CC BY
50
УДК 316+331.522
DENGLEI TANG TIANYUAN,
Institute of Sociology, SASS
FROM "FINDING A JOB" TO "DECENT WORK": NEW EMPLOYMENT EXPECTATIONS OF URBAN YOUTH
(BASED ON THE SURVEY OF THE CURRENT SITUATION AND PROBLEMS OF CHINA YOUTH EMPLOYMENT QUALITY)
On the basis of youth samples of 10 cities in eastern, central, western and northeastern regions of China and from 6 dimensions of employment quality, that is, employment environment, employabi-lity, incomes, employment status, social protection, and labor relations, the paper analyzes the current situation and problems of urban youth employment quality and finds that youth employment stability is good and the employment security increases but the difference in employment environment among regions is obvious, social inequality still exists, the employment "superiority" and "sense of achievement" of youth are not strong, their work-life balance needs adjusting, their self-worth realization and self-transcendence demand have not been given sufficient attention and their employability, income, and ability to dialogue with employers are yet to be improved. Youth employment demand has changed from "finding a job" to "decent work", which will force cities not only to achieve full employment, but also to change "the development strategy of low labor cost" and commit themselves to improving the employment quality of youth.
Keywords: urban youth, employment quality, decent work.
ОТ «ПОИСКА РАБОТЫ» ДО «ДОСТОЙНОГО ТРУДА»: НОВЫЕ ОЖИДАНИЯ ГОРОДСКОЙ МОЛОДЕЖИ В ТРУДОУСТРОЙСТВЕ
(НА ОСНОВЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ СИТУАЦИИ И ПРОБЛЕМ КАЧЕСТВА ТРУДОУСТРОЙСТВА КИТАЙСКОЙ
МОЛОДЕЖИ)
На основе выборочной совокупности молодых людей из 10 городов восточных, центральных, западных и северо-восточных регионов Китая, а также из 6 показателей качества занятости, а именно: среда занятости, трудоустройство, доходы, статус занятости, социальная защита и трудовые отношения, в статье анализируются текущее положение и проблемы качества трудоустройства городской молодежи. Обнаружено, что стабильность занятости молодежи находится на достойном уровне, гарантии трудоустройства возрастают, однако разница в сфере занятости среди регионов очевидна; по-прежнему существует социальное неравенство; у молодежи недостаточно развиты чувство превосходства и установки на достижение успеха; их баланс между работой и личной жизнью требует урегулирования; оценка молодежью самореализации и собственная востребованность достижений не получили достаточного внимания; их способность найти работу, доход и умение вести диалог с работодателями все еще должны совершенствоваться. Спрос в сфере занятости у молодежи изменяется с «поиска работы»
на «достойный труд», что заставит городские власти не только достичь полной занятости, но и изменить «стратегии развития низкооплачиваемого труда» и взять на себя ответственность за улучшение качества занятости молодежи.
Ключевые слова: городская молодежь, качество занятости, достойный труд.
Statistics show that the youth unemployment rate has been higher than the overall unemployment level since the globalization, with the number of "on-job poverty" and "working poor" among employed youth on a continuous increase. "Youth being the most vulnerable link of employment" has been a conundrum all over the world. "Underemployment" will bring young people setbacks, and "low quality employment" will create a "value subtracted" trap for young people, reducing their "sense of achievement", hindering their generation mobility, affecting their family life and bringing a series of problems, such as housing, marriage, raising children and living off their parents. In addition, "low quality employment" easily exacerbates the labor-capital relationship and results in the visualization and increase of intergenerational conflicts. How is the employment quality of urban youth in China? What are its characteristics? What are the outstanding issues? What are the focal points and breakthroughs? All these questions underpin the motivation of this paper.
Literature Review
As for the definition of "employment quality", at the spiritual level, some scholars stress that it is a comprehensive concept of "whether an employee is satisfied with the merits and demerits of his employment status" [1]; at the material level, some scholars emphasize that it is a comprehensive category of the combination of employees and materials and the ability to gain incomes [2]. International Labor Organization (hereinafter referred to as ILO) once used "core labor standards" to explain the employment quality, and adopted "decent work" to describe "high quality employment" in 1999. "Decent work" refers to productive work, including the protection of workers' rights, fair income, full social protection and full employment. In order to fulfill the goal, ILO proposes that the specific goals of "promoting working rights", "employment", "social protection", and "social dialogues" be achieved: through promoting employment, strengthening social protection, safeguarding workers' basic rights and interests and conducting dialogues among governments, enterprises and trade unions, workers can work with freedom, fairness, safety and dignity. Consequently, deemed as the criterion for "high quality employment", "descent work" attracts great attention from the international community and their policy responses including China.
Scholars home and abroad have different views and practices on the indicators and measurements of the employment quality. Li Junfeng has built an indicator framework of employment stability index, employment quality index, labor-capital relationship index, social welfare and security index, and employment development index [3]. Lai Desheng has built an employment quality rating system which comprises 6 dimensions, 20 secondary indicators, 50 third class indicators and measured and rated the employment quality in the eastern, central and western parts of China through the analysis of the principle components [4]. As for working youth, es-
pecially college graduates, Ke Yu has built an employment quality measurement system, including five dimensions of employment rates, graduates demand-supply ratio, salary, employment structure and social recognition; Yang Heqing and Li Jia has devised an indicator system composed of 3 first class indicators and 12 second class indicators and converted college graduate employment quality indicators into an overall score table through AHP.
Existing research has provided us with intellectual resources to better understand and grasp the employment quality: the employment quality not only concerns remuneration, but also the employment environment, employability, job opportunities, employment structure, employment stability, employment equity, social protection, work security, labor relations and social respect, covering both material and spiritual dimensions. The pursuit of the employment quality is not the privilege of one or some occupational practitioners but ought to be shared by all workers. It demands concerted efforts from employers, governments and workers. Given China's current situation and the characteristics of contemporary youth employment, this study will define "quality employment" as such an "ideal type". Youth have full employment and are satisfied with their first jobs. Their job stability is high, their professional skills can be given full play to, and their self-value can be effectively realized.
But the existing study also has the following disadvantages: first, the study subjects are limited to a particular region or a particular group, lacking overall national youth employment quality assessment and cross-regional comparisons; second, most studies are committed to building a system of objective indicators related to the quality of employment, while the spiritual quality of employment, especially young people's satisfaction with their jobs is not fully explored; third, empirical research is done on published statistical data, such as the Statistical Yearbook, and Statistical Bulletin, rather than on an analysis of the empirical data of youth experience, behavior, consciousness, and feelings. In addition, most studies ignore the "city" factor in the analysis of the youth employment problem, that is, "City" is not only the place of employment or background, but also a viable that must be included in the study of youth employment and their entrepreneurial process: different from the traditional city life, the modern urban life features heterogeneity, anonymity and rationalism and is full of uncertainty and challenges, making young people "settling down" in the city an extremely dynamic, open and complex process. If we don't understand the urban social, economic and cultural structure and fail to grasp the social change direction of urbanization in the study of the employment quality for young people, then it will be hard to get good solutions to many problems.
In summary, our study is to investigate the quality of youth employment on the basis of the large sample survey data, covering both the material aspects and the spiritual dimensions, both young individuals and the cities they reside in.
The Survey Results and Analysis
Our research group has designed the questionnaire on the basis of six major dimensions that affect the quality of youth employment: the employment environment,
employability, income, employment status, social protection, and labor relations. Through multi-stage stratified random sampling and quota sampling combination, we take 10 cities in the eastern, central, western and northeastern regions and distribute 3,500 questionnaires to young people aged 16-35, of which 3431 are recovered, an effective rate of 98,02 %. Men account for 50,1 %, and women 49,9 %. The mean age is 27.25 years (standard deviation of 4.326 years) and the average working life is 4.989 years (standard deviation of 3.974 years).
Employment Environment
The employment environment dimension includes 2 second class indicators: employment services and labor market segmentation situation. Employment services indicator is measured by working youth's awareness about employment policies, the usefulness of employment guidance the city offers and youth's satisfaction; labor market segmentation situation indicator is demonstrated by the proportion of youth population with other city household registrations to those with local household registrations.
1. Employment policy awareness. Close to 20 % (19,9 %) of young people nationwide do not know about the employment policies of their city, and nearly 40 % (39,1 %) "can not clearly tell" whether they know about the employment policies. If "can not clearly tell" can be interpreted as the local government does not fully publicize the employment policies, then nearly 60 % of urban working youth don't know enough about the employment policies.
2. Employment service satisfaction. 25 % of youth nationwide are "not satisfied" with the employment services of their cities, and nearly 40 % (38,1 %) can hardly give a clear evaluation. If "can hardly give a clear evaluation" is interpreted as the local government has not done enough about employment service, then more than 60 % of working youth are not satisfied with employment services provided by their cities.
3. Employment guidance usefulness. Efficient employment guidance can help workers with their career goals and path, and significantly contribute to good employment environment, but in fact, 44,4 % of working young people nationwide do not feel any usefulness of the employment guidance, and 38,3 % of youth think career guidance, "although helpful, can not meet their own needs", that is, more than 80 % of young people are not fully aware of the effectiveness of career guidance.
4. Labor market segmentation. Among the survey respondents, 72,3 % of youth have the local household registrations, while 27,7 % are from other cities, the proportion of local population to non-local population being 38,35 %. It can be seen that, against a background of large-scale migration of youth labor force across cities and regions, dual division in the urban labor market remains severe; this will undoubtedly hinder the rational flow and fair competition in the youth labor force and affect the employment quality of the city.
The statistics show that working youth in Tianjin, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou have a relatively higher sense of satisfaction with employment environment, followed by those in two cities in the northeastern region. The employment environ-
ment satisfaction level in 4 cities in the central and western regions fails to reach the average.
Employability
Employability is reflected by 3 second class indicators: education level, technical level and vocational skills training.
In recent years, over 6 million college graduates are injected into the labor market every year, pushing the average education level of new urban labor force to rise year on year. 61,1 % of the respondents have a university degree or above, 22,2 % college/vocational education, and 16,7 % education lower than high school/vocational school. However, many of the highly educated youth are engaged in jobs that require low or no skills or qualifications. More than 40 % (40,5 %) have no technical grade certificates, 32,9 % are with junior titles, and only 26,6 % are with intermediate or above titles.
Almost 70 % (65,5 %) think skills training helps with employability, but only 56,5 % have received it after their entry, of whom 50 % (56,6 %) are paid by their employers and 32,2 % pay by themselves. In addition, only 27,8 % of the respondents agree that "young people have an advantage in the job market", while 40,1 % of working youth do not agree or strongly disagree to the statement. Apparently, youth don't have a strong sense of "superiority" in employment.
Remuneration
The statistics show that in 2014 the per capita income of China's urban working youth is 46,100 yuan, the median being 40,000 yuan, higher than 28,800 yuan, the per capita disposable income of national urban residents in 2014 recently published by the National Bureau of Statistics, the median being 26,600 yuan. But the difference is no longer obvious if the costs of marriage, parenting, care for the elderly, and individual development are taken into account. Thus, less than 40 % of working youth (39,7 %) are relatively or very satisfied with the current income.
Among the 10 cities, the per capita income of working youth in Beijing in 2014 ranks first (69,500 yuan), followed by those Shanghai (63,100 yuan), and Guangzhou (64,300 yuan), while per capita income of those in Shenyang is 36,200 yuan and Harbin 26,300 yuan, ranking last; per capita income difference between those in Beijing and Harbin reaches 43,200 yuan.
Employment Status
The average employment time of the respondents is five years. Over the last 3 years they change jobs 0.56 times on average. Nearly 70 % (68,1 %) have changed their jobs once, and only 15 % have changed jobs twice or above. In addition, close to 70 % (69,9 %) are satisfied with the security of their current jobs, 50 % (50,3 %) can accept their work intensity and nearly 60 % (59,8 %) believe that their development in their units are promising.
However, only 10 % (10,2 %) think that their current jobs give full play to their ability, and a little over 40 % (41,5 %) think that their jobs give certain play to their ability. Less than 10 % (9,6 %) feel that their jobs bring them good opportunities of development, and only 36,5 % feel some development opportunities. These show
that youth's jobs are generally stable but have not tapped youth's maximum potential and met their needs of self-transcendence. Besides, as high as 40 % (40,1 %) believe that their current jobs can hardly earn social respect and almost 30 % (29,1 %) admit that their jobs cannot get recognition from their families. Thus, many youth find a job, but fail to meet the need of achieving their social value through jobs.
In addition, up to 46 % feel that their life has to give way to their jobs. 48 % feel "anxiety about their jobs even in non-working time". 54,6 % say they find it difficult to adapt to the current working pressure. The work-life balance of working youth needs adjustment. Statistics show that among the country's 10 cities, youth in Xi'an have the most harmonious relationship between work and life while youth in Shanghai the least.
Social Protection
72,1 % of the youth have singed formal, fix-term contracts with the units they work for. Over 70 % have full or partial "five insurances and one pension". But problems are apparent that such citizenship benefits as legal protection, public services, and social welfare are not fully covered and evenly distributed: The percentage of young migrant workers who do not sign any form of contract (18,8 % of rural registered youth) is almost 10 % higher than that of urban youth workers (8,9 % of urban registered youth); the percentage of the former in terms of social welfare is 30 % lower than that of the latter. Only 33,7 % nationwide believe that urban employment is fair. In addition, 70 % of the units youth work for have trade unions, 70 % of which can hold regular meetings and activities. However, only 20 % of youth believe that trade unions play an important role in safeguarding their rights. Only 40 % of the units adopt a collective wage negotiation system. To sum up, in spite of increased employment security of youth workers, social inequality still exists and youth are still in an inferior position to conduct social dialogues with their employers.
The statistics show that, among the 10 cities, Chongqing, Shanghai and Beijing rank the top three in the standardization degree of youth employment, and Chongqing, Tianjin, and Shanghai rank the top three in social security. Chongqing has the highest percentage of youth workers with a full package of "Five Insurances and One Pension" (62,4 %), almost 26 % higher than that of Harbin (36,6 %). Tianjin has the highest percentage of youth feeling the trade unions have improved their labor relationships (62,7 %), followed by Shanghai and Harbin, with Wuhan ranking the lowest.
Entrepreneurial Employment
Entrepreneurship is currently a significant way to increase employment opportunities and improve the employment quality. Up to 50 % (47,7 %) of working youth nationwide are positive about "Entrepreneurial Prospects of Young People". In the coming year, 36 % have plans of starting up businesses, almost 20 % of whom have already started or are ready to start. Harbin, Shenyang, Tianjin rank the top 3 in the percentage of young people planning to star up businesses, and Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing rank the last 3. The difference between Harbin (46,3 %) and Chongqing (23,7 %) is 23 %.
In terms of business fields, 42,9 % will choose the fields that they are interested in, 24,2 % are mainly concerned about start-up capital and risks, less than 20 % will focus on their own professional advantages and about 10% will choose the fields that will get popular in the future. In addition, 60,2 % will start up businesses in cities they now live in, but only 40 % of them are satisfied with the entrepreneur-ship environment of their cities. 3,1 % plan to start business in rural areas with good prospects, only 0,7 % are willing to go to the west region or remote areas that are supported by national policies and 3,8 % wish to go to Hong Kong, Macaw, Taiwan or abroad.
Satisfaction with Employment Quality
Satisfaction with the employment quality is a spiritual refection of employment quality. Our research group has constructed a statistical model with 16 subjective indicators based on the 6 dimensions. It was found that the average satisfaction index of the national urban youth employment quality is 8.074; the eastern cities of Tian-jin (8.627), Guangzhou (8.321), Beijing (8.184), and Shanghai (8.159) rank top 4, the western cities of Chongqing (8.024) and Xi'an (8.006) rank 5th and 6th, the northeastern cities of Harbin (7.989) and Shenyang (7.832) ranked 7th and 9th, and the central cities of Zhengzhou (7.888) and Wuhan (7.726) rank 8th and 10th.
Conclusions and Recommendations
As the data show, working youth employment stability is generally good, and employment security has generally been strengthened, but there is still evident difference in employment environment between regions and social distribution is still uneven. Many youth employability needs to be improved; their income appears meager in the face of increasing costs of labor reproduction; young people don't have a strong "sense of superiority" and "sense of achievement" in jobs. Their work-life balance urgently needs to be adjusted, self-value realization and self-transcendence needs have not been given sufficient attention to, and youth workers are still weak in social dialogues with their employers.
In all, as "indigenous residents" of globalization and the information age, contemporary young people are vastly different from other generations in terms of value realization, career development, employment protection, and work-life balance demands. Thanks to their "selective affinity" with new ideas, new technology, and new organizational methods, they have better consciousness in innovation, entrepre-neurship and right protection and their overall ability has greatly improved. Therefore, employment aspirations of young people have changed from "finding a job" to "descent work", which will undoubtedly force cities not only to ensure full employment of youth labor, but also to transform the traditional "low labor cost strategy" into one of improving the employment quality. To this end, we recommend:
First, misunderstandings ought to be reduced, consensus reached and implementation sped up.
Some enterprises, people and local governments still have misunderstandings of "decent work" proposed by ILO. Many people simplify high quality employment into "highly paid", "decently dressed", "working in offices", or "easy work". There is
also controversy in the economic and social consequences of related policies. Some are also concerned that "decent work" will reduce personal investment and work motivation, eventually damaging the competitiveness of a city. These misunderstandings hinder our pursuit of "decent work".
In fact, for an individual, "decent work" means a job that can give full play to his ability, realize his value, tap his potential, and protect his rights and interests; for a city, it means increased employment opportunities, optimized structure, improved service, a unified labor market, human capital investment increase, the realization of employment equality, harmonious labor relations, and the construction of internationally competitive business environment and support system. Expenditure to improve the employment quality should not be misinterpreted as unproductive "spending", but should be considered as social investment. As China is undergoing a "new normal" in economic development and a critical period of comprehensively deepening reform, social spending on the young generation is nothing but a most important investment.
Second, the city government, enterprises, social organizations and youth ought to cooperate.
To improve youth employment quality, city governments play a main role, youth are the key, and schools, businesses, trade unions and the whole society need to contribute collectively. Governments need to change their employment ideas, shifting their focus from on quantitative expansion to on improving the employment quality. Youth need to have right attitudes, improve their employability, be down to earth and work hard. Enterprises should shoulder social responsibilities and be concerned about the spiritual needs of employees as well as their income, benefits, working conditions, and welfare. Trade unions and other social organizations should improve their organizational effectiveness, urging governments and business to assume responsibility and safeguarding the rights and interests of youth workers. The whole society needs to create an environment in which work is respected, innovation encouraged, and justice pursued, so that the concept of "decent work" enjoys popular support. Eventually, youth can enjoy great opportunities and colorful life through work and fulfill their personal "Chinese Dream".
References
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Date accepted 18.10.2015.
