Jutta Hebel: Contours of a New Labour Society in the PR of China

Economic reforms and the transformation of the system in the People’s Republic of China caused a profound change in the labour system. During the planned-economy phase, the urban working class was embedded in a life-long “socialistic normal working relationship” in which they were full-time employed and taken care of. The urban population was privileged at the expense of the rural population that had to depend on its local resources and yields. The people’s communes, household registration and work units perpetuated the bipartition of the Chinese society. The article shows how the former labour regime was deinstitutionalized by, among other things, the decollectivization of the land, the restructuring of the state sector and the acceptance of a private property sector. The strong politically and ideologically over-structuring of the labour market is presently going through a process of modification, informalization and professionalization. Now that work has taken on the form of market-mediated gainful employment, it has changed its character and forms institutions, social ties, careers and job identification. Work has received an independent, status-defining and socially structuring validity which determines the contours of the new occupational society.