Self-employment in Shanghai: A Research Note

During the 1980s market reforms proceeded more slowly in Shanghai than in other Chinese coastal cities. Bureaucratic procedures had continued to determine employment conditions and few city residents assumed the risks of entrepreneurship. The pace of marketization quickened in the early nineties and, between 1990 and 1995, the percentage of Shanghainese working outside the state or collective sectors grew by a factor of ten. For the first time since the launching of the economic reforms, private sector activity approached parity with Guangzhou (see Table 1).