China / Minorities are disadvantaged in the job search process concludes a study

Reza Hasmath, Benjamin Ho and Elaine M. Liu estimate wage differentials between ethnic minorities and the Han majority in China from 1989 to 2006 in Ethnic Minority Disadvantages in China’s Labor Market? on seh.ox.ac.uk (Adapted choosen excerpts by JMM to follow)

A decade after market reforms commenced in 1978, the Communist Party of China (CPC) abandoned its job assignment system. In effect, the CPC shifted from a system of jobs guaranteed for life (tie fan wan) in government departments, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and collective-owned enterprises (COEs) to a system where individuals were urged to create jobs for themselves and to seek employment in the emerging private sector. These changes further initiated new patterns of employment behavior in urban China: the growth of part time, temporary, and seasonal employment; the increased prominence of joint-venture foreign firms; and the adoption of new non-standard employment practices. In short, whereas previously the state played a dominant and active role in providing secure jobs for the individual, the onus started to shift to the individual to find employment within parameters that fitted market conditions of wages and experiences, whilst negotiating new occupational categories.

In general, the majority of the available literature suggests that ethnic minorities may not be faring well since the termination of the job assignment system.

The author seek to augment the existing literature in three ways. First, given that the labor market in China has undergone a substantial transformation due to massive rural to urban migration over the past decade, this study is one of the first papers to provide an up-to-date picture of urban labor market conditions for ethnic minorities using a survey conducted in 2004 and 2006.

Secondly, most studies on this topic focus on the poorer Western or minority autonomous regions, this paper highlights the ethnic minority experience in the relatively developed urban areas of the Eastern coastal provinces.

Lastly, a mixed-qualitative/quantitative methods approach is adopted, which seldom is the case for studies of this nature on ethnic minorities in China.

The approach is to examine the current labor acquisition process for ethnic minorities in the job search and hiring process, and thereafter analyze wage differentials to discern similarities and differences in the experiences reported. The article assesses potential factors for disadvantages in China’s labor market such as discrimination, social network capital and working culture.

Interviews with minority actors and observations with various enterprises are included.

The qualitative data suggests that ethnic minorities face a different job matching process than Hans due a combination of discrimination, lack of social network capital, and differences in working culture. However, analysis of the China Health and Nutrition Surveys (CHNS) data finds that the difference in wage outcomes between the Han majority and ethnic minorities can be explained by differences in education and job type. Once these factors are controlled for, the wage differential disappears. However, the quantitative data cannot explain why minorities are sorted into jobs that provide lower compensation than Hans.

In summary, while Han-minority wage differentials estimated show little evidence for minority disadvantages, both quantitative and qualitative evidence looking at the process of minority labor acquisition and retention finds that minorities are disadvantaged in the job search process.

Source: