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Why We Cannot Count the “Unemployed”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2001

Dorothy J. Solinger
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Extract

As of mid-2001, after six or seven years of massive bloodletting from the rolls of state-owned firms, one stark outcome is apparent. No one, and certainly not the central government, knows how many once-state workers have been removed from their posts. This article aims to characterize the chaos rampant in discussions of this programme, the human side of the dismantling of the state enterprise system, from a number of angles. My material leads me to argue that it is impossible to come to any kind of statistical judgment about China's current unemployment, particularly one drawing upon official statistics, which, because they are based upon extremely restrictive definitions, are fundamentally flawed. Government-generated data also throw into question any inferences about the plight of those moving in and out of the state of joblessness.

Type
Research Report
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 167 , September 2001 , pp. 671 - 688
Copyright
© The China Quarterly, 2001

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Footnotes

Thanks to Kam Wing Chan and Thomas G. Rawski for helping me with sources. This report draws on two long papers, one presented at the conference on “Wealth and Labour in China: Cross-Cutting Approaches of Present Developments”, sponsored by the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Paris, 6–7 December 1999, the other presented at the conference entitled, “On the Roots of Growth and Crisis: Capitalism, State and Society in East Asia”, sponsored by the Feltrinelli Foundation, Cortona, Italy, 2–3 March 2001, but also includes new data and insights.