Chapter VIII: Women--Minor Players in the Job Hunt via
Guanxi
Summary: This chapter explores guanxi use by female
job seekers from szu. Women graduates use less
guanxi than men. The causes of this phenomenon are
explored.
Chairman Mao said that women hold up half the sky,
implying their essentialness. That one need never be
told that men hold up the other half of the sky leads one
to believe that man's importance is taken for granted.
In fact, the thesis in hand is mostly about male
graduates. To provide a remedy to this imbalance,
affirmative action requires that female graduates get
their own chapter; still, they do not hold up half the
dissertation.
A fleshed-out discussion of male/female employment
patterns is beyond the scope of the present study and is
covered elsewhere.1 In analyzing data from surveys and
interviews with szu students, this chapter draws on the
literature that relates to students/jobs/gender,
especially in China and Japan, in order to examine how
and why gender differentiation occurs in the job search.
First, an anecdote.
In my first class at szu, I asked students what
types of jobs they wanted after they graduated. Two sets
of answers came forth. The men said they wanted to "do
business." The women said they would be secretaries. My
response was: "Can't women do business?" and the fatalist
reply was: "It's difficult." From that moment I realized
that students accepted what Stanley Rosen has called a
"sexual division of labor."2
Educating Females in China
The members of any society hold certain expectations for
their children's employment and direction in life. Their
educational goals are an important aspect of this.
Traditionally, Chinese believed that "lack of knowledge
was a source of virtue for women. Only men were allowed
to take the state [civil service] examinations."3 This
formal discrimination was abolished with the
establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1912, and
women's entry into secondary school has steadily
increased.4 Differentiation in admissions standards as
well as exam scores existed,5 but the gap is closing.6
Vilma Seeberg, in a study of central government
recruitment reforms that were intended to increase access
to higher education in the 1980s, reports that
discrimination increased with spatial and social class
distance.7 In other words, urban females from high SES
families have more equity in access to tertiary schools.
At szu where 90% of the students come from urban areas
and whose families are of high SES, one would expect
women to experience among the greatest access to higher
education of anywhere in China.8 In fact, research for
Shenzhen indicates no gender gap in key secondary
schools.9
In China and especially in Shenzhen, women's
education is taken seriously. The case for Japan
provides a contrast, for there "women's education has
been seen as serving primarily to prepare them to be
better wives and mothers."10 Even the college curriculum
at the junior college level in Japan is "oriented toward
preparing women for marriage and homemaking."11 They are
often hired as "office ladies to perform routine clerical
work."12 These traditional attitudes appear no longer to
be dominant in China. Now, men and women enjoy nearly
equal occupational status, according to a 1987 survey in
Shanghai and environs.13
Females at szu
What happens as women are educated at szu? Generally,
female students are high-achievers. They get better
marks than their male counterparts (See Table 8.1). But,
as some of the comments below suggest, higher marks do
not ensure more prestigious jobs. In fact, as discussed
in the previous chapter, men use relationships to make up
for low achievement.
Female szu students comprised 33.4% of the
baccalaureate track senior undergraduates in 1993 (the
national average for China was also 33.4%.) and 46.2% of
the less prestigious non-degree junior college (zhuanke).
What causes men to dominate the four year program, which
requires higher marks on the college entrance exam?
There are several possible explanations: (1) men are more
intelligent than women; (2) there is discrimination in
the secondary educational system or in the admissions
process to tertiary; (3) there is less demand from women
and less pressure from their families and society to
enter tertiary education.
The first explanation holds little credence even
among the most chauvinist males. Those who try to draw
conclusions from the measurement of IQ may relate
intelligence to race, but they show no correlation with
gender.14
The second interpretation of the data holds that
"the system" excludes many qualified women from higher
education. But this does not appear to be the case at
szu. The male-female ratio at the university varies by
academic program, as women populate 54% of the arts
majors but only 21% of the science majors. Women
represent 41.6% of the majors that take from both science
and arts high school tracks. These are the most popular
business majors (economics, foreign trade and finance,
management). That females are better represented in the
majors which are the most difficult to get into suggests
a somewhat fair admissions policy. In fact, admissions
procedures, which have not changed much since Jonathan
Unger described them 25 years ago,15 are based almost
solely on entrance exam scores. The pool of women
applicants just tends to be smaller than the male pool.
This points to the third explanation above, that family
and social pressures result in the non-parity.
Seeberg16 found gender bias in subject-choice, with
females constituting, for example, 29.6% in engineering
education. Similarly, data collected on the first class
of szu baccalaureates found that males, like their peers
at Chinese University of Hong Kong, were more inclined
towards commerce and industry than females, who showed
more diversity in their career preferences.17 The
disproportionate distribution of gender across science
majors at the tertiary level is inherited from secondary
schools. Parents do not encourage their daughters to
enter science; sons may be encouraged more than daughters
to enter university. When controlling for the science
track, szu's female seniors in 1993 accounted for 45.8%
of the baccalaureate track. Therefore, admissions policy
seems not to discriminate against females at szu; there
is simply little demand by women to study science.
Females as Job-seekers
Job selection is tied to career preference and
achievement. In reviewing the literature, Grace Chow18
identified three causes of declining achievement
motivation in women: fear of success, role theory and
lower expectation from society.
In one of the largest surveys of its type in China,
C.W. Sun19 received 2,000 responses to a questionnaire
that went to students from 51 tertiary institutions in
Shanghai. In examining the factors that influence job
choice, males and females differ (Table 8.2):
TABLE 8.2 PERCENTAGE REPORTING MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN
JOB SEARCH (SUN)
factor men women
family related 28 22
state policy changes 20 15
state economic situation 19 12
gender 6 32
major 15 9
individual ability 10 6
academic performance 4 2
In the same study more women than men were shown to find
factories to be the least desirable workunit and "front
line positions" to be the least desirable job. This
finding can be interpreted thus: factory work generally
does not allow the graduates to use their acquired
skills, and women, more than men, fear being put into
jobs that prescribe underemployment. This view is echoed
by a female student's disgust with a job that might
require her to operate a knitting machine in a sock
factory. "Can China have the luxury to afford to have
college graduates working at the grass-roots level...?"20
Employer's View
Clearly, prospective employers in Shenzhen view women and
men differently. At the Shenzhen Labour Market where job-
seekers meet with company representatives in tiny
cubicles in an operation that is under the overall
supervision of the municipal labour bureau, the posted
announcements list whether men or women are required. On
the day I visited the labour exchange, jobs open for
women included those of secretaries, factory work,
clerical and cooks. Jobs for men included management,
management trainee, driver and also cooks. In addition,
specifying gender goes with job advertisements. For
example, in announcing civil service positions, the
Shenzhen Commercial Paper presented a "planned
recruitment table" that listed majors, departments, types
of jobs as well as gender.21 For example, the SEZ's
Longgang district needed 15 tax inspectors - 10 males, 5
females.
B. Hooper22 argues that "The problem [of
discrimination] has further intensified since the mid-
1980s with the decline of the state assignment system."
She refers to the complaints of students in 1983 from
Beijing Foreign Studies University and statements from
employers who publicly admitted they would reject any
female graduate from Fudan University. She finds support
in a China Daily report in which Beijing Foreign Studies
University females complained of continued discrimination
and says that "the problem of female graduate employment
was provoking widespread national comment, particularly
in women's publications."23 About the same time a Hong
Kong newspaper reported that 20% of the rejections in
1987 were because the assignees were women.24 In Tianjin
Finance College where 60% of the 1989 graduates were
women, workunits only wanted men.25 Rosen26 concurs that
discrimination exists, saying "The expansion of market
forces has contributed to a tolerance of open gender
discrimination rarely seen in post-1949 China." State
Education Commission officials acknowledged the
discrimination problem at least as far back as 1988.27
There seemed to be general agreement that women had more
difficulty than men in finding jobs.28 Women who majored
in "social arts" especially found it difficult to secure
employment.29 The All-China Federation of Trade Unions
recognized this problem as it applied to all working
women, including university graduates about whom,
according to a union official, "some employers said they
prefer less-qualified men to fully-qualified women."30
Addressing this concern, the February 1988 allocation
reform guidelines from the SEdC responded: "The practice
that rejects female graduates is even more prohibited."31
A People's Daily article reported: "Departments are
prevented from refusing girl graduates without cause or
reason.32 Without a clear definition of cause or reason,
however, discrimination cannot be eliminated. Workunits
can just refuse women because the job is unsuitable,
without defining the criteria for suitability.
Indeed, whether the different treatment women
receive equates to discrimination is subject to debate.
Part of the problem is that women have lower expectations
of themselves. This holds true for szu where reported
that expectations for future salary was greater for szu
males than females.33 In addition, Rosen cites surveys
in which women often blame themselves for lacking
achievement.34
What does the Chinese academic press have to say
about discrimination in the job search? Most of the
literature reviewed here covers the period when job
allocation was shifting to two-way choice and is thus
relevant to the Shenzhen case. An entire issue of the
Western-edited publication Chinese Education - Journal of
Translations was dedicated to "Women, Education and
Employment", with a follow-up volume.35 Six of these
articles specifically discussed discrimination against
job-hunting women graduates. Four had originally been
published in Zhongguo Fun Bao (Journal of Chinese
women), one from Fun (Women), and one from an education
journal, Jiaoxue Yanjiu (Research on Study and Teaching).
These are discussed below. Only 6 of the 50-plus
articles on job allocation from the Chinese educational
journals I reviewed mentioned gender. A criticism by
educationalists is that workunits, as the two-way choice
system is being implemented, only want male graduates.
This was reported for Hunan Province36 as for Wuhan.37
One article noted, with approval, that the mutual
selection system now gives workunits the right both to
choose and not to choose students.38 S.Y. Li cites the
examples of a meritorious female student who lost a job
to a classmate who had performed less well
academically.39 W. Yuan40 admits that women are not
popular because of child bearing, housework and child
rearing responsibilities (views reported also by Ross,41)
but adds that some workunits believe there are just too
many female graduates. The author, who worked in the
Shanghai personnel department, says that as long as
females do good jobs, there is no discrimination and
cites the case of eight good women students in public
relations who were in high demand by workunits. These
anecdotal observations do not serve as quality research,
but they do offer a general view of the situation: most
educators are not too concerned with sex discrimination.
In a more expansive essay pondering the subject,
G.L. Su's study of Shanghai graduates found workunits
would "rather accept male students of poor scholastic
performance over female students who have distinguished
themselves in study".42 In what is probably not a
statistically significant sample, the author found that
employers were rejecting one of every two female
graduates allocated to them. The five factors accounting
for this were: the feudalistic idea of `holding man
superior to woman;' people's lack of correct
understanding of women's legitimate rights based on
special physiological needs (i.e., childbearing);
"departmentalism and pragmatism," which translates as
employer's seeing women as not being as productive as
men, at least not during the childbearing and
childrearing years; female graduates' lack of self-
esteem;43 and shortcomings of education that result in
females displaying "a narrow field of knowledge and lack
of innovative ideas."
The articles in the women's journals offer a richer
and more extensive debate. The titles themselves include
such terms as "crisis," "difficulties," "plight." As
in the academic journals, the rejection of female
graduates by workunits is frequently commented on. Y.
Liu reported that Beijing University had more than 100
female graduates returned and that 80% of the total
rejected graduates from the journalism department of
People's University were women.44 S.N. Ge et al. found
both outright rejection and a testing system that in one
case passed men who scored 60 while requiring 90 marks
from women.45 Yang et al. report on the case of Zhu
Hong, who was rejected by over thirty news
organizations.46 Then, it reports, "she pinned her hopes
on Shenzhen Information News and wrote a letter to
recommend herself--she was convinced that Shenzhen people
have their own guts and vision. However, the response
from Shenzhen was: "...sorry, all positions are
filled..." Interviewing the agencies that rejected Ms.
Zhu, the authors found that 82.86% "refused to take her
in on the grounds of limits on authorized size, no job
slots, need of middle-level personnel, and other reasons
stressing employment effectiveness...Five agencies
rejected her because of her sex or the already high ratio
of woman employees, accounting for only 14.28% of the
total." The authors conclude that rejection of female
graduates is part of an overall phenomenon and that
"`holding men superior to women' cannot embody all that
is contained in the statement that `placement is
difficult for female college graduates'."47 Rejection
by workunits results from a decision by a placement
centre that is not acceptable by the employer. During
most of the fenpei period, employers had to accept whom
they were given. During the last days of the program--
the mid to late 1980s--units started flexing their
atrophied muscles and began rejecting graduates. This
might be seen as their first ability to express their
real beliefs. Before that time, they could only grumble,
not act. With fenpei's decline, they were able to act.
This corresponds with the attitude that men were easier
to place than women, as reported for the medical
profession by placement officials48 and by aspiring
female lawyers who found it difficult to get into the
more competitive and prestigious danwei.49
Another article reports on a case of unsuccessful
job hunting in which a female interviewee "call[s] on
society to reduce its prejudice against female college
graduates and treat [them] as they should be treated in
the modern age."50 The same article presents an
interview with a factory director who contends there is
"less trouble with men and more trouble with women." He
says that it is difficult for women "to advance further,
especially when it comes to innovation and
invention...They are prone to be fastidious and less
innovative or resourceful...The unmarried ones have a
very high opinion of themselves...when you put a female
college graduate in an important position, you run the
risk of unleashing slanderous gossip."51
Finally, we turn to the case of Japan which provides
some insight. Fan52 reports on the hiring practices of a
Japanese bank: "Both men and women are recruited from
universities, but women are given less complicated and
more specific jobs. In their [bank officers'] opinion,
women are weaker in positions that require wide contact,
a broad world view and judgment." A review of the
Chinese literature along with the data presented here
suggests this Japanese view may well hold for Shenzhen.
Szu Women in the Labour Force
Every so often, the Hong Kong media picks up a story off
the news services that discusses job discrimination for
female graduates. One such story, reported to have first
appeared in China Youth Daily, commenced:
Chinese women have long been discriminated against
in jobs, but university graduate Chen Chaoyang was
surprised when she was assigned public toilet
cleaning chores...53
My survey instrument did not envision such employment
"opportunities," and my interviewees suggest that
hygienic chores do not fall into the job descriptions of
female graduates. Occasionally, however, office staff
including managers are drawn into clean-up campaigns and
the possibility exists that otherwise white-collar
workers will sometime experience manual labour. At szu,
for example, academic staff were required several times
annually to participate in trash-removal afternoons.
Such situations are rare and, although highlighted in the
media, do not find a place in this dissertation.
At the date of graduation in 1993, more graduating
females (90%) than males (76%) were working. (See Table
8.3) The 1994 graduates, among whom only 52% employed,
included more females (61%) working at the time of
graduation than males (47%) (See Table 8.4). In terms of
type of occupation, the largest differences occur in the
financial sector, where jobs were dominated by women, and
the business, science, and property sectors where men
were proportionally better represented. (See Table 8.4)
On the job, both men and women report the same use
of acquired skills or what they studied at szu. There is
a slightly greater variation among men, as related by a
larger standard deviation to the mean. In terms of
salary, female 1993 graduates earned an average of 1081,
compared with 1025 for men. Data on starting salary for
1994 graduates suggest only a slight difference between
males and females:
1994 graduates salary
4-year males 917 yuan
4-year females 1313
Jr. college males 1198
Jr. college females 1068
Still, as a holdover from socialism which saw a relative
equality between different individuals' wages, salary is
still not necessarily an indication of prestige in the
Chinese workplace. Housing, as suggested in the Chapter
V below, is a better indication of prestige of the job.
In interviews students generally characterize
Shenzhen's economy as "booming." It is quite different
from the economic situation Hooper associates with female
unemployment: "With a labour surplus, potential employers
can afford to be selective, and they express an overall
preference for male recruits."54
My interviews55 suggest that female 1993 graduates
in the baccalaureate track at szu were more pleased with
their pay than their male counterparts, who were slightly
more satisfied overall. Males, as expected, feel more
challenged by their jobs, more optimistic on the
promotion possibilities, and more pleased with the use of
their skills and talents. Of the 4-year graduates in
1994, females gave their jobs a slightly higher rating
than males in terms of prestige and pay, but males report
higher levels of satisfaction and use of skills and
talent on the job. Of the junior college graduates the
same year, males gave higher ratings than their female
counterparts on all variables: pay, prospects, prestige,
satisfaction, use of skills. In sum, of all the
graduates in 1994, junior college women appear the least
satisfied and the most inclined to change jobs.
Female's job search
Table 8.5 indicates that men more often than women found
jobs by themselves or were introduced to jobs, but the
difference is not statistically significant. Women, in
contrast, relied more heavily on campus recruiting. In
addition, more men than women took jobs that were newly
created. (See Table 8.6) The latter tended to fill
existing positions. Slightly more women (31%) than men
(28%) had taken other full-time jobs previous to
graduation. Women rejected more job offers than men;
they failed in attempts to get jobs more often than men.
These data do not suggest that women are pounding the
pavement searching for jobs and men are loafing.
Statistically, the differences are slight or
insignificant, but they support interview data leading to
a different conclusion: that women formally look for jobs
more than men. Men's search tends to be more informal:
building relationships versus taking interviews. When an
informal job search is terminated, it will not be
perceived by the male job seeker as either his rejecting
the job or his failing to get it. When a woman takes an
interview, in contrast, the results are more clearly
understood as rejecting the offer or having failed to be
offered the job.
Women at work.
In her study of job-seekers from szu and Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Chow56 found that "when choosing
a career field graduands place little emphasis on job-
satisfaction." Women, even to a greater extent than men,
were more concerned with interest. These findings
contrast with Chu & Ju57 whose survey of the Shanghai
area found that men preferred well-paying jobs and women
wanting interesting jobs. Szu women considered
opportunity to make use of one's abilities important, but
less important than did men. In the workplace,
therefore, we might expect women to be somewhat less
satisfied with their job, since satisfaction was not an
essential factor in choosing the job. Indeed, from
interviews I find almost a fatalist attitude among female
employees. They are resigned to boring jobs. In her
study of girls in a Shanghai foreign language high
school, Ross58 confirms this impression: "...young women
have experienced more job disappointments, or at least
express such concerns more openly than their male
classmates. `We just earn money by selling time,'
complained a young woman, sometimes enraged at the
dreariness of her position at a large bank, sometimes
resigned at the predictability of the routine she had
established."
Female Job Hunters and Relationships
Lin & Bian's59 Tianjin study, based on a representative
sample of residents, found that males benefit more from
social resources (the use of social contacts and their
resources) in the job search than females. They also
discovered that fathers helped sons but not daughters get
jobs.
...entering into a more desirable work-unit sector
took on differential significance and process for
males and females. For males, direct effect of
intergenerational factors was evident. That is,
there is a direct effect of father's work-unit
sector on the work-unit sector of the son's first
job, after its indirect effect through education has
been accounted for. For females, such direct effect
was not significant. That is, father's work-unit
sector does not have a direct effect on the work-
unit sector of the daughter's first job...60
The 1993 survey data of szu graduates shows differences.
As Table 8.7 indicates, both males and females use
relationships, as measured by the guanxi use index
discussed earlier. For both working graduates and those
unemployed at graduation, males score higher on the 12-
point scale.
For working graduates: 5.4 versus 4.6. (see Table
8.8).
For non-working students, 6.5 versus 6.0 (See Table
8.9).
Thus, two questions are raised: why do men use more
relationships, and how does the relationship-using
process differ between the sexes.
In examining the tie that the job-seeker used, Lin &
Bian61 report that males are affected by both strength of
position and strength of tie, but not by one's achieved
status (education). They report a different "puzzling"
story for women:
Granted that females were more likely to use
relatives, thus, stronger ties as job contacts
than males...but it was the weaker tie that
accessed better social resources...Why, then,
did parental status hinder rather than promote
access to weaker ties for females?...Either
there is misguided effort on the part of the
females in relying too heavily on relatives in
job searches, or the parents were less
attentive to the need or showed less
willingness to access weaker ties.62
Table 8.10 presents the data on who introduced 1993
szu graduates to their employer. In brief, personal
friends as well as one's father and father's friend
provide almost half of all introductions. Also,
mothers help daughters. To appreciate the table,
the strong/weak tie must be slightly redefined from
the definitions used in the literature (See Chapter
III, above). Because Shenzhen is a new town, one's
relatives tend not to live close by. Less frequent
contact would define them as weak ties. Whether
personal friends are strong or weak ties cannot be
ascertained from the collected data. From interview
data, most appear to be persons with whom graduates
have contact of moderate frequency (once a month).
Accepting this definitional change, for Shenzhen a
slightly different picture emerges compared to other
areas of China where population in-flow has been
less. The ties used, in descending rank of
importance:
Ties Used by 1993 Graduating Seniors
daughter son
personal friend (w/s)63 personal friend (w/s)
and father (s) (tie)
mother (s) father's friend (w)
father's friend (w) a szu person (w)
father (s)
relative (w)
(w) weak tie; (s) strong tie
Another major difference from the Lin & Bian study
is that females from szu do use relationships.
Whereas the daughter relies more on her mother, the
son puts heavier reliance on the father; and the son
gets more help from a teacher or staff-person in the
school.
The jobs that require the strongest guanxi
(trading companies, government bureaux) do not
accept many women. The first type of company
generally prefers males (women are hired only as
secretaries); the second category doesn't have many
vacancies. Sometimes women do work in business.
One graduate managed the same import-export activity
as her male classmates. She admitted to being "the
only fish in the sea" (Case 10). Many of her
classmates work in banks. Table 8.4 indicates the
predominance of women graduates in the banking
sector, an area of high growth during 1993-1994 the
years of this study. My discussions with graduates
suggest that women and men have jobs of equal status
(Cases 13, 22, 7). The women in Shenzhen banks are
not just relegated to dead-end positions of clerks
and secretaries,64 as is the case with their
colleagues who work in Hong Kong banks through the
import labour scheme (See Chapter V).
Conclusion
From the szu data we can theorize that women as high-
achievers wish to avoid jobs that imprison them in a
state of underemployment, in other words, working
for a state bureau or as a secretary. As risk-
averse, they settle for comfortable jobs, usually in
banking. These jobs, which are plentiful, do not
require the use of guanxi. Banks may, in fact,
discriminate in favour of women because, according
to one informant, "they don't want males because
they expect boys to change jobs after they get all
the free training." The 1993 female baccalaureate
graduates report more strongly than the men that
they had insufficient guanxi for the job desired.
Finally, the junior college females, whose
credentials are inferior to those of the 4 year
students and who face the male-female discrimination
in the work place, must accept the least prestigious
jobs. Not coincidentally, they also hold the
strongest belief among all graduates that their
classmates used guanxi and that they themselves
lacked sufficient guanxi for the jobs they wanted.
The use of guanxi negatively impacts female students
because "competition is not equal," one of the major
difficulties that have arisen in implementing job
allocation reform.65
The szu case differs from experience of Japan,
discussed earlier, in that urban, developed China
gives females considerably more equal educational
opportunity. But, similar to the Japan case, women
face discrimination in the workplace. An article in
Guangming Ribao, the magazine for intellectuals,
offers the analysis that employers see women as
"reserves" or "alternates" to men. "As far as we
can tell, at present, the bias in favor of men and
against women in the employment process is still
very seriously (sic), and that is something that
should be given attention by all sectors of
society."66 Such a belief that discrimination is
standard in China, probably led Zhu Kaixuan,
commissioner of the SEdC, to declare:
Sex discrimination will not be tolerated in job
placement. Ours is a socialist country; we
must provide a big stage for the limited number
of women who have become college graduates in
the course of the Four Modernizations of our
country. On the one hand, we should explain to
women students that the schools will be
responsible for placing them; on the other
hand, schools should explain the state policy
to employers and win their support for hiring
women graduates.67
Since Commissioner Zhu's speech, fenpei has largely
been abandoned. It is unlikely that the level of
discrimination experienced under job assignment
would be lessened by the free market. As the szu
case indicates, women study the same subjects as the
men--and even get higher marks--but are not allowed
to take the same jobs. Students on college campuses
are aware of the existence of discrimination in the
workplace. Some male students realize they do not
need to achieve in school. Teachers at Beijing
Foreign Studies University, for example, have noted
that "such sex discrimination encouraged laziness
among men students, sure in the knowledge that they
could get a job on the basis of their sex alone
without regard to their study performance."68
In sum, the use of guanxi may help females get
into a better workunit, but it does not often get
them into a position equivalent to that secured by
the males. Females' employment is less guanxi
related. Being female is a more important
determinant in job selection than the use of
relationships.
_______________________________
1.Rosen (1992), "Women, Education and Modernization."
2.Ibid., 261.
3.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 34.
4.Rosen (1992), "Women, Education and Modernization," 258-260.
5.Hooper (1991), "Gender and Education."
6.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 239-40.
7.Seeberg (1993), "Access to Higher Education."
8.See discussion Chapter V, above.
9.Huang (1993), The Determinants of Institutional
Effectiveness of the Senior High Schools in the Shenzhen
Special Economic Zone of China, 69. This study reports
that females have equal access to key high schools, entry
into which is based on exam scores.
10.Fujimura-Fanselow (1989), "Women's Participation in Higher
Education in Japan," 166.
11.Ibid.
12.Ibid., 170.
13.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 38.
14.Cowley (1994), "Testing the Science of Intelligence."
15.Unger (1982), Education Under Mao, 226-233. His work,
based on interviews with emigre refugees from the prc
may be questioned for accuracy, but his comments on the
"college application process and selection scramble" appear
valid then, as well as valid today.
16.Seeberg (1993), "Access to Higher Education," 183.
17.Chow (1991), "Gender Differences in Career Preference and
Achievement Aspiration: A Case Study of Chinese
University and Shenzhen University Graduands," 74.
18.Ibid., 71-72.
19.Sun (1990), "Analysis of On-time College Graduates' Ideas
in Choosing Jobs."
20.Quoted in: Wu (1988), "A Contrast Between the Supply and
Demand of Talent," 17.
21.Shenzhen Shangbao (March 7, 1994), 12.
22.Hooper (1991), "Gender and Education," 359.
23.__, "Female Graduates Face Discrimination" (1989).
24.Faison (1988), "Students Vying for Employment in Beijing."
25.Zhu (1989), "Since the Change of Mode in Job Allocation."
26.Rosen (1992), "Women, Education and Modernization," 257.
27.Xinhua (1988), "Most 1988 College Graduates Placed in
Jobs."
28.Guo & Jiang (1990), "An Investigation of Job Assignments
for University Graduates."
29.Xinhua (1992), "College Graduates in Short Supply."
30.Xinhua (1988), "Women Demand Equal Employment
Opportunities."
31.Handbook, (1992), 346.
32.Xinhua (1988), "Government to Offer Jobs to All College
Graduates." [italics added].
33.Chow (1991), "Gender Differences in Career Preference," 81.
34.Rosen (1992), "Women, Education and Modernization," 274.
35.Summer 1989, v. 21, no. 2 and Spring 1992, v. 25, no. 1.
36.Xiao (1994), "A Preliminary Discussion on `Two-way Choice'
in Affecting Graduates."
37.Rao & Xiong (1989), "Analysis of University Graduates
Allocation Reform."
38.Guo (1990), "A Retrospection on `Two-way Choice.'"
39.Li (1993), "Some Points of Thought on the Reform in the Job
Allocation System for Graduates."
40.Yuan (1988), "From Planned Assignment to Two-way Choice."
41.Ross (1991), "The `Crisis' in Chinese Secondary Schooling,"
85.
42.Su (1989), "A Preliminary Probe into the Difficulties
College Women Encounter in Job Placement."
43.But empirical research suggests there was little evidence
of a gender difference in the level of overall self-
esteem. See, Watkins & Yu (1993), "Gender Differences in
the Source and Level of Self-Esteem of Chinese College
Students."
44.Liu (1988), "On the Necessity of Initiating the Study of
Female Talent."
45.Ge et al. (1988), "A Mixed Assessment."
46.Yang et al. (1987), "A Crisis, Or a New Hope?" 74.
47.Ibid., 76.
48.Burris (1991), "Chinese Medical Schooling," 273.
49.Hom (1991), "Beyond `Stuffing the Goose,'" 304.
50.Jiang (1988), "The plight of Job Placement for Female
College Graduates," 49.
51.Ibid., 49-51.
52.Fan (1991), Transition Processes from School to Work, 82.
53.United Press International (1995), "Women Graduates Left to
Tackle Dirty Work."
54.Hooper (1991), "Gender and Education," 358.
55.For this paragraph data (comparison of means scores)
collected by survey support the interviews but are not
used because they fail to meet statistical tests of
significance. Accepting that the 1993 graduates survey
(it included 92% of all possible respondents) represents
the universe rather than a sample would permit use of the
differences. Whether the differences are significant (in
the non-statistical sense of the word) requires a
judgement call.
56.Chow (1991), "Gender Differences in Career Preference," 75.
57.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 108.
58.Ross (1993), China Learns English, 209.
59.Lin & Bian (1991), "Social Connections (Guanxi) and Status
Attainment in Urban China," 1.
60.Ibid.
61.Lin & Bian (1991), "Social Connections (guanxi) and Status
Attainment in Urban China," 17-18.
62.Ibid.
63.Whether "personal friend" should be considered a strong or
weak tie is discussed in Chapter IX.
64.Moghadam (1995), "Gender Aspects of Employment and
Unemployment in a Global Perspective," 117. The author
cites a 1992 U.N. report that found that clerical and
data entry jobs offer "...little development of skills
through formal or informal learning processes." United
Nations (1992), World Investment Report: Transnational
Corporations as Engines of Growth, 186.
65.Rao et al. (1992), "Policy Analysis of the Early Stages
(1985-1991) of Reform of the Job Assignment System for
College Graduates."
66.Deng (1993), "The Megatrend Toward the Labor Market," 84.
67.Zhu (1994), "Some Issues Concerning Job Assignments for
College Graduates," 21.
68.__, "Female Graduates Face Discrimination," (1989).