Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar 3 July 2009

Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar

Date: Friday, 3 July 2009

Location: Tutorial / Committee Room, Ground floor, Baillieu Library.

RSVP to Bick-har Yeung bhy@unimelb.edu.au by 29 June 2009 for catering purposes.

Program

11:30 - 11:45

Registration and morning tea

11:45 - 11:50

Welcome (Feng Li , Chinese Studies Research Group)

11:50 - 12:30

Topic: Ethnic migrant workers in labour market transition in urban China.

Speaker: Dr. Jiaping Wu, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Melbourne School of Land and Environment, the University of Melbourne.

Summary:

In China, the migrant workers from ethnic minority groups, whose homes are predominately in Western remote and poor regions in the country, have increased in number. Besides the hukou, ethnic migrants face a number of additional disadvantages, in terms of migration and urban labour market engagement. However, no attempt has been made to assess the labour market experiences of ethnic minority migrant workers and in particular to compare labour market outcomes between Han Chinese and ethnic minority migrant workers, and/or between migrant workers of ethnic minority groups.

This paper addresses this information gap and adds empirical flesh to theoretical discussion by exploring the role of ethnicity in migration and labor market involvement with an emphasis on the consequences of market transition in China. The study is based on analysis data collected from a field survey in Kaili City in Guizhou, Southwest China, in November 2008. The primary question explored was whether the ethnic minority migrant workers respond to (and interact with) the labour market in the same way as Han Chinese migrant workers. This included such specific questions as: What are the earning differentials between Han and ethnic minority migrant workers and between migrant workers of different ethnic minorities? How have these differentials changed over time, with the urban labour market transition? This study represents the first attempt to investigate ethnic minority migrant workers, their mobility patterns and income differentials in the urban labour market in China.

The study shows that the labour market transition has increasingly put ethnic migrant workers at a disadvantage in the urban labour market in terms of wage earnings. The earning gap between ethnic minority groups and Han migrant workers has drifted apart with the economic restructuring from the 1990s to recent years. This study also provides a comparison of migrant workers between two ethnic minority groups in the city, and finds that the labour market experiences and outcomes of these two ethnic groups are quite similar..

12:35 - 1:15

Topic: The Education of Cadres and University Management in China in the 1980s and beyond.

Speaker: Dr. Liping Du, Asia Institute, Arts Faculty, the University of Melbourne.

Summary:

The universities in China had long been the place where political control was, in varying degrees, prioritized over professional autonomy. After the reform era began at the end of the 1970s with a series changes under the rubric of ‘four modernisations’, an officially planned training program for university administrators, for the first time on such a large scale, was launched in China at the beginning of the 1980s.

The training which was claimed to emphasize, at least to certain extent, on the professional development in university management naturally raises the issue about the relationship between the Party's control and administrative and academic autonomies in universities during this period of social, economic and political change.

This paper, by examining the training curriculum, approaches the question: to what extent the reform has altered the Communist managerial pattern which was in a broad sense characterized by the emphasis on the leadership of the Party Committees and the advocacy of ideological work.

The paper argues that while the economic reforms having taken hold, the universities’ managerial model has remained largely unchanged. Furthermore, the political control in Chinese universities, unlike some people might have expected, has been reinforced (but) in a more focused and less visible way. The paper then discusses reasons for the reinforced political control with reference to the CCP’s tradition of cadre education and the dual tasks that Chinese government has been confronted with since the reform began.

1:15 - 2: 00 Lunch

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