ABSTRACT
One of the major changes brought by the economic reforms of the 1980s in China is the gradual transformation from the planned economy and dominating stateowned enterprises (SOEs) to the market economy accompanied by emerging and rapidly expanding private enterprises. By all accounts, private and other non-stateowned enterprises have mushroomed under the reforms and the open door policy since the 1980s. In contrast to the monopoly status of the state or collective work units in the urban labor force prior to the reform, the post-reform era saw rapidly growing trends in the private sectors: those self-employed entrepreneurs, family or household enterprises, private firms that provide professional services such as law firms, and joint ventures including collaborative investments by oversees companies such as those from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere. According to the Chinese State Statistical Bureau (2001), by the end of 2000, domestic private enterprises (including the self-employed) and joint ventures combined accounted for approximately 55 percent of the urban workforce, exceeding the state-owned and urban collective-owned units. This is especially striking when compared with only 3 percent in this sector at the start of the urban reforms in 1984.
