Scholar or two articles in Renmin ribao which sound the alarm over the lack of control over rural migration (Renmin ribao, 25 March 1990, p. 8 and 23 May 1990, p. 6). On the other hand, in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the most marketized cities, urban hukou were already for sale for major investors. In 1986 for US$40,000 one could buy Guangzhou hukou for all family members. In Shenzhen it cost only 10,000 yuan. Calhoun, Craig, “Second class citizens,” Human Rights Tribune, Vol. III. No. 4 (1992), pp. 48.Google Scholar

47. Ming bao (Hong Kong), 26 September 1992, p. 8.Google Scholar

48. Story on Anhui from Economic Information Daily, 5 December 1992Google Scholar as translated in China News Digest, 6 December 1992.Google Scholar There were also reports of individuals who were swindled by urban authorities and found that the purchased hukou cards were not recognized when, for example, the worker wanted to register children for urban schools. Renmin ribao (12 September 1992, p. 5) carried such a story about a man in Shaanxi,Google Scholar

49. Calhoun, Craig (“My views on labour flows,” Renkou, No. 1 (1995), pp. 4249)Google Scholar describes the scheme that began in 1993 and was to go into effect in 1994 that gave employers the right to hire the best talent irrespective of their hukou status. But a year earlier Shanghai already had a “green card” system for all technical specialists (zhuanye) of middle rank (zhongji) or anyone with a PhD in order to bring the best talent to Shanghai. Renmin ribao, 21 November 1992, p. 3.Google Scholar

50. “Rencai liudong gongzuo guanli” (“Materials on management of flow of talent”), unpublished materials from Department of Regulations of Shanghai City Personnel Bureau (n.d.) pp. 202–205.Google Scholar

51. During June and July 1995, I read the advertisements in Xinmin wanbao every night, attended three job fairs in three different city districts, and interviewed ten cadres involved in personnel work for the city, district or state factories. From these sources, I learned that many employers still insisted on Shanghai hukou because they didn't want the hassle of applying for the blue cards or because they preferred Shanghai natives who spoke their dialect and did not have as severe housing demands as migrants without kin in the city.Google Scholar

52. For example, one friend who moved to a foreign-owned firm in 1993 had to arrange for his dossier to be moved from the state agency that employed him to a special rencai fuwu zhongxin (human capital service centre), which would then, for a fee, handle all his future negotiations with personnel bureaus. University graduates in 1993 and 1994 still had to make arrangements for the transfer of their dossiers no matter where they took their first job.Google Scholar

53. Renmin ribao, 4 October 1992.Google Scholar

54. Shanghai respondents who worked in district hospitals complained that they had been forced to work beyond retirement age because there was no successor for their job. One respondent's son who drove a truck for a money-losing chemical plant was repeatedly blocked and then bribed by his employers not to become a taxi driver for the Sheraton. A daughter who was an accountant in a textile firm struck a deal where, in exchange for remaining with the factory, she needed only come in two days a week and could also take books home. If she refused and insisted on moving to a Hong Kong import-export firm, she would be evicted from her factory-owned apartment.Google Scholar

55. Rencai shichang bao (17 July 1995) reported that the majority of those attending the job fairs were between 32 and 35. At the three fairs I attended in June and July 1995, not only did most of those attending seem to be under 40, but also almost all the posted ads were limited to candidates under the age of 36. The only exception to this general preference for younger workers was among ads for experienced managers where the upper limit was 45, and for skilled cooks, plumbers, electricians and truck drivers where no age limits were imposed.Google Scholar

56. In 1990, 2.09 million people worked in state industrial enterprises, 1.39 million were workers. In 1995 there were only 1.48 million jobs, of which .872 million were for production workers. Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 1996, p. 51.Google Scholar

57. Between 1990 and 1995, the average wage for urban Shanghai employees rose by factor of 3.1 from 2,917 yuan to 9,279 yuan. During the same interval the Shanghai cost of living rose by a factor of 2.1: ibid. pp. 61, 79.Google Scholar

58. Shanghai shehui 15 nian (The Last Fifteen Years in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 1994), p. 21.Google Scholar

59. Calhoun, Craig, “Wealth but not security,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 25 (1991), pp. 115137.Google Scholar

60. While it is true that not only did welfare benefits erode as noted above and work conditions become more onerous in some industries, in comparison to being self-employed, Shanghai respondents saw married women with average education and skills as doing better in SOEs than in self-employment. For discussion of the decline in quality of factory work in cotton mills in Henan, see Calhoun, Craig, “Management control of labour in state owned enterprises,” The China Journal, No. 36 (1996), pp. 121.Google Scholar

61. Sensenbrenner, “Rust in the iron rice bowl”, pp. 219–221Google Scholar

62. Calhoun, Craiget al., “Gender and family business in rural China,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 60 (1995), pp. 3657Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Gender differential in economic success: rural China in 1991,” paper prepared for conference, Gender, Households, and Boundaries of Work in China (Chapel Hill, NC: 25–27 October 1996)Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig, “Rural agricultural activities and their impact on the distribution of income,” China Economic Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1994), pp. 5962.Google Scholar

63. Entwisle et al., “Gender and family business in rural China,” p. 57.Google Scholar

64. Michelson and Parish, “Gender differential in economic success: rural China in 1991.”Google Scholar

65. Calhoun, Craig, Business and Bureaucracy in a Chinese City (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies of the University of California, 1993), pp. 6568.Google Scholar

66. Ibid. p. 55.

67. Calhoun, Craig, “Gender, space and work among China's ‘floating population,’” paper prepared for conference, Gender, Households, and the Boundaries of Work in China (Chapel Hill, NC: 25–27 October 1996).Google Scholar

68. Calhoun, Craig, “Cultural support for birth limitation,” in Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig (eds.), Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 255–25.Google Scholar

69. A similar argument has been made about the growth of self-employment among American women in the 1980s. See Calhoun, Craig, “Two paths to self-employment,” Work and Occupations, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1996), p. 27.Google Scholar

70. There is a vast literature in support of this pattern, but of particular interest for the Chinese case at this time is a study by Brinton, Lee and Parish which documents the ways in which gender-specific expectations about the human capital of daughters and sons devalues the financial potential of women in light of variation in macro-organizational structures. Specifically, Brinton, Lee and Parish found that whereas the South Korean reliance on large corporations and an oversupply of male university graduates effectively excludes women from management and curbs employment of mothers, the Taiwanese model of multiple small family firms and more restricted access to university encourages high levels of employment among married women: Calhoun, Craig, Yean-Ju, Lee and Calhoun, Craig, “Married women's employment in rapidly industrializing societies,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 100, No. 5 (1995), pp. 10991130.Google Scholar

71. Calhoun, Craig, “Zhongguo funü de shenghuo zhiliang” (“Quality of Chinese women's lives”), Renkou yanjiu (Population Research), No. 3 (1994), pp. 26.Google Scholar

72. Ibid. Using data from a six-province survey conducted in October 1991, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences concluded that married urban women earned 85% of men's average wage. Calhoun, Craig, “Dangdai Zhongguo chengxiang funü jiating jingji diwei” (“Familial economic position among urban women in contemporary China”), Renkou yu jingji (Population and the Economy), No. 2 (1995), pp. 4956.Google Scholar Using data from 26 cities in 12 provinces, economists also found women earning 85% of male earnings. She Jianfang, , “Zhongguo renli ziben touzi he geren shouru” (“Investments in Chinese human capital and individual incomes”), Jingji yanjiu (Economic Research), No. 12 (1995), pp. 5563.Google Scholar Using data from seven cities in both 1983 and 1992, researchers found average female wage rose from 66% of the male wage to 68%, but there was marked variation by city. The lowest was Guangzhou at 58%; the highest was 70% in Harbin. In Shanghai the rate fell from 71% to 68%. Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Gaige yilai woguo dachengshi zhumin jiating shouru” (“Family incomes among urban Chinese residents since the reform”), Zhongguo shehui kexue (Chinese Social Sciences), No. 3 (1996), pp. 5265.Google Scholar

73. Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Family incomes among urban Chinese residents since the reform,” pp. 5265.Google Scholar

74. Calhoun, Craig, “Jingji shouru de fenhua” (“Distribution of economic income”), Shehuixue, No. 1 (1996), pp. 1115.Google Scholar