Iron Rice Bowl Research Articles

Exploring the Influencing Factors of Experienced Nurses' Retention Behaviour: A Qualitative Study Based on the COM‐B Model

ABSTRACTAimThe aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing the retention behaviour of experienced nurses in China, using the capability, opportunity, motivation and behaviour (COM‐B) model as a conceptual framework.DesignA qualitative descriptive study based on the COM‐B model.MethodsIn this qualitative descriptive study, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 22 nurses across 11 cities in the Guangdong‐Hong Kong‐Macao Great Bay Area of China between March and May 2024. The interviews followed a predefined topic guide derived from the COM‐B model. The transcriptions of the interviews were then subjected to deductive thematic analysis.ResultsEleven key themes emerged, which were embedded in three categories of the COM‐B model, including capability (physical and mental health, professional knowledge and skills), motivation (increasing income, sense of fulfilment in nursing work, positive colleague relationships and job stability) and opportunity (management, career development opportunities, work–life balance, prejudice against nursing and workload).ConclusionsThe study provides new perspectives on factors influencing the retention of experienced nurses in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. The study identified 11 factors that influence nurse retention behaviour, emphasising three distinctive perceptions: the ‘iron rice bowl’, the concept of filial piety and public prejudice towards nursing in Chinese society, which are unique to China compared to other nations. Additionally, it revealed similarities in nurse retention factors across Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.Implications for the ProfessionTo strengthen nurse retention, it is essential to develop tailored strategies for experienced nurses. Future research should also take social culture into account to enhance retention efforts.Reporting MethodThis study's reporting adhered to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) checklist.Patient or Public ContributionNo patient or public contribution.

Corrigendum to “How Glass Ceilings and Iron Rice Bowls Create “Glass Bowls”: Gendered Barriers and Protections in Public Sector Employment in South Korea”

Corrigendum to “How Glass Ceilings and Iron Rice Bowls Create “Glass Bowls”: Gendered Barriers and Protections in Public Sector Employment in South Korea”

Who earns the iron rice bowl? Major marketability and state sector jobs among college-educated workers in urban China

In China, state sector employees enjoy a persistent organizational premium, but surprisingly few studies have examined which college-educated workers tend to work in the state sector. In this study, we focus on one key dimension in horizontal stratification in higher education—field of study—to examine patterns of state sector employment among college-educated workers in China according to the occupational specificity and profit orientation of their college majors. Using data from three nationally representative surveys in urban China, we find that college graduates majoring in less occupationally specific and less profitable fields (i.e. those with lower marketability) are more likely to work in the state sector, and this pattern is more pronounced during the later period of marketization reform. Moreover, family resources in the form of a father working in the state sector can weaken the field-to-sector association, and we observe greater intergenerational mobility into state sector employment among college graduates majoring in fields with lower marketability. These findings highlight the field-to-sector relationship as a unique mechanism of China's horizontal stratification in higher education and school-to-work transition. They also underscore the significance of considering organizational contexts when examining the educational stratification in labor market outcomes.

Embracing a rubber rice bowl: women’s transition from paid work to self-employed entrepreneurship in coastal China

Purpose This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron rice bowl and the fancy spring rice jobs. Design/methodology/approach Based on in-depth interviews in Zhejiang, the entrepreneurial hotbed in coastal China, this study examines the experiences of self-employed female entrepreneurs who used to work in the iron rice bowl and the spring rice jobs and explores their nonconventional career transition and its gendered implications. Findings This study finds that these women quit their previous jobs to escape from gendered suppression in wage work where their femininity was stereotyped, devalued or disciplined. By working for themselves, these women embrace a rubber rice bowl that allows them to improvise different forms of femininity that are better rewarded and recognized. Originality/value The study contributes to studies on gender and work by framing femininity as a fluid rather than a fixed set of qualities and fills the research gap by illustrating women’s agency in reacting to gender expectations in certain workplaces. The study develops a new concept of rubber rice bowl to describe how entrepreneurship, a seemingly women-unfriendly sphere, attracts women by allowing them to comply with, resist, or improvise normative gender expectations.

China’s Management Practices: An Analysis of HRM and GSCM Practices

China has flourished as a collectivistic society since ancient times and hence has adopted various management practices as a routine of life. Having suffered from centuries of anarchy in political, economic and military spheres, which culminated into occupation by foreign forces and transformation of a prosperous economy into a semi colonial and semi feudal society ( ban zhimindi ban fengjian shehui), China chose to establish a command economy and a culture of ‘iron rice bowls’ ( tie fan wan). However with the reforms, the concept of management underwent a radical change as the culture of ‘iron rice bowls’ ( tie fan wan) gave way to ‘golden rice bowls’ ( jin fan wan). The metaphorical rice was now not an imperative, but a choice, if one was ready for the rapid market and ‘reform and opening up’ ( gaige kaifang). The next phase of transition in China’s management practices came with the phenomenal rise of China’s economy, its increasing integration with the globalized world and its arrival on the international scenario as an ‘inside player’ rather than an ‘outside observer’. On the flip side, this also meant that the ‘outside world’ could now have an insight into what China did within its territorial boundaries and many fingers were raised on China’s various management practices especially related to labour and environment issues. Hence, this article focuses on management practices related to these two issues only. This hypothesis of this article is that the concept of management, though western, is not a foreign idea for China. It tries to draw a general framework of the various HRM (human resources management) and GSCM (green supply chain management) practices. The article attempts to draw synchronization between China’s past and the present for its future. Likewise, an analysis shall be made by comparing the difference between state-owned enterprises which are the remnants of a socialistic system infused with ‘Chinese characteristics’ and joint ventures when one of the parties is from a foreign nation to China.

The shattered "Iron Rice Bowl": effects of Chinese state-owned enterprise reformon depressive symptoms in later life.

The SOE reform was the first time that economic insecurity was introduced since 1949 in China, with hundreds of million employees affected by the laid off. This study took the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) reform in China as a natural experiment to explore the impact of economic insecurity on depressive symptoms in later life. Data were obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS), 2014 and 2015. CHARLS is a nationally representative survey covering 28 provinces in China. CHARLS used the probabilities proportional to size (PPS) sampling method and involved 450 villages/resident committees, 150 counties/districts and 12,400 households. A total of 5113 urban dwellers born earlier than 1971 (aged 25years old and above at the start of the SOE reform, 1995) were involved. Using the province-level economic loss from the layoffs, we examined the impact of economic insecurity exposure on the score of depressive symptoms using a difference-in-differences model (DID). Individuals with economic insecurity exposure had a significantly increased risk of higher depressive symptoms scores, in which a 1 percentage point increase in expected economic loss would increase the CESD-10 score by 0.10. For an individual at the median distribution (CESD-10 = 5), this implies a shift to the 58th percentile (CESD-10 = 6). Given that the average intensity of expected economic loss is 10.22% and the mean CESD-10 is 6.92, exposure to the SOE reform led to an average increase in the CESD-10 score by 1.02 and by at least 14.74%. The heterogeneity analyses showed that the role of SOE reform in depressive symptoms scores was robust in both female and male groups and groups with different educational attainment. Economic insecurity exposure increased the depressive symptoms score later in life in the context of China. Programs, such as adequate unemployment insurance benefits, can protect individuals against the risk of financial loss, thereby reducing their negative impact on depressive symptoms. Providing mental symptoms surveillance and psychological counseling to those experienced at a time of great uncertainty is important for preventing depression in times of economic insecurity.

“Sustainable or Unsustainable” in Higher Education Internationalization Development: Exploring the Post-Doctoral System in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The current reforms in the internationalization of the post-doctoral system in China’s higher education institutions is implemented using both governmental and institutional policies, especially in the humanities and social sciences. These reforms are situated in evolving strategies for the internationalization of China’s post-doctoral system. This study explored various stakeholder perspectives on this internationalization process; we analyzed 34 institutional post-doctoral recruitment documents and the transcripts from 36 interviews we conducted with academics, university senior administrators, and vice presidents. The findings suggest that internationalizing the post-doctoral system in the humanities and social sciences still faces challenges and difficulties: the postdocs’ role ambiguity as “temporary researchers” without the “iron rice bowl”; non-guaranteed funding, which creates a “survival of the fittest” postdoc environment; quality versus quantity of work positioning “paper as the primary productivity”; and governance and management disorder being seen as “shifting from management to service”. The internationalization of the post-doctoral system still embodies ambiguities and dilemmas. Suggestions are offered for future research in the last.

Introduction: 20 years of welfare reform in China (2000–2020): Challenges from developmentalism to COVID‐19

AbstractChina as a welfare system is not yet well understood in social policy circles, despite being a well‐studied case in public administration and political science. Would this party‐state care to commit for its citizens' welfare? For many, associating the idea of a welfare state with China is still something to be frowned upon. Most available literature, especially in the English language, describes social policies in China as residual, unequally distributed, strongly dependent on local finances, prone to social dumping—especially for rural residents and migrant workers—paternalistic, disregarding social needs and so on. Yet, we believe that the social dumping practices of the 1980s and 1990s are now a thing of the past. As the government has taken a decidedly pro‐welfare stance since the 2000s, it could be more reasonable to identify different historical phases through which the welfare system took shape in China. We identify and discuss three stages in particular: the ‘iron rice bowl’ phase of socialist China (1949–1978), the welfare shedding resulting from China's opening up to the market (1979–2002), and the ‘social policy era’ characterised by major welfare expansion (2002–2020).

Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti’nde Devamlılık Gösteren Bir Unsur Olarak Emek Sömürüsü

The study deals with the historical course of labor in the People's Republic of China. In this sense, it is aimed to address the problems and changes experienced by the working classes in the People's Republic of China, starting from 1949 until today. The main argument of the study is that between the 1949-1978 periods, which is expressed as the planned economy period, and the open economy period after 1978, the exposure of labor to exploitation continued. Although it is accepted that there are differences in the forms and levels of exploitation specific to the mentioned periods, it is aimed to state that the exploitation is permanent. The fact that China, which still defines itself as a socialist country and represents the working class, in practice has a system based on cheap labor and labor exploitation creates a serious contradiction. To support its main argument, the study will include work units called danwei, the concept of the iron rice bowl, the policy of the great leap forward, the hukou system (household registration system) and the impact of these issues on the workforce. It will also include the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and workers' actions.

Recovering Histories: Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China

Recovering Histories: Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China

Broken 'Iron Rice Bowls' and Shattered Communist Fairy Tales: SOE Reform and Political Distrust in China

Broken 'Iron Rice Bowls' and Shattered Communist Fairy Tales: SOE Reform and Political Distrust in China

Digital Divide of the Shattered "Iron Rice Bowl": Economic Insecurity and ICT Access in China.

Although economic factors account for the digital divide, the effect of economic insecurity on information communication technology (ICT) access has not been determined. The market-oriented reform of Chinese state-owned enterprises in the 1990s resulted in massive layoffs, encouraging us to investigate the relationship between economic insecurity and the digital divide. We draw on data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). To handle the endogeneity related to economic insecurity, we use experience in a management position and the number of siblings as instruments for economic insecurity. With the introduction of these two instrumental variables, we find a negative relationship between economic insecurity and ICT access. This study provides insight into ICT policies involving underprivileged people in developing countries.

Breaking the 'Iron Rice Bowl:' Evaluating the Effect of the Tenure-track System on Research Productivity in China

In recent decades, many European and Asian universities have reformed their personnel practices from traditional systems, which grant faculty members permanent employment from the time of hire, to tenure-track systems that require passing a review of research achievements. Using personnel system reforms of economics departments in China as a quasi-experiment, we compare effects of tenure-track and traditional personnel systems on faculty’s research productivity, and investigate to what extent does the adoption of tenure-track system contribute to the recent increase in global rankings of China’s economic research. We find that tenure-track faculty publish 67.5 percent more articles in the top and secondary field journals in economics than those hired under the traditional system. Further investigation shows that the positive effect mainly stems from intensified peer competition, research focus shifting, and increased research collaboration. We also find that the tenure-track system generates positive spillover effects on non-tenure-track faculty.

The shattered “Iron Rice Bowl”: Intergenerational effects of Chinese State-Owned Enterprise reform

Reform of the Chinese State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) sector in the late 1990s triggered massive layoffs (34 million employees) and marked the end of the “Iron Rice Bowl” guarantee of employment security for the remaining 67 million workers. An expanding international literature has documented the adverse health impacts of economic insecurity on adults, but has typically neglected children. This paper uses the natural experiment of SOE reform to explore the causal relationship between increased parental economic insecurity and children's BMI Z-score. Using province-year-level layoff rates and income loss from the layoffs, we estimate a generalised difference-in-differences model with child fixed effects and year fixed effects. For a medium-build 10-year-old boy, a median treatment effect implies a gain of 1.8 kg and a 2.2-percentage-point increase in the overweight rate due to the reform. Anxiety about potential losses causes weight gain for boys whose SOE parents kept their jobs. Unconditional quantile regressions suggest that boys who are heavier are more likely to gain weight. Girls are not significantly affected. Intergenerational effects therefore increase the estimated public health costs of greater economic insecurity

The ‘iron rice‐bowl’ regime revisited: whither human resource management in Chinese universities?

Although research on Chinese human resource management (HRM) has attracted considerable scholarly attention in recent decades, such research has mainly been confined within the economic domain of for‐profit companies. There is a dearth of research in the English‐language literature examining how people are managed in the Chinese public sector, especially in higher education institutions. Based on a multiple case study, this paper explores how Chinese universities have reformed their traditional personnel management system, and investigates whether the ‘iron rice bowl’ system has been entirely replaced after three decades of HRM reform. Our findings reveal that employee management in Chinese universities has only partially broken away from its traditional ‘iron rice bowl’ system. China still has a long way to go to establish a modern HRM system in its public sector.

The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language by Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson

Reviewed by: The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language by Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson Yu Hui (bio) The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language. Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010. SOAS Musicology Series. xiii + 198 pp., audio CD, photos, figures, music examples, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-1-4094-0588-7 (hardcover), $149.00. Originating in the Warring States period and thriving during the Tang dynasty, narrative art has always been an important folk musical genre in Chinese society with both entertaining and educational functions long before modern electronic entertainment devices became widely available. The Han Chinese subcultures in different geographical areas also cultivated their own regional narrative-art genres throughout history. The Tianjin metropolitan area in northern China is particularly well known for its several narrative-art genres of the local style. Lawson chooses a unique perspective to look into the commonly shared musical, historical, and cultural background of multiple narrative genres in a single geographical area. As the first published monograph of this approach in both English and Chinese ethnomusicological literature, the book provides detailed description and analysis of the musical structures, performance forms, historical development, and social and cultural background of four out of the ten most important popular narrative genres in Tianjin: shidiao, jinyun dagu, kuaibarshu, and xiang sheng. The author writes that "this book is not meant to be an exhaustive study of the narrative arts of Tianjin. Rather, it is an exploration into the ways in which the manner of performance influences and is influenced by the kinds of information that may be communicated during the course of performance" (4). However, the relationship between music and language is still the emphasis in her research. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 introduces the background of the research in the following chapters: "Introduction," "Prologue," "Teahouses and Marketplaces," "Narrative Arts before 1949," "The Iron Rice Bowl: Shuochang Becomes Quyi after 1949," "Social Relationships," and "Language-Music Relationships." These chapters not only give background on the history, culture, social life, and language matters of Shuochang narrative arts but also the author's personal fieldwork experience interacting with the local audiences and her consultants during her several trips in Tianjin in the 1980s. Part 2 is the main focus of this research. It introduces the history, performers, performances, language, and music of four narrative genres in four sections ("Act") and a conclusion. Each "Act" discusses one narrative art with a subtitle indicating the relationships between the performance aspects of chang (singing) and shuo (speech) in each genre: "Tianjin Popular Tunes (Tianjin Shidiao) Chang over Shuo," "Beijing Drumsong (Jingyun Dagu) Chang [End Page 136] vis-à-vis Shuo," "Fast Clappertales (Kuaibarshu) Shuo vis-à-vis Chang," and "Comic Routines (Xiangsheng) Shuo over Chang." The subtitles are well chosen, covering four major types of combination of the elements of shuo and chang in these narrative genres. Part 3 comprises appendices with music scores and the related Chinese-language source referenced in the book, such as speech tones, libretti, Chinese text, and characters. Those are important references for anyone who is interested in an in-depth exploration of the narrative-art genres introduced in this book. An audio CD of the selected music examples transcribed in the appendices is included with the book. Among ethnomusicological monographs on traditional Chinese musical arts published in recent decades, this book has several distinct features. First, by presenting the common background shared by multiple narrative-art traditions in a single geographical area, Lawson helps readers understand the general social, cultural, and historical background of all of these genres. The juxtaposition of the commonalities and distinctions of each genre helps readers better understand and differentiate the characteristics of each. Second, the author integrates her personal experiences in her field trips with ethnomusicological descriptions and analysis, creating an unusual writing style so the readers are immersed into the musical scene easily. Notably, the author writes in greater detail about the phenomenon of social networks (guanxi) and her personal interactions with the local people during field trips, which makes the book itself a narrative story about her research process. Third, Lawson paid meticulous attention to Chinese pronunciations in the romanization of...

Breaking the “iron rice bowl:” Evidence of precautionary savings from the chinese state-owned enterprises reform

China’s large-scale reform of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in the late 1990s provides a natural experiment for estimating precautionary savings. Before the reform, SOE workers enjoyed similar job security as government employees. The reform caused massive SOE layoffs, but government employees kept their “iron rice bowl.” The changes in the relative unemployment risks for SOE workers provide a clean identification of income uncertainty. With self-selection biases mitigated by focusing on government assigned jobs, precautionary savings account for about 40 percent of SOE households’ wealth accumulation. Moreover, demographic groups more vulnerable to the reform also accumulated more precautionary wealth.

Employment security and employee organizational citizenship behavior: does an ‘iron rice bowl’ make a difference?

Empirical evidence linking employment security to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is equivocal. Limited research has considered the effect of employment status. Using data from 217 subordinate–supervisor dyads in a large state-owned enterprise in China as basis, our research found significant association between overall perceived employment security and employee OCB. However, this relationship may vary depending on employment status. Further analysis suggested a curvilinear relationship for permanent employees with an ‘iron rice bowl’ (lifetime employment) and a linear relationship for contractual employees without an ‘iron rice bowl’. Our study contributes to a thorough understanding of the relationship between employment security and positive behaviors in terms of OCB by integrating the literature on social exchange, psychological contract, and proactive behavior.

Recasting the Iron Rice Bowl: The Reform of China's State-Owned Enterprises

Following the enactment of reforms in the mid-1990s, China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) became more profitable. Using theoretical insights from Azmat, Manning, and Van Reenen (2012) and Karabarbounis and Neiman (2014) and econometric methods in De Loecker andWarzynski (2012), this paper finds that SOE restructuring was nevertheless limited. This is because SOE profitability gains in part reflect that they were under less political pressure to hire excess labor and also their cost of capital fell and their capital-labor elasticity of substitution generally exceeded unity. Moreover, SOE productivity lagged that of foreign and private firms.

Breaking the “Iron Rice Bowl” and Precautionary Swings: Evidence from Chinese State-Owned Enterprises Reform

We use China's large-scale reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s as a natural experiment to identify and quantify the importance of precautionary saving for wealth accumulation. Before the reform, SOE workers enjoyed the same job security as government employees. Since the reform, over 35 million SOE workers have been laid off, although government employees kept their iron rice bowl. The change in unemployment risk for SOE workers relative to that of government employees before and after the reform provides a clean identification of income uncertainty that helps us estimate the importance of precautionary saving. In our estimation, we correct a self-selection bias in occupational choice and disentangle the effects of uncertainty from pessimistic outlook. We obtain evidence that precautionary savings account for at least one-third of the wealth accumulation for SOE workers between 1995 and 2002.