^1. For an introduction to this argument see Walder, Andrew, Communist Neo-Traditionalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 11–15.Google Scholar

^2. Lin, Nan and Bian, Yanjie, “Getting ahead in urban China,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 3 (11 1991), p. 662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^3. In 1966 12.64 million people or 23.8% of a total urban workforce of 53.54 million worked for urban collectives. Ten years later, as a result of the tighter controls over private employment, the ratio of collective workers fell to 20.9% when 18.13 million out of a total workforce of 86.72 million were similarly employed. Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1991 (Chinese Statistical Yearbook for 1991) (hereafter ZGTJNJ 1991) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1991), p. 95.Google Scholar

^4. Whyte, Martin K. and Parish, William, Urban Life in Contemporary China (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984), pp. 31–33.Google Scholar

^5. In 1978 72% of all new entrants to the urban labour force went to state units, and none officially went to private or joint venture units; by 1983 the percentage going into state units had fallen to 59% and the percentage going to private units had risen to 13%. For the rest of the decade these ratios remained fairly constant, although the percentage of new entrants going to state enterprises never fell below 58%. ZGTJNJ 1991, p. 116.Google Scholar

^6. For overviews of the financial and economic reforms in the first phase of reform, see Davis, Deborah and Vogel, Ezra (eds.), Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen (Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 1–12Google Scholar; and Nee, Victor and Stark, David (eds.), Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 94–136, 169–207.Google Scholar

^7. Davis, D., “Urban job mobility,”Google Scholar in Davis, and Vogel, , Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen, pp. 85–108.Google Scholar

^8. “Guoying qiye shixing laodong hetong zhanxing guiding,” (“Temporary regulations on implementing labour contracts in State Industry”), Guowuyuan gongbao (Bulletin of the State Council), 10 10 1986, pp. 739–750.Google Scholar

^9. Davis-Friedmann, Deborah, “Intergenerational Inequalities and the Chinese Revolution,” Modern China, Vol. 11, No. 2 (04 1985), pp. 176–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parish, William, “Destratification in China,” in Class and Social Stratification in Post-Revolution China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) pp. 54–120.Google Scholar

^10. In 1980 63.5% of new entrants went to state enterprises; in 1990, the figure had fallen only to 60.5%. ZGTJNJ 1991, p. 116.Google Scholar

^11. In 1985 there were 104,769 deaths on the job and 101,558 resignations. By 1988 the numbers were 131,822 deaths and 109,328 resignations and by 1989 135,143 deaths and 125,055 resignations. Zhongguo laodong gongzi tongji nianjian 1989 (Statistical Yearbook on Chinese Labour and Wages 1989), pp. 206–207 and 1990, pp. 221–26.Google Scholar

^12. Renmin ribao, 17 12, 1989, p. 8Google Scholar; Jin, Shi, “Shanghai shi laodongli liudong qingkuang” (“The situation of labour mobility in Shanghai”), in the Chinese Committee of Labour Studies (ed.), Zhongguo shehuizhuyi laodong gongzi wenti (Problems with China's Socialist Labour and Wage (Practices)) (Beijing: Laodong renshi chubanshe, 1989), pp. 379–399.Google Scholar

^13. Zhongguo laodong renshi bao (Chinese Labour and Personnel News), 22 02 1989, p. 2.Google Scholar

^14. Rates here are for men during the late 1970s or early 1980s. For Japan and West Germany, see Tsun, Cheng Man, “The Japanese permanent employment system,” Work and Occupations, Vol. 18, No. 2 (05 1991), pp. 148–172Google Scholar; for the USSR, Shlapentokh, Vladimir, Public and Private Life of the Soviet People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 54.Google Scholar

^15. Statistical Yearbook on Labour and Wages 1989, pp. 206–207.Google Scholar

^16. Renmin ribao, 30 12 1990, p. 8.Google Scholar For a representative sample of persistent bureaucratic barriers in the first three months of 1989, see Renmin ribao, 13 01 1989, p. 1, and 303 1989, pp. 2 and 5Google Scholar; Chinese Labour and Personnel News, 22 02 1989, p. 1, and 403 1989, p. 3.Google Scholar

^17. Renmin ribao, 4 11 1990, p. 8.Google Scholar

^18. In 1979 there were approximately 320,000 privately employed urban residents. By 1989 there were 6.48 million, a slight decrease from 6.59 in 1988, but still a massive, fundamental shift from the late 1970s. ZGTJNJ 1990, p. 113.Google Scholar

^19. In 1987 I interviewed 100 Shanghai women born between 1925 and 1935 about their own work histories as well as those of their husbands and adult children. In 1988 I interviewed 100 of their peers in Wuhan and in 1990 I re-interviewed 73 of the original Shanghai respondents. The Shanghai respondents were chosen by random sample within one residential area. The Wuhan respondents were introduced by the retirement committees in three state enterprises. From these 200 families I subsequently constructed 1,023 job histories for each respondent and most of their husbands and adult children. In this article, I will draw primarily on a subset of 729 which includes respondents, 175 husbands and most eldest and youngest sons and daughters.

^20. Zhongguo 1987 nian 1% renkou chouyang diaocha ziliao (Materials From the 1% Census of 1987) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1987).Google Scholar

^21. Chinese Statistics Monthly, No. 8 (1989), p. 7Google Scholar and Statistical Yearbook on Chinese Labour and Wages 1989, pp. 49–50Google Scholar, report that for state employees in industry and construction 15.8% were CCP members and 18.2% were YCL members. Among production workers it was 9.9% and 19.9%, while among managers 48.4% and 11.6%.

^22. Throughout this paper I will discuss four groups of children: eldest sons, eldest daughters, youngest sons and youngest daughters. Eldest sons and daughters were the eldest son and eldest daughter in each family who had entered the work place before 1980; youngest sons and daughters were the youngest son and daughter who entered the work place no earlier than 1980.

^23. At the time of their first job, 47% of the 130 eldest sons held rural manual jobs, 51% held urban manual jobs and 2% had urban clerical jobs. Amongst eldest daughters 46% began in rural jobs, 37% in urban manual jobs, 10% in urban clerical and 6% in non-routine white collar work.

^24. In terms of mean educational achievement, that of eldest sons rose from 3.08 to 3.96 at the time of the last interview, eldest daughters rose from 3.17 to 4.00, while youngest sons went from 4.00 to 4.33 and youngest daughters from 4.35 to 4.59.

^25. Copies of these efforts may be obtained from the author.

^26. Again because of constraints on sample size, I could not do a model which included all variables that had produced significant correlation coefficients. Instead I selected four on which I had nearly complete information for all cases and whiah spoke directly to the issues of chronological age, use of dingti and a CCP tie. Parental job status variables could not be used because there were too many missing cases.

^27. Among youngest sons 45% of the boys had more than a lower middle school education when they first left school, and by the time of the interview this percentage had risen to 51%. Among youngest daughters the comparable shift was from 65% to 70%. By contrast among the eldest children, only 8% of sons and 13% of daughters had more than lower middle school when they first left school, but by the time of the interview they still lagged behind the younger cohort, with 38% of sons and 46% of daughters having gained higher credentials.

^28. Because more than 40% of the older children once worked in rural areas, in this analysis of the impact of the reforms on urban job mobility, first jobs in agriculture were not counted. Nor were any jobs held by parents in the pre-1949 years counted because there was no reliable way in which all data for this period could be reported for all respondents and their spouses. TNUE therefore does not equal the total number of lifetime employers, but is restricted only to urban employers after 1949.

^29. For analysis of job switching, I used simple regression instead of logistic regression because TNUE was a true interval variable, unlike the job status measures which were categorical.

^30. Some 41% of the 73 families had one child change jobs during these three and half years, and only 13.6% of the families had more than two move.

^31. One women changed from school principal in Tibet to clerk in a Shanghai insurance office, the second left a job as a state worker to become a housewife in a surburban commune, the third left a job as a doctor in a county hospital to become a graduate student in Shanghai, and a fourth left a job as an accountant in Guizhou to be a clerk in a small Shanghai collective.

^32. Thirteen of 16 women who changed to a second urban job relied on a parent, husband, or in-law to arrange the transfer, which in most cases meant a move to the place of employment of the key relative. In two cases I could not discover exactly how the move had been arranged, and in only one case-a younger daughter who went to play baseball in Japan – did the woman move without familial intervention.

^33. See Davis, Deborah, “Urban households: supplicants to a socialist state,” in Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming), ch. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^34. Parkin, Frank, “Strategies of social closure in class formation,” The Social Analysis of Class Structure (London: Tavistock, 1974), pp. 1–18.Google Scholar

^35. See Walder, , Communist Neo-traditionalismGoogle Scholar for the most comprehensive analysis of these phenomena.

^36. See in particular pp. 224–241 and 251–53.

^37. Walder, , Communist Neo-traditionalism, p. 253.Google Scholar