Category Archives: Peer reviewed articles

Household registration reform and peri-urban precarity in China

Smith, N. R. (2014). Living on the edge: household registration reform and peri-urban precarity in China. Journal of Urban Affairs. doi: 10.1111/juaf.12107

China’s household registration system divides the nation into urban and rural populations, conditioning life chances and producing widespread inequity. Recent reform experiments in Chongqing have met with mixed success, as many residents have declined to convert to urban registration. This article ethnographically investigates the rationales and strategies of residents in Hailong, a village in Chongqing where residents were reluctant to participate in household registration reform. For Hailong residents, the state-sponsored welfare offered through urban registration was perceived as a source of exploitation and precarity. In search of stability, Hailong residents developed informal welfare strategies, including mutual support networks and economic diversification. By forcing residents to give up their land rights and adopt urban roles, household registration reform threatened these informal strategies. The article concludes by exploring the policy implications of this analysis, including the possibility of developing formal welfare programs that complement—rather than replace—informal strategies.

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Chinese workfarism: logics and realities of the work–welfare governance model

Sun, X. (2014). Chinese workfarism: logics and realities of the work–welfare governance model. Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 8: 43–58. DOI: 10.1111/aswp.12024 [Retreived 31 March 2014]

Given the fundamental disparities between China and the west in political structures, social values, policy regimes, and problem loads, it is meaningful to use “workfare” as a challenging analytical standpoint and detect that China had created unique workfare regimes to build up the past state-socialism and the present market-socialism. In the era of state-socialism, the dual-track welfare system, apparently adopting an institutional approach to the city and a residual approach to the countryside, was purposely integrated with the segregated urban-rural work system, constituting a China-specific workfare regime in which the whole workforce was included and effectively organized into the socio-economic order. Under market-socialism that appears as an awkward hybrid, the work-welfare governance model is being gradually transformed into a pragmatic, much marketized one, though without idealogical legitimacy as well as a clear-cut vision. On the one hand, employment differentiation and income disparity resulted from a strategic shift from the “reform-without-losers” stage to the “reform-with-losers” stage in the labor market, together with a large scale rural-to-urban labor migration, are structuring a market-oriented, stratified employment system. On the other hand, while being a welfare laggard, China’s productivist, status-segregated welfare system is taking shape owing to a set of welfare reforms along the line of marketization and societalization. All these changes would imply that China is converging towards a neo-liberal regime in which the role of the state is residual to the market.

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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The second generation of rural migrants in Shanghai

Lan, Pei-chia (2014). Segmented incorporation: The second generation of rural migrants in Shanghai. The China Quarterly, 217, p 243-265. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S030574101300146X

This article looks at the changing frameworks for the institutional and cultural incorporation of second-generation rural migrants in Shanghai. Beginning in 2008, Shanghai launched a new policy of accepting migrant children into urban public schools at primary and secondary levels. I show that the hukou (household registration) is still a critical social boundary in educational institutions, shaping uneven distribution of educational resources and opportunities, as well as hierarchical recognition of differences between urbanites and migrants. I have coined the term “segmented incorporation” to characterize a new receiving context, in which systematic exclusion has given way to more subtle forms of institutional segmentation which reproduces cultural prejudice and reinforces group boundaries.

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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The political economy of urban ruins: redeveloping Shanghai

Ren, Xuefei (2014). The political economy of urban ruins : redeveloping Shanghai. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12119. Prepublished online: 10 March 2014.

This essay analyzes the political economy of the urban ruins captured in Greg Girard’s photo album Phantom Shanghai. Rather than being marginal, irrelevant or merely objects for nostalgia, the ruins of buildings produced by real estate speculation offer crucial insights into the workings of the urban political economy and reflect wider trends of urban governance. Examining how building ruins come about in the first place and how they are represented in visual media can help us better understand the processes of urbanization and place making, and the central role of destruction in contemporary Chinese urbanism. This essay illustrates this point by analyzing the economic function, political legitimation and cultural significance of demolitions and ruins in urban China.

 

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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The current dilemma and future path of China’s electric vehicles

Zhang, X.; Rao, R.; Xie, J.; Liang, Y. (2014). The current dilemma and future path of China’s electric vehicles. Sustainability, 6, 1567-1593. DOI:10.3390/su6031567 [Retrieved 24 March 2014]

China had set an ambitious development target of electric vehicles (EVs) to mitigate the environmental pollution. However, the actual situation of EVs far lagged behind the goals. This paper analyzes the elements impeding EVs’ development, which are identified into four contributors, including deficient EV subsidy policies, embarrassed EV market, local protectionism, and unmatched charging infrastructure. Based on the actual situation of China, this paper discusses corresponding policy suggestions and explores the alternative roadmap of EVs. In the initial development stage of EVs, it is important to select the appropriate charging mode for EVs according to different characteristics across users. Moreover, the development of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) may open the EV market faster than battery electric vehicle (BEV). In addition, the low-speed EVs may be a good choice for the rural market and should be well developed. With the promotion of EVs, China central and local governments should make rational policies to promote EVs’ development, which is the crucial force to drive the uptake of EVs.

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Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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What’s so special about China’s producer services? An input–output analysis

Cheng, D. and Daniels, P. W. (2014), What’s so special about China’s producer services? An input–output analysis. China & World Economy, 22, 103–120. (Retrieved 15 March 2014) DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-124X.2014.12055.x

In the present study, five stylized facts about China’s producer services are established through international, intersectoral and intertemporal comparisons based on input–output tables. First, the overall service input ratio is the lowest in all the sample economies. Second, most producer services are supplied by the traditional labor-intensive sectors. Third, manufacturing is the biggest user of producer services, and service industry is the second, while the opposite is true for most of the other sample economies. Fourth, unlike other economies, China’s “R&D” is characterized more by consumer services than producer services. Fifth, China has fairly lower service input ratios in almost all the industries. The backward and forward linkages coefficients are both smaller for “real estate activities” and “finance and insurance.” Policy reform should focus not only on specific producer services but also on reducing obstacles that are inhibiting the balanced development of diverse producer services that will help China to optimize its economic structure.

Read full text on Wiley Online Library (free access)

  • Cheng Dazhong is Professor at the Department of World Economy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
  • Peter W. Daniels, a member of the UrbaChina research team, is Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK.

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Land politics and local State capacities

Rithmire, Meg (2013). Land politics and local State capacities: the political economy of urban change in China. The China Quarterly, 276, p. 872-895. [Retrieved March 4, 2014]. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305741013001033
Despite common national institutions and incentives to remake urban landscapes to anchor growth, generate land-lease revenues and display a capacious administration, Chinese urban governments exhibit varying levels of control over land. This article uses a paired comparison of Dalian and Harbin in China’s north-east to link differences in local political economies to land politics. Dalian, benefiting from early access to foreign capital, consolidated its control over urban territory through the designation of a development zone, which realigned local economic interests and introduced dual pressures for enterprises to restructure and relocate. Harbin, facing capital shortages, distributed urban territory to assuage the losers of reform and promote economic growth. The findings suggest that 1) growth strategies, and the territorial politics they produce, are products of the post-Mao urban hierarchy rather than of socialist legacies, and 2), perhaps surprisingly, local governments exercise the greatest control over urban land in cities that adopted market reforms earliest.
Meg Rithmire is an assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit, Harvard Business School

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies (CJUES)

A new journal in urban and environmental studies, edited by Pan Jiahua, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Ni Pengfei (CAS and UrbaChina research team), is a member of the editorial board.

CJUESChinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies (CJUES) (ISSN 2345-7481 print /2345-752X online) is a peer-reviewed journal that seeks to publish high-quality research papers and book reviews to explore a wide range of academic and policy concerns of urban and environmental studies. CJUES publishes scholarly work with a special emphasis on the following fields:

  • theoretical and conceptual frameworks for urban and environmental studies
  • the trend of urban and environmental development in both China and international context
  • issues of urban studies, including urbanization, urban planning, urban form, urban problems, urban land use, urban transportation
  • issues of sustainability and environmental developments, including environmental protection, environmental policy, climate change
  • linkage between urban, environmental and other areas of social and economic policy
  • international comparison and developments

Table of contents (vol. 1, n° 1, December 2013)

Free access to all CJUES issues is provided until 31 March 2015
(registration online required)

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Call for papers: Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies

Submissions are invited from graduate students for a special issue of the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (GJAPS): Urban Futures in the Asia-Pacific (Simon Opit, editor, University of Auckland, New Zealand).

Cities are centres of economic, social, political and cultural activity, but they can also be areas of intense poverty, unhealthy environments, dangerous spaces and captivity. With the current unprecedented rates of growth in the Asia-Pacific unlikely to abate it is of great importance that we maximise the potential of urban spaces while avoiding the multitudinous harm that cities can cause. The Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies is calling for papers that provide perspectives on the possible future of urban spaces in the Asia-Pacific.

Such a theme is open to both quantitative and qualitative perspectives on urban spaces and encourages artistic, empirical or theoretical contributions that relate to, but are not limited to any of the following major themes:

  • Examining urban policies that are argued to promote sustainable urbanism and create more resilient, liveable urban spaces.
  • Assessing the potential of future technologies and/or transport initiatives that offer solutions to urban problems.
  • Investigating layers of urban governance structures and how they impact on urban environments and their development, either as a constructive or restrictive force.
  • Analysing our understandings of urban spaces and providing critical review of the current values that underpin urban practices.
  • Detailing and evaluating methodological innovation in the field of urban studies, including new tools and technologies that provide novel ideas and a better of understandings of our urban world.

Contributions are welcome from all fields, including: social sciences and the humanities, architecture and planning, politics and policy analysis, or any other form of urban study.GJAPS interprets the designation “Asia-Pacific” in the broadest sense, to encompass East, Northeast and Southeast Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Australasia, Polynesia and Oceania, the West Coast of the Americas, including California, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, Central and South America.Submissions should be received by 1st of April 2014.

More info here

GJAPS website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Green apartments in Nanjing, China

Hu, Hong, Stan Geertman and Pieter Hooimeijer. (2014) Green apartments in Nanjing China: do developers and planners understand the valuation by residents? Housing Studies, 29 (1), 26-43. DOI:10.1080/02673037.2014.848268

The Chinese government promotes green construction as part of the strategy to reduce energy consumption. In practice, green construction can be impeded because various stakeholders valuate green attributes in different ways. This paper uses the analytic hierarchy process to analyse the extent to which developers and planners understand the valuation of green apartment attributes by residents in Nanjing. Results show that buyers of green apartments rank green attributes lower than safety and accessibility, and rank healthy construction materials and comfort much higher than thermal isolation or reduced energy costs. Green developers tend to focus on aspects that define their margin, such as green attributes and locational benefits and overlook the social needs, which are not addressed in building codes and not under their control. They have better understanding of green residents’ priorities with health issues; planners are more familiar with the social needs of residents and lack green marketing knowledge.

Read full text on Taylor&Francis Online (restricted access)

Hu, Hong, Stan Geertman and Pieter Hooimeijer. (2014) The willingness to pay for green apartments: The case of Nanjing, China. Urban Studies. Prepublished January, 7, 2014. DOI: 10.1177/0042098013516686

Faced with the challenge of developing sustainable cities, the Chinese government sets green construction as part of the national strategy to reduce energy consumption. However, the consumer market has shown limited response to such policies. To upscale green building, it is crucial to understand the market demands for green apartments. This article employs a conjoint model to estimate the willingness to pay for green dwellings versus accessibility to metros and jobs and neighbourhood quality by different socio-economic groups in Nanjing, China. Results show that the socio-economic status of homebuyers determines their willingness to pay for green attributes. Only the rich are prepared to pay for green apartments to improve their living comfort. To all, the notion of health is appealing as consumers are willing to pay for an unpolluted environment and for non-toxic construction materials used in buildings in good locations.

Read full text on SAGE Journals Online (restricted access)

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking

Jiang, Yihong ( 2013 ). Altering the rules : Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking. Journal Of Current Chinese Affairs, 42(3), pp. 121-148. [Retrieved January 17, 2014, from http://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jcca/article/view/672]

This study looks at Chinese homeowners’ participation in policymaking. Drawing on evidence from Guangzhou and Beijing, it shows that various organised homeowner activists have moved upstream in the policy process and have begun to push beyond policy implementation into the domain of agenda setting and “rule-making”. These advocates display rights-conscious patterns of behaviour that are closer to that of interest or lobby groups than to the typical repertoire of Chinese contentious citizens. The study suggests that this kind of political participation is on the rise amongst Chinese homeowner activists. This result complements and extends other recent findings that suggest the Chinese policy process is gradually opening up. Such a trend could have significant implications and calls for more research in different domains of state-society relations.

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Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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How urban housing demand can be met in China

Gottschalch, Sören (2013).  Urbanization in China and how urban housing demand can be met. Berlin : Institute for International Political Economy, 42 p. (Working Paper, 27).

As it has rightfully been recognized by China’s central government, successful urbanization will be decisive for the nation’s future development. Key challenges will be to realize urbanization economies, improve production and innovation capabilities, direct urban and suburban growth and improve a more equal distribution of benefits of economic growth to the population. This paper contributes to the discussion with illuminating the main drivers of urbanization: (i) migration and (ii) in situ urbanization, and the housing necessities for migrants that evolve from them. It attempts to support the establishment of an integrated and sustainable urbanization path by considering migrants urban housing demand in China’s socio economic transitional environment and indicating proper match. Migrant’s housing choices are driven by underlying priorities determined by their characteristics and their exposure to the immediate socio economic environment. Therefore, both, migrant’s characteristics as well as their immediate socio economic environment are put in relation to urban growth and its spatial features. The result is a set of housing supply forms and a set of distinctive migrant housing demands. Urban housing outcome and the match of housing supply and demand reveals housing preferences and housing market constraints. Based on these findings further housing recommendations can be given.

Read full text on EconStor (accessed 19 December 2013)

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Employment and wages of migrant workers

Cheng, Z., Guo, F., Hugo, G. & Yuan, X. (2013). Employment and wage discrimination in the Chinese cities : A comparative study of migrants and locals. Habitat International, 39, 246-255. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2012.11.007

The urban labour market in China has been institutionally segmented, partly due to the hukou (household registration) system, in which rural-to-urban migrants have been discriminated against. However, the analytical framework in the literature that is based on the rural-urban divide fails to capture the diverse nature of the urban floating population, in which the urban-to-urban migrant segment is a growing proportion. This paper considers this regional divide, based on the dichotomy of migrants and locals, and examines the discrimination experienced alongside the rural-urban divide. By using original survey data collected from four megacities, this study analyses and compares employment attainments and wage differentials between rural migrants, urban migrants and urban locals. The results demonstrate the existence of the dual divides, and show that, compared with urban locals, rural migrants suffer employment and wage discrimination, while urban migrants suffer only employment discrimination.

Full text available on line (restricted access)

Zhao, Zhong; Qu, Zhaopeng (2013). Wage inequality of Chinese rural-urban migrants between 2002 and 2007. PEP Working Papers, 4, 37 p.

The paper studies the levels and changes in wage inequality among Chinese rural-urban migrants from 2002 to 2007. We use the Chinese Household Income Project dataset and the Rural to Urban Migration in China dataset to construct a unique dataset that allows us to document changing wage inequality among migrants and among urban natives between 2002 and 2007. We find that wage inequality among migrants decreased significantly between 2002 and 2007, whereas it increased among urban natives during the same period. Our results show that the high-wage migrants experienced slower wage growth than middle- and low-wage migrants, a primary cause of declining inequality among migrants. We used distributional decomposition methods, and find that the overall between-group effect (coefficient effect) dominates in the whole wage distribution of the migrants, which means that the change in returns to the characteristics (education and experience) play a key role, but on the upper tails of the wage distribution, the within group effect (residual price effect) dominates which implies that the unobservable factors or institutional barriers do not favor the migrants at the top tail of the wage distribution.

Full text available online on AgEcon Search

Wang, Huashu; Pan, Lei; Heerink, Nico (2013). Working conditions and job satisfaction of China’s new generation of migrant workers : evidence from an inland city. IZA Discussion Paper, 7405, 31 p.

China is experiencing notable changes in rural-urban migration. Young, more educated migrants with different attitudes towards living and working form an increasing share of the migrant labour force. At the same time, the destinations of migrants are changing as a result of government policies and the global financial crisis. More migrants than before find jobs in medium and small size cities, often located in western and central China. Understanding the characteristics and attitudes of the changing migrant labour force is becoming a major challenge in sustainably managing migration flows and urbanization. Little hard evidence is available on the working conditions and job attitudes of migrant workers, particularly for inland China. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the characteristics, working conditions and job attitudes of the new generation of migrants, defined as those born in the 1980s and 1990s, as compared to the traditional generation in a typical medium-size city in western China. Data collected through a household survey conducted among 1,048 migrants in Guiyang City, capital of Guizhou Province, are used for this purpose. We find significant differences in occupational characteristics and working conditions between the two generations. Contrary to popular beliefs, we find that the level of job satisfaction is higher among the new generation of migrants. Using an ordered logit model to examine factors contributing to job satisfaction, we find that age and gender do not have a significant impact for young migrants, while working conditions play a major role. Among these, it is not so much the income level that matters for young migrants, but other working conditions. Using a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we derive that it is mainly the difference in working conditions and other endowments that explains the higher job satisfaction of young migrants, not the differences between generations in the valuations of these endowments.

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Chinese statistics: how to understand them

Holtz, Carsten A. (2013). Chinese statistics : classification systems and data sources. MPRA paper, 43869, 75 p.

 China has become a popular geographic area of research. Researchers make extensive use of Chinese official statistics, but these statistics are often not well understood. This article first clarifies three major issues that affect a wide range of Chinese statistics—from output and employment data to industry profitability—and then elaborates on data sources. The three data issues are changes over time to the sectoral classification system, changes to the ownership classification system, and changes to the coverage of the industry sector. Many of these changes have gone unnoticed or remain poorly understood, leaving the researcher puzzled about varying labels, apparently inconsistent data, and discontinued time series. The second part of the paper offers a gateway to a wealth of Chinese statistics whose existence is not widely known. It also points out the limitations of some of these sources and provides an overview of the secondary literature that discusses the meaning and quality of particular Chinese statistics.

Read full text online on MPRA (accessed 19 December 2013)

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Mobile phone use among migrant factory workers in South China

Peng, Yinni  and Choi, Susanne Y. P. (2013). Mobile phone use among migrant factory workers in South China: technologies of power and resistance. The China Quarterly, 215, pp 553-571. doi:10.1017/S0305741013000738.

Abstract

Comparing ethnographic and interview data in three contrasting production arrangements in a labour-intensive factory in South China, this article argues that while the mobile phone constitutes a new contested terrain on the shop floor and facilitates control and resistance between capital and labour simultaneously, the dynamics of control and resistance is contingent upon the exact arrangements of production. While the management strictly prohibit line operators in the assembly line department from using their mobile phones, they turn a blind eye towards mobile phone use among workers in the hardware department, and mandate mobile workers who are not fixed at work stations in both departments to use mobile phones. Diverse managerial control tactics have generated different patterns of worker resistance. Workers in the assembly line department employ strategies to evade managerial surveillance and continue to use mobile phones at work covertly. They also contest the double standards of mobile phone use displayed by the management. Workers in the hardware department challenge the boundaries of legitimate mobile phone use, and mobile workers use tactics to escape being tracked down by the management via their mobile phones. Mobile phones also facilitate the strategy of resistance through exit among all workers.

Read full text on Cambridge Journals online (restricted access or purchase option)

About the authors

  1. Peng Yinni (彭铟旎) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University
  2. Susanne Y. P. Choi (蔡玉萍) is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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