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Kuang-Chi Chang

grants turned to their network ties.
Some recent evidence, however, has suggested important changes that may affect mi-
grants’ reliance on network methods for job searching. Firstly, the significance of the hu-
kou system has gradually decreased. New laws have been established in some coastal areas,
waiving fees for temporary urban residence permits and allowing migrants’ children to
attend in urban schools (Chan and Buckingham, 2008). The new laws, according to Cai
and colleagues (2008), were implemented by the local government to eliminate obstacles
for rural migrants living in cities in order to attract and retain migrant labor sufficient to
support the demands in the manufacturing and construction sectors during a period of rap-
id economic growth. Secondly, non-personal channels such as internet cafés and digital
devices have become popular among migrants to obtain job information (Cartier, Castells
and Qiu, 2005). Thirdly, China’s market reforms have created an increasingly powerful
private sector and rising service industries, both of which generate high demands for
low-skilled labor supplied by rural migrants. However, some research suggests that infor-
mation about standardized, low-skilled, lower-level, non-professional, and non-managerial
jobs is more likely to be advertised via market channels and less likely to be circulated via
personal contacts or network channels (Marsden, 2001). While service industries often hire
many rural migrants, they also rely heavily on newspapers and other media advertisements
to attract a large pool of job candidates (Osberg, 1993). This contributes to a growing sig-
nificance of market channels for job searches among China’s rural migrants today.
In addition, limitations of migrant networks may have motivated rural migrants further
to rely on market channels, rather than networks, for job searches. As Chang and col-
leagues (2011) have found, obtaining jobs through relatives and friends has a dampening
effect on Chinese rural migrants’ income and satisfaction with work conditions because
only information about inferior jobs circulates in the close-knit migrant communities. Thus
we should expect that rural migrants are more likely to use market channels than
networks in their job searches (Hypothesis 1.1).
Given all the changes, however, I also want to consider a counter-argument for the resi-
lient usage of networks over other job search methods. The reasons for such sustained re-
liance on personal help among Chinese individuals may be cultural, institutional, and so-
cial (Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, 2002). Some scholars suggest that instrumental use of so-
cial connections or guanxi is a part of behavioral patterns reflecting Chinese social norms
and cultural elements that emphasize family and social groups (Hwang, 1987; Yang, 1994).
In addition, the reliance on networks may be a path-dependent behavior. Chinese migrant
workers may have relied on their networks to find urban employment because other alter-
natives were not available, yet over time, this network usage could have reinforced the
social structure (e.g., stronger migrant networks), shaping their future choices and result-
ing in their continuous reliance on networks for job searches (Giddens, 1979). Thus I
would like to test a counter-hypothesis that rural migrants are less likely to use market
channels than networks in their job searches (Hypothesis 1.2).

3.2 Urban Natives: Networks, Uncertainty and Influence
Chinese urban natives, on the other hand, have been confronting a different set of institu-
tional constraints in seeking employment. Although many urban natives, like rural mi-
grants, also rely on help from their friends and family, this network behavior is motivated
by different reasons. In a state socialist economy such as the pre-reform China, informa-
tion and resources were scarce, non-standardized, asymmetric, and not readily available
(Boisot and Child, 1996; Oberschall, 1996). Urban jobs and related information were un-
der the control of the state, and job mobility was kept minimal to satisfy the planned
economy (Walder, 1986). Although jobs were assigned by the state, many urban natives

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