SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with China's urban employment experience between 1949 and 1957. In Chapter Two we attempt to quantify this experience by a critical examination of existing indicators of employment change for all urban areas and by the analysis of new data for individual cities. In particular we have attempted to construct a detailed picture of the demand and supply of non-agricultural labour in the city of Shanghai. The most striking feature of the data presented in Chapter Two is the evidence of the growth of open unemployment and also of very large employment fluctuations. In Chapter Three we analyse the long run trends in urban employment change, and in Chapter Four, we look closely at the size of employment fluctuations and show how these have been related both to unemployment and over-manning. Chapters One to Four constitute an analysis of the enviroment relevant to the final chapters in which we trace chronologically, the development of Chinese thinking about urban employment and the evolution of the administrative machinery designed to control the urban labour market. In Chapters Five and Six we show that during the period analysed, China's urban employment experience led to a complete re-orientation of employment policy and a transformation in the duties and powers of the institutions responsible for employment control.