A study of China's urban employment problems set in the context of growth and fluctuations in the urban economy between 1949 and 1957. Its main objectives are to analyse the size and determinants or urban employment change, and to trace the evolution both of Chinese thinking about employment and the institutions of labour control that reflected this thinking in day-to-day administration. Important source materials used in this book, many of which had not previously been used by western scholars, include the journal of the Ministry of Labour and local newspapers and journals. These materials are used to show the ways in which the urban employment problem varied according to the geographical location and level of administration from which it was viewed. Dr Howe examines the changing urban economic environment and the dimensions of urban employment and its evolution and relates them to the broader understanding of economic change in China.