INTRODUCTION

This paper attempts to gauge the change in the living-standards of industrial workers in municipal Shanghai over two time-spans: 1930 to 1956, and 1956 to 1973. Three data sets are employed. The first is a survey of 305 industrial worker households conducted by the Shanghai Bureau of Social Affairs in 1929–30. The second is a similar survey, of 505 Shanghai worker households, conducted in 1956, and devised with the intention of achieving comparability with the 1930 study. The third data set consists of prices, wages and scattered household budget studies drawn from reports of visits to China and from official Chinese sources in the 1970s.

The paper has three parts. In Part 1, we compare 1930 with 1956. We first compare the actual market baskets purchased by the average households in each survey. We then value and aggregate each market basket, using prices for 1930 and for 1956, in order to reach conclusions as to the change in living-standards during that period. In Part 2, we compare 1956 with 1973. Here, we lack a market basket. Instead, we ask how much it would cost, at 1973 prices, to live the way workers did in 1956; and then ask whether this amount was greater or less than average 1973 household incomes. In Part 3, we note some limitations on the validity of our results, including difficulties with the data, nonwage aspects of welfare, and the influence of rationing.