Youth Job Searches in Urban China: The Use of Social Connections in a Changing Labor Market

Hanser, Amy

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511499579.009

Cited by 44 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Mayfair Yang (2004), described the way guanxi practice was used as a way of 6 circumventing newly-established formal rules and regulations during the period of her fieldwork in the 1980s and early 1990s, and numerous studies throughout the 1990s and early 2000s showed the primacy of personal connections in gaining access to jobs and promotion (Bian and Ang, 1997;Bian, 2002;Hanser, 2002).…”

Section: Guanxi Guanxi Practice and The Nature Of Institutional Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Goodguanxiand badguanxi: Western bankers and the role of network practices in institutional change in China

Nolan

2011

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Guanxi Guanxi Practice and The Nature Of Institutional Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Goodguanxiand badguanxi: Western bankers and the role of network practices in institutional change in China

Nolan

2011

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Chen (2014) examines the job search methods of migrants, but the analysis is restricted to migrant workers into Shanghai. Hanser (2002) examines the choice of job search methods, but the analysis is restricted to young urbanites and based on interviews. The closest paper to ours is Long et.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The use and impact of job search procedures by migrant workers in China

Fang

Gunderson

Lin

2016

China Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACT The Use and Impact of Job Search Procedures by Migrant Workers in China *Job search procedures are a form of human capital investment in that they involve current investments to enhance future returns, analogous to human capital investments in areas such as education, training and mobility that yield future returns. While the theoretical and empirical literature on job search is extensive, most of it involves developed countries. There is less on developing countries and very little on China involving migrant workers in spite of their growing practical and policy importance and the fact that they are constantly engaging in job search. This paper examines the use and impact of job search procedures used by migrant workers in China by taking advantage of a rich data set on migrant workers that has information on their job search procedure as well as a wide array of other personal and human capital characteristics. Our OLS estimates indicate that there is no effect on earnings of using informal versus formal job search procedures for migrant workers in China. However, our IV results suggest that the OLS estimates are subject to severe selection bias from the fact that the choice of job search procedure is endogenous, associated with unobservable factors that affect the choice of informal versus formal procedures and that affect the earnings outcome. Our three different IV estimates designed to deal with this bias indicate that informal procedures (various aspects of family and friends) are associated with earnings that are 33 to 43 percent below the uses of more formal procedures. The decomposition results indicate that the most important variable contributing to pay advantage of those who use formal as opposed to informal procedures is education. In sum, our results suggest that policies to encourage or facilitate migrant workers using more formal job search procedures and reducing barriers that compel them to rely on informal procedures can yield better job matches with higher earnings.JEL Classification: J31, J61, J64

show abstract

“…Several studies on this issue disagree over how networkbased job searching evolves during such transformation. Some argue that network use strictly declines (Guthrie, 1998;Hanser, 2002), while others argue that the patterns of change are more complex (Bian, 2002b;Zhang and Cheng, 2012;Zhang and Guo, 2011;Zhao, 2013). Part of the controversy, we argue, arises from treating all ties as equal (except for Bian and Huang, 2009;Bian and Zhang, 2001).…”

mentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Previous scholarship is ambiguous about how network-based job searches evolve with institutional changes. Some qualitative findings suggest that the rise of a market economy reduces network benefits and thus leads employers to shift the hiring focus from networks to meritocracy (Guthrie, 1998;Hanser, 2002). Some quantitative research finds that network use in job searching increased in the early stage (Bian, 2002b;Zhao, 2013) and continued to increase in the later stage of the transformation .…”

Section: Weak Ties Strong Ties and Institutional Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%