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Self-employment in Shanghai: A Research Note*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
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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).
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References
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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. 9–15Google Scholar
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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
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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
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40. Quoted in Maurer-Fazio, , “Labour reform in China's transition process,” Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4 (forthcoming).Google Scholar
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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. 1099–1130.Google Scholar
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74. Calhoun, Craig, “Jingji shouru de fenhua” (“Distribution of economic income”), Shehuixue, No. 1 (1996), pp. 11–15.Google Scholar
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