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Finding a job in urban China: A comparative analysis of migrants and natives

suggests that the decades of hukou system and the segregation between the rural and urban
populations have created different segments in the larger Chinese institutional context,
where each group of individuals likely responds to the different opportunities and incen-
tives structures, which further shape people’s job search behavior. The decreasing trend in
using hierarchy method in job searching and the increasing reliance on the market chan-
nels over time correspond to the shrinking state employment system and growing market
economy in China’s transitioning institutional environment.
Regarding network method, on the other hand, this research does not find migrant status
to be statistically significant. For both migrants and urban natives, people are more likely
to rely on networks than market channels in their job searches, even though such reliance
on networks is decreasing over time. Theoretically, the same behavior could be used by
each group of individuals for different reasons. One approach to explain this similarity is
to consider how individuals often use networks to cope with uncertainty (Pfeffer and Sa-
lancik, 1978). For rural migrants, networks had previously been a reliable remedy to re-
solve problems associated with limited or unavailable accesses to resources in cities (e.g.,
no access to the formal job channels under the strict hukou system). Networks were hardly
an alternative to other job search methods; often, they were the only ways to find jobs,
especially during the early years of rural migration (Meng, 2000). For urban natives, net-
works had been a remedy to solve different problems compared to those of rural migrants;
they were used to obtain better information and job outcomes in an uncertain environment
where information was obscure and resources (jobs) were controlled by powerful parties
(i.e., the state and the government officials) (Bian, 1997).
To further explore the underlying mechanisms for similar network behavior between
migrants and urbanites and the changes in behavior, future research can ask if individuals
have changed from using networks to find a job to using them to find a better job. In the
past, under the constraints of China’s institutional environment, it is likely that rural mi-
grants used networks to find any job, while urban natives used networks to find “better”
jobs. These strategies often change as individuals respond to the changing structure of op-
portunities and incentives in their particular institutional segment over time. That is, for
instance, as other alternatives became available, migrants may have changed their strate-
gies and begun to use networks differently to find a better job rather than just any job. This
may have contributed to the decreasing reliance on networks for migrants over the years.
For urban natives, desire to find a better job still meets with uncertainty, now coming from
market competition in addition to state control (Huang, 2008).
The idea of different network strategies provides an alternative approach for under-
standing China’s urban job market. As suggested by Chang (2011), network behavior in
China can take different forms or strategies, and the emergence and increasing or decreas-
ing popularity of each strategy are affected by external factors in the institutional envi-
ronment as well as by endogenous selection processes based on previous successful expe-
riences and reinforced social structure. Following this argument, in addition to being af-
fected by changing environmental conditions, the ways that people use networks are also
the result of habits or routines; successful network strategies will continue to be adopted
by people in hope to obtain similar outcomes. While this suggests a possible resilience of
particular kinds of network practices, a change in routines can happen once unsuccessful
outcomes from certain network strategies create negative feedback, gradually leading in-
dividuals to select strategies that have more positive consequences (Chang, 2011). Rural
migrants’ reliance on kinship or migrant networks is such an example. If, as previous re-
search reported, jobs found via kinship ties tend to be lower-paid and in worse work con-
ditions (Wang, Zuo, and Ruan, 2002; Chang, Wen, and Wang, 2011), this information can
get summarized and circulated among job-hunting migrants, triggering a change in the

International Journal of Population Studies | 2015, Volume 1, Issue 1 104