Yanjie Bian

Bringing strong ties back in: Indirect ties, network bridges, and job searches in China

M. Granovetters strength-of-weak-ties argument has led to fruitful research on how individuals are matched to jobs in market economies. In analyzing the institution for assigning jobs in China, the author makes distinctions (1) between information and influence that flow through networks during job searches and (2) between direct ties and indirect ties used by job-seekers. He finds that in China personal networks are used to influence authorities who in turn assign jobs as favors to their contacts, which is a type of unauthorized activity facilitated by strong ties characterized by trust and obligation. In a 1988 survey in Tianjin, he finds that (1) jobs are acquired through strong ties more frequently than through weak ties, (2) both direct and indirect ties are used to obtain help from job-assigning authorities, (3) job-seekers and their ultimate helpers are indirectly connected through intermediaries to whom both are strongly tied, and (4) job-seekers using indirect ties are more likely to obtain better jobs than those using direct ties

Market transition and the persistence of power: The changing stratification system in urban China

Research on transitional socialist societies has explored trends in income inequality and issues concerning who gains and who loses during market reforms. We find that income inequality in a major Chinese city declined only slightly during the first decade of reform policies; it then increased dramatically in the subsequent five years. Strategic position in the state bureaucracy continues to be an important determinant of income, although connections to the market system are becoming alternate sources of advantage. We interpret these findings in light of the historical and institutional context of urban China

Housing inequality in urban China in the 1990s

Access to housing of sufficient space and quality has been a central element in social stratification in urban China. We examine the sources of housing inequality in 1993 in Shanghai and Tianjin, when a market reform process had been underway in the national economy for nearly fifteen years. The Chinese housing allocation system favors people with political position and connections, those of higher socio-economic background, and those whose work units have greater organizational authority. There is only slight evidence that market reform has undermined this stratification order. To the contrary, there are reasons to believe that in some respects inequalities rooted in socialism are strengthened by institutional changes. These conclusions are reinforced by comparison to results of analyses of income inequality in the same cities. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999.

Getting Ahead in Urban China

This article argues that structural segmentation is a universal phenomenon in all complex societies and across political economies. Each political economy uses specific criteria in delineating segments of its economic and work organizations. Furthermore, it is argued that segmentation identification constitutes a critical destination status for individuals engaged in the status-attainment process. A representative sample of the working population in Tianjin, China, is analyzed to show that entrance into the core sectors (state agencies and enterprises), rather that the job per se, constitutes the primary goal of status attainment. Entering into a more desirable work-unit sector in China takes on differential significance and process for males and females. Formales, the direct effect of intergenerational factors (i.e., the effect of fathers work-unit sector) is evident. For females, such an effect is only indirect; instead, to a great extent, their status attainment. Also, upward occupational mobility across sectors (from the peripheral to the core) between first and current jobs is substantially greater among male workers (oven 60%) than among female workers (20%). Likewise, males benefit more from social resources (the use of social contacts and their resources) in the job search than females. These findings shed light on the significance of political economy in defining statuses and the viability of the industrialization-attainment thesis. They also point to other oerating processes that transcend the effects of political economy or industrialization. Specifically, these explanatory schemes do not yet prove adequate in accounting for gender differences and the use of social resources in the status-attainment process.

Guanxi and the Allocation of Urban Jobs in China

There has been considerable documentation concerning the use of guanxi to acquire power, status and resources in Communist China. More recently, guanxi has been seen as a mechanism to explain status trans-mission from the older generation to the younger under state socialism, as a key factor in the development of private businesses in the cities during market reforms, and as an effective strategy for individuals to get ahead in a more open, market-like rural society. This article describes and analyses guanxi in the context of Chinas urban job allocation.

Intergenerational relations in urban China: Proximity, contact, and help to parents

Although most older Chinese parents live with an adult son or daughter, most adult offspring do not live with parents. We examine the relations of these noncoresident offspring with parents in terms of proximity, frequency of contact, and exchange of help. Based on a 1993 random sample survey conducted in two major Chinese cities, we find that although rates of coresidence are high, noncoresident sons and daughters live close to parents, have frequent contact with their parents, and provide regular help to parents. Relationships with noncoresident sons and daughters are unaffected by whether parents coreside with another child. There is some evidence of closer relationships with sons than with daughters, but parents without a son receive as much help from all children as do parents with sons. The effects of these and other predictors are estimated in multivariate analyses, and results are interpreted in terms of the persistence or change of traditional family norms.

Market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China

In this article, we examine the relationship between market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China. We analyze change in the gender gap in human capital, political capital, labor-force placement, and family structure; change in the amount of monetary return to these determinants; and the changing significance of these sources of influence. We do so by analyzing two national samples from the 1988 and 1995 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) and city-level data for 1995. We found no longitudinal change nor city-level variation in the gender gap in earnings. Despite this stability, the proportion of the gender gap in earnings attributable to education and occupational segregation increased over time. This change is disproportional, occurring largely only in the most marketized cities. In these highly marketized cities, the significance of market-related mechanisms — education and occupation and industry-placement — has increased, while the contribution of redistribution-related mechanisms — affiliation with the state sector, party membership, and seniority — has decreased. These changes indicate that the Chinese market transition is a nonlinear, cumulative process.

Communist Party Membership and Regime Dynamics in China

This article uses event history analyses to examine how the criteria of political screening and educational credentials evolve in the attainment of Chinese Communist Party membership during the period between 1949 and 1993 and how party membership, in turn, influences individual mobility into elite political and managerial positions. We argue that political screening is a persistent feature and a survival strategy of all Communist parties and that the mechanisms of ensuring political screening are affected by the regimes agendas in different historical periods. Using data from surveys conducted in Shanghai and Tianjin in 1993, we found that measures of political screening were persistently significant predictors of party membership attainment in all post-1949 periods and that party membership is positively associated with mobility into positions of political and managerial authority during the post-1978 reform era. Education emerged to be a significant predictor of Communist party membership in the post-1978 period. These findings indicate that China has made historical shifts to recruit among the educated to create a technocratic elite that is both occupationally competent and politically screened.

The Chinese General Social Survey (2003-8)

The Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), launched jointly since 2003 by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Renmin University, continued to be jointly organized by the two institutions in the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 surveys. This article introduces the background of the first phase of the CGSS, and describes the research agenda, sample designs, and fieldwork implementation strategies. It also provides an assessment of data quality for different types of fieldwork implementation through scholarly networks, government, and survey research firms.

Information and favoritism: The network effect on wage income in China

Abstract How do social networks matter for labor market opportunities and outcomes? To fill in a gap between network theory and research evidence, we develop a theoretical explanation of how network-transmitted information and favoritism serve as causal mechanisms of wage income in China. In a large-scale Chinese survey, we find that 59% of the 4350 wage earners land on jobs through social contacts from whom the benefits of information and forms of favoritism are gained. Data analysis shows that (1) both weak ties and strong ties are used by Chinese job seekers to obtain information and favoritism to help secure job opportunities, but (2) weak ties are better able to channel job information than strong ties and strong ties are better able to mobilize forms of favoritism than weak ties, (3) information and favoritism equally promote job–worker matching, which in turn increases wage, and (4) favoritism has a stronger effect than does information on job assignment to positions of superior earning opportunity. This analysis demonstrates the non-spurious, causal effect of social networks on wage income in the Chinese context.