This thesis investigates the impact of the various institutional changes which have occurred in the Chinese labour market in recent years, against the background of the rapid transition to a market economy. One aspect of interest is the accessibility of the job market to graduates. This aspect is investigated using survey data on job search. Institutional factors, particularly hukou policy, are found to exert a strong influence on graduates’ job search behaviour and outcomes. Specifically, graduates from rural areas, classified as non-urban hukou, choose to invest in higher levels of job-search effort and appear to have higher probabilities of being employed. This evidence is reassuring in the sense that effort invested in job search appears to be beneficial in the graduate labour market in China. The second aspect of interest is compensation arrangements within private organizational settings. This aspect is investigated using personnel records (from 1994 through 2007) from one typical domestic privately-owned firm. Analysis of this data reveals the following: a tertiary education background increases a worker’s earnings by more than 30% compared with one having only primary education; Guanxi (personal connections) typically increases earnings by around 16%; tenure is a decisive determinant of whether an individual receives a deferred compensation package; finally, local hukou status exerts absolute advantage in terms of both salary and the propensity to receive a deferred compensation package. The third and final aspect is determination of job tenure in the private sector. Using data from the same firm as investigated in the previous chapter of the thesis. Single-spell and multiple-spell duration analyses are applied to model the employment durations of these workers. We find that migrant workers exhibit a higher rate of turnover. This is despite the implementation of significant hukou reform in our study region which allows migrant workers to apply for local hukou status. We argue that this is partly due to employers continuing to discriminate against migrant workers in terms of compensation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:569285 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Wang, Wen |
| Publisher | University of East Anglia |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/10568/ |
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