Using firm-level data from a 2009 survey conducted in Suzhou city, Jiangsu province, this article examines the impact of technological capacity and value-chain position on a firm's product competitiveness. Technological capacity and product competitiveness are self-assessed relative to other...

Using data collected from a survey of 1,622 relatively low-income households in Changsha in January 2007, this paper compares gender disparities in employment and disposable income among the relatively poor urban population in China. We found that although there is no difference in the...

A recent data set from the city of Changsha is used to estimate the impact of social support programs on employment for low-income urban workers in China. The Chinese urban household registration system i(hukou),/i which determines whether an individual is eligible for social support programs,...

This paper discusses pension system reforms in China and Russia. Before the reforms, both countries had pay-as-you-go pension systems, with limited coverage, inequality across sectors, lack of portability, and unsustainable financing. Pension reforms, begun in China in 1984 and Russia in 1997,...

Since the late 1970s, many employees of state-owned enterprises have been laid off, and more and more rural people have migrated to urban areas. Many laid-off and migrant workers have become the urban poor. This paper discusses the general situation of the urban poor in China by examining how...

One of the by-products of economic reforms is the unprecedented number of floating population from rural to urban areas. These rural migrants have become a new class that experiences "institutionalized exclusion" in their adoptive cities in areas including housing, work, and social entitlements....