Weak ties, strong ties, and job mobility in urban China: 1978–2008

Abstract

The economic transformation in urban China provides a unique opportunity to assess how institutional arrangements shape network-based job searches. Despite several studies on this issue, disagreement exists over how network-based job searches evolve in the Chinese emerging labor market. We argue one way to solve this controversy is to examine the patterns of change in the use of weak ties and strong ties separately. Using pooled data from three cross-sectional surveys in urban China, the results show a steady increase in the use of weak ties and an increasing and persistent use of strong ties in finding jobs between 1978 and 2008. The results also show no systematic difference between the use of weak ties for finding jobs in the market sector versus the state sector. However, they show faster growth in the use of strong ties for finding jobs in the state sector, compared to the market sector.