How High is Urban Unemployment in China?
- 1 July 2006
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies
- Vol. 4 (2), 91-107
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14765280600736833
Abstract
Rapid economic growth and radical structural transformation pose a challenge to official statisticians as they seek to encompass new economic activities and phenomena. The accuracy of official statistics is liable to come into question. Urban unemployment in China is a good example. This paper estimates the urban unemployment rate using administrative statistics, population census data and a recent sample survey data set, and provides a critique showing in some detail how and why Chinese unemployment statistics are a minefield for the unwary and unemployment is so difficult to measure. Nevertheless, it is found that the urban unemployment rate rose rapidly over the 1990s and exceeded 11% in 1999 and 2000. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the findings for understanding unemployment, for policy, and for the collection of statistics.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban ChinaPublished by Informa UK Limited ,2006
- Towards a Labour Market in ChinaPublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,2005
- The measurement of unemployment when unemployment is highLabour Economics, 2005
- Wages, firm profitability and labor market segmentation in urban ChinaChina Economic Review, 2005
- Job mobility of residents and migrants in urban ChinaJournal of Comparative Economics, 2004
- Unemployment, Poverty and Income Disparity in Urban ChinaAsian Economic Journal, 2003
- Labor retrenchment in ChinaChina Economic Review, 2002
- What is happening to China's GDP statistics?China Economic Review, 2001