TY - JOUR
T1 - Labor retrenchment in China. Determinants and consequences
AU - Appleton, Simon
AU - Knight, John
AU - Song, Lina
AU - Xia, Qingjie
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the Department for International Development, United Kingdom, for their funding of the project (Escor Grant R7526) and the Ford Foundation for their support on data collection. We are grateful to Stephen Jenkins for his STATA programme to estimate the Prentice–Gloeckler–Meyer model and for his advice on several technical issues. Useful comments were provided by Xiaodong Gong, Peter Wright, an anonymous referee, and participants at seminars in Oxford and Nottingham.
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - The recent policy of labour retrenchment in state-owned enterprises in China (known as xia gang) has important implications for both efficiency and equity. This paper examines the individual-level determinants and consequences of the xia gang policy, using a survey conducted in the year 2000. As many as 11% of urban workers had been retrenched, and 53% of these remained unemployed. The risk of retrenchment was higher for women, the less educated, the low skilled, the middle-aged, and those employed by local government or urban collectives. Reemployment rates are low and imply that unemployment will be long-term. The duration of unemployment is longer for the unhealthy, the less educated, and women with young children. Unemployment benefit has no effect on the duration of unemployment. The income losses from retrenchment stem largely from the loss of earnings while unemployed. However, reemployed workers are paid less than if they were never retrenched.
AB - The recent policy of labour retrenchment in state-owned enterprises in China (known as xia gang) has important implications for both efficiency and equity. This paper examines the individual-level determinants and consequences of the xia gang policy, using a survey conducted in the year 2000. As many as 11% of urban workers had been retrenched, and 53% of these remained unemployed. The risk of retrenchment was higher for women, the less educated, the low skilled, the middle-aged, and those employed by local government or urban collectives. Reemployment rates are low and imply that unemployment will be long-term. The duration of unemployment is longer for the unhealthy, the less educated, and women with young children. Unemployment benefit has no effect on the duration of unemployment. The income losses from retrenchment stem largely from the loss of earnings while unemployed. However, reemployed workers are paid less than if they were never retrenched.
KW - China
KW - Labour market
KW - Unemployment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036315788&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S1043-951X(02)00067-6
DO - 10.1016/S1043-951X(02)00067-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0036315788
SN - 1043-951X
VL - 13
SP - 252
EP - 275
JO - China Economic Review
JF - China Economic Review
IS - 2-3
ER -