Both individual characteristics and organizational internal structure are significantly related to employees' participation in both kind of education and training, namely the firm-provided as well as self-chosen and paid education and training outside the firm. Those employees who are male and younger, those who are at higher end of job hierarchy, those who experienced more internal mobility, are more likely to participate in both kinds of education and training. They take the advantage of both kinds of education and training programs. / Cases of this study include 31736 employees from 410 enterprises, randomly sampled at China's county level from different regions in terms of economical development. Multilevel logistic regression was employed to model the impact of region, firm and individual characteristic on employees' participation in adult education and training. Dependent variables are classified in three groups in this study: (a) those employees who participated in the training provided by firm only, (b) those employees who participated in self-chosen and self-paid adult education and training outside firm only, and (c) those employees who participated in both two kinds of adult education and training. / In regard to employees' participation in firm provided training only, the labor market structural factors and the firms' internal organizational structure had the most explaining power, between these two firms' internal market characteristics had greater impact. A job position that an employee obtained is his/her niche in the labor market. The characteristics of an internal market is decisive for allocating training opportunities. Those employees at a position in advantage are likely to participate in firm supported training. That is, the higher an employee is at occupational hierarchy, the longer a person has worked in current firm, the greater the extent to which an employee has experienced changes in the workplace, the more likely that employee would take part in firm provided training. / In the context of global market and knowledge economy development, adult education and training are regarded as an important factor in keeping economic growth in China. They also become a means for individuals to acquire knowledge, skills and to enhance human capital, thus improving their ability in the job market. / In the fast-growing market-oriented economy in China, many employees have been involved in job-related education and training of various kinds. In the transition from the planned to a market economy, firms are more autonomous in the organization of production, and individuals are free to pursue their occupational aspirations. Firms and individual started to take responsibilities to invest in education and training in order to acquire competence. It is interesting to study who participate in adult education and training as an opportunity to update job skills. It is important to understand if that would have implications in improving the workforce quality. / The empirical analyses supported the hypothesis that employees' participation in adult education and training is determined by both individual characteristics and multi-level labor market structures. Both employees and their firms are embedded in certain social structure that could be facilitating or constraining in terms of making educational opportunities available to firms and individual employees. The findings clearly show that patterns of the three groups of independent variables having impact on the three types of participation choices vary. / These findings show that employees' participation in education and training is related to individual characteristics acquired before entering the labor market, and it is also related to the characteristics of labor market. Making education and training available for employees has become a practice to improve competence, which is vital to maintain sustainability. Therefore, it should give consideration to improving equality of participation for different groups of employees and reducing disparity between regions. A mechanism is necessary to coordinate education and training among sectors, such including education, economic sector and the government administration for the workforce. That would encourage the exchange of information between sectors and improve cooperation in developing programs for the workforce. In such a way, adult education and training can play an important role and meet skill training needs for different social groups. / This thesis takes employees' participation in education and training for a study. It is focused on the following research questions: Who had an opportunity to participate in adult education and training during the economic reform in mainland China? What are the factors affecting employees' participation? Based on human capital theory, labor market segmentation theory and organization theory, it is hypothesized that employees' individual characteristics, the firms' internal structural characteristics, and the firms' characteristics in relations to labor market all these multi-level factors have impact on employees' participation in adult education and training. Independent variables are accordingly deduced into three groups. Individual characteristics are those achieved status possessed by employees before entering into the labor market, include age, gender, marital status, initial education level. Characteristics of the firms' internal labor market is represented by the employees' job related characteristics in terms of job position, work experience in years, mobility, and the extent an employee experienced the firms' reform. An employee acquired these work-related attributes after having entered the firm, or being selected by a firm if one's individual characteristics were considered matching in the workplace. Finally, firms' characteristics, reflecting firms' attributes as compared to other firms in the market system, would affect resource allocation and labor requirements. These variables include firm size, the average education year of employee with in firm, the overall mobility of a firm's internal labor market, types of ownership, and the economic industrial sector that the firm belongs to. / Whether an employee has participated in self-paid adult education is an interaction of individual characteristics and labor market structure. Those employees who are male, younger, and who had senior secondary education are likely to participate in self-paid adult education. In regard to one's decision of participating in self-paid adult education or not, it mostly related to one's own individual characteristics. As an employee is embedded in the firm and then the firm embedded in the large labor market, his or her action is affected by the labor market structure, too, but those are the secondary factors. / 王蕊. / 呈交日期: 2006年2月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 213-232 ). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2006 nian 2 yue. / Advisers: Jin Xiao; Nai-Kwai Lo. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4067. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 213-232 ). / Wang Rui.