Getting a job through a web of Guanxi in China

As China moves from a state economy to a market economy, how do people obtain jobs? On the surface, it is a shift from a system where the state assigned people to job slots, to a situation in which people scramble on their own to attain positions. In reality, interpersonal and interorganizational relations have helped people find jobs in both the state and the market systems. ¹ In this chapter I consider the use of connections in China to obtain jobs, and its implications for the analysis of occupational attainment, occupational mobility, and social stratification.