A hundred years after the 1,300-year-old imperial civil service examination system was abolished in the early 20th century, the Confucian idea that one who excels academically should pursue a career in government service seems to have become popular again among young Chinese. But the view now has a more complicated social background.
According to the Ministry of Personnel, the total number of applicants for the national civil servant qualification exam held in November 2005 was about 1 million, nearly twice as many as the previous year. Some 365,000 actually took the exam. This means that on average roughly 48 exam takers competed for each available position in government departments. And for some “hot” jobs, the number of candidates for each position exceeded 1,000.
Following a reform of its administrative system, China introduced the national civil servant qualification exam in the 1980s, which was carried out annually. China’s Civil Servant Law, which took effect on January 1, 2006, stipulates that each person must take the qualification exam before being admitted to a government department.
But the popularity of the exam only really began to emerge five years ago. Government statistics show that from 1994, when the first formal civil servant qualification exam was conducted, until 2000, a total of only about 40,000 people took the exam. In 2001, the number of applications exceeded 30,000, and in the following four years, that figure increased 10 fold. And the government is finding that more and more applicants have strong academic credentials.
A report by China Youth magazine on the employment situation of young Chinese published in May 2005, showed that of the people surveyed, 21 percent and 22 percent, respectively, said the ideal career was working in a government agency or a state-owned enterprise, while only 20 percent wanted to establish their own company. This differs from many Western countries, where many more young people prefer to start up their own businesses.
Actually, in the 1980s, young people in China did not consider a government job an ideal career move. According to a survey on the employment intentions of young people, in 1984, over 90 percent of university students were interested in science and engineering, and their preferred occupations were scientists and engineers.
After the mid-1980s, however, many young Chinese began to pay more attention to economic issues as a market economy began to take shape in China. The same survey indicated that in this period, the number of students interested in science and engineering dropped to below 50 percent, while 89.3 percent of the respondents expected to have a job with both high social status and a good salary.
By 1992, the development of a market economy was in full swing in China. Another report on young people’s major concerns that year showed that “increasing income and improving their lives” were their “most urgent needs.” A large number of university students began to surge into coastal areas where the economy was more developed. Their ideal was to work for foreign companies that offered attractive salaries. Some later started up their own businesses after acquiring necessary capital and experience. At the same time, many government officials resigned to become business people.
With the further development of a market economy and intensified competition, however, earning money has become more and more difficult and augurs bigger and bigger risks. Since most people in China are risk averse, occupational stability and social security have once again become major concerns. As a result, many officials-turned-business people have gone back to their former government positions, while those who were thinking of going into business now are holding back.
Li Shouxin, Director of the Department of Social Development under the National Development and Reform Commission, estimated that there were 2.6 million university graduates in 2004 and 3.2 million in 2005. Calculated on the basis that the initial employment rate for new college graduates is 70 percent, there were 800,000 who could not find jobs in 2004 and 1 million in 2005.
Under such circumstances, more and more college graduates are turning their eyes to the civil service, which is considered to be “stable and beneficial.” Though the competition is fierce, many people have taken the civil servant qualification exam in the hope of “changing their destiny.”
TALENT POOL: People wait in a long queue to sign up for the 2006 civil servant qualification exam in Jinan, Shandong Province
According to a report in Nanfang Daily, during the eight years from 1996, when China began to implement rules on the resignation and dismissal of civil servants, to 2003, a total of 19,374 “unqualified” civil servants were dismissed. That is, each year the number of dismissed civil servants was less than 2,500 on average. Calculated on the basis that there were nearly 5 million civil servants throughout the country, the annual number of those dismissed accounted for about 0.05 percent of the total. Also taking into consideration the 30,000 civil servants who resigned from 1996 to 2003, the turnover rate was about 1.25 percent, compared to 10 percent for enterprises.
In addition, government jobs no longer are characterized by low pay and scanty benefits. High social status, the ever-increasing salaries as well as benefits that government offices offer, are among big attractions of the civil service for young Chinese. Since 1998, the Chinese Government has repeatedly raised salaries for civil servants, making the occupation a more promising one.
Government statistics indicate that from 1998 to 2003, the average wage of Chinese civil servants increased by over 10 percent each year. In 2001, the annual increase was 24.6 percent, much higher than in most other vocations.
In 2002, a book edited by Lu Xueyi, a well-known sociologist and Director of the China Sociology Society, about the social strata of contemporary China drew widespread attention. The author divided Chinese society into 10 strata, with senior civil servants and lower-ranking civil servants placed in the first and fourth strata, respectively. And today, the author still believes that civil servants “fully deserve the highest stratum of society.”
A survey conducted in 19 government departments of Shanghai in early 2005 found that nearly 80 percent of female civil servants in the city were satisfied with their incomes and 84 percent of female respondents said they would prefer to be civil servants if given another chance to choose a job.
The Nanjing Academy of Social Sciences also conducted a sample survey among the city’s civil servants in 2004, which found that 31.9 percent of the participants felt satisfied with their work, while 44.2 percent said their jobs were not bad. The satisfaction rate among senior administrative officials was even higher.
Li Jianzhong, Director of the Policy Studies Department under the Chinese Academy of Personnel Sciences predicted, “For several years, the civil servant qualification exam will continue to be hot.”
One of the main reasons he mentioned is the traditional idea in many young people’s minds that takes the official rank or status as the only criterion for judging one’s social worth. Entering a government department carries a person’s or even the whole family’s dream, said Li.
Quiet but significant changes have also been taking place in government organs themselves. Zhang Ming, 30, has been working in a government department for two years. He surprisingly found in a training class for provincial- and ministerial-level leaders that lots of senior officials in China now are young with remarkable insight in dealing with problems.
“In the past, I had thought that once I came to work in government organs, I would probably be bureaucratized. But it seems that now a new force is pushing the whole idea of governance to change,” Zhang said.
“Generally speaking, the popularity of civil servants among university students is a good phenomenon. At least it proves that the government image is better than before,” Shi Zhifu, professor at the School of Government under Peking University, told Beijing Review.
A commentary of China Youth Daily said, many young people with high education working in government offices will promote the team of civil servants to be knowledge-based, young and professional, thus improving government’s decision-making and enhancing government’s role as a service provider.
Behind the enthusiasm for civil servants, however, some scholars also expressed their worries. More and more university graduates now prefer to work in government departments. Objectively they will bring “fresh blood and fresh air” to government organs. But if better educated people who should have chosen jobs with more professional and technical requirements all go to government departments, it will lead to a waste of their talents to some extent.
Some even hold it is the result of mental vulgarization that social elites who have received systematic training strive to compete for government vacancies instead of going into society to create wealth.
According to Hu Wei, a research fellow at the School of Public Administration, Renmin University of China, many government positions require a high record of education, indicating the state’s emphasis on the quality and competence of civil servants. But these requirements will lead to a rivalry between the government and society to take in professionals, which is detrimental to the flow of high-caliber people to grassroots positions and front-line work units, including enterprises and research institutes. This will negatively affect the coordinated development of the whole society.
Hu also pointed out that with the reform of the administrative system, China should not only enhance the requirements on civil servants’ quality and competence but also develop their awareness of responsibility to work for public benefit.