China's Urban Informal Employment Research

The world has seen a rapid growth in informal employment in the recent past. In a large number of developing countries, informal employment has become an important sector of national employment, absorbing large amount of labor like a huge sponge or reservoir. With its remarkable vibrancy, informal employment has proved an effective means in solving employment problems in developing countries. Numerous experts on China's employment have agreed that informal employment in the coming two decade remains one of the most effective approaches to employment pressure in China. Many have pointed out that informal employment is not only important for the government faced with large unemployment, but for individuals who are seeking employment in the future.In spite of the vibrancy informal employment has demonstrated in the Chinese economy and the effectiveness is has shown in reducing both unemployment and urban poverty, some international experts such as those researchers of ILO have repeatedly pointed out that the Chinese academic community has not understood informal employment. The present scholarship in this field seems to agree mat the approaches informal employment takes are different from the traditional ones and are much more diversified, that the labor relation in informal employment is not protected by law, that ownership in informal employment is often individual or private, that production is often realized within the family, that the products are often aimed at the low-income sectors in the society, and the goal of the informal employment is often livelihood. But so far, there has not been a consensus for a definition of informal employment in the light of academic studies. Even the framework of research has not been built in the field of informal employment, nor have the fundamental theories established. The academic community is still looking for clear boundaries for informal employment.Adopting an approach of economics, the present thesis is an in-depth research into China's informal employment. It draws on the moral economics in rural and sociology and attempts to give a theory about urban informal employment that agrees with the concrete situations in China on the whole.The present thesis is a discussion of informal employment in the following aspects:A. It systematically sums up the historical development of informal employmentand provides a survey of international and domestic researches in the field. On the basis of comparatives studies of research works by both international and Chinese scholars, this thesis draws attention to the confusions that result from the disorder in definitions of informal employment and the from the lack of established means and systems of research in the field.B. It classifies and summarizes the present scholarship in informal employment, and re-states them following the guidelines of labor economics.C. It provides an in-depth study in production and subsistence of the informal employed on the basis of research cases in Shanghai.D. Following the ILO guidelines in informal employment statistics and with a view to the concrete situations in China, this thesis puts forward a scientific approach to estimate the scale of informal employment nationwide. An evaluation of the accuracy of informal employment statistics since 1997 has also been provided following this approach. On the basis of this approach and the estimation, this thesis calculates the flexibility index in China's informal employment. The result of the calculation shows that there has been a decline in the flexibility in urban informal employment during the past years, and that that the impetus from GDP growth for urban informal employment has been dwindling.E. On the basis of the recent trends in China's employment, this thesis proposes the concept Index of Employment Informalization. This new concept facilitates researches into the characteristics of informal employment on a multi-dimensional coordinate. If there is transition from formal to informal in employment as to the fields and means of employment, any individual can be located on the coordinate drawn according to the fields and means. Taking the country as a whole, the proportion informal employment in the national employment can obtained by calculating the proportion of informal employment with regards to the fields and means of employment.This concept further helps to solve two other problems. One is that is it enables us to learn the degree in the development of informal employment in China; and the other is that it helps us to get a better understanding of the estimations about informal employment in China. This thesis also provides evaluations of the informal employment statistics for recent years in China and arrives at some important conclusions by analyzing the statistics following principles in related economics.F. So far, there have not been researches into the income of the informally...