Family First: The Work Replacement System and Livelihood Politics in Urban China, 1962–1980

Abstract: In the 1960s, a child of a worker in urban China could gain employment in the parent’s work unit upon the latter’s retirement, death, or withdrawal for medical reasons. Known as dingti , this work replacement policy allowed urban families to negotiate and secure their children’s livelihood with the help of the grassroots bureaucracy. When millions of disenchanted sent-down youths returned from rural areas to the cities, especially after 1978, the government was compelled to revive the work replacement system to accommodate the influx. After the government suspended review of the class background and political performance of candidates, the system became a confirmation ritual of the “hereditary rights” of urban workers. Drawing on factory archives and oral history interviews, this article demonstrates that the family-centered politics of livelihood among urban families and the grassroots bureaucracy continued from Mao’s China to the years of the post-Mao transition.