Getting a Job Through a Web of Guanxi in China

Abstract

In this chapter the author considers the use of connections in China to obtain jobs, and its implications for the analysis of occupational attainment, occupational mobility, and social stratification. It examines how personal networks affect job-searching in Communist China. The author begins with a review of network theory and research on job-search processes. Although the Chinese term guanxi literally means "relationship" or "connection", it actually refers to the interpersonal connection in a dyad in which the involved parties have high intimacy to each other and a mutual understanding of reciprocal services between them. Tianjin is in the north of China, eighty miles east of Beijing, with its downtown area twenty-five miles inland from the east coast of the Pacific Ocean. Although social resources tended to be available from helpers with whom job-seekers probably have weak ties, they also tend to be indirectly linked to the ultimate helpers: common intimate friends or relatives bridge the gap between job-seeker and ultimate helper.