 Dilemma: The Chinese Reform in a Comparative Institutional PerspectiveHao Zhang ()
Chapter Chapter 5 in Upskilling the Chinese workforce?, 2026, pp 105-114 from Springer Abstract: Abstract This chapter concludes that while China’s vocational education reforms over the past decade have effectively alleviated skilled labor shortages and sustained industrial competitiveness, the ultimate success of workforce upskilling depends on whether industry-level coordination on skills development can be effectively institutionalized. The key distinction between the Chinese and German models lies in what the book terms the “coordination structure”: whereas Germany relies on autonomous employer associations to set sector-wide skill standards and ensure the balance between general and firm-specific skills, China’s system remains fragmented across individual school–firm partnerships. This fragmentation reflects a deeper institutional dilemma: without sector-level coordination, reforms oscillate between overly generic training, and excessively firm-specific programs which tend to undermine skill transferability and workers’ long-term employability—a limitation that may impede the scalability and resilience of China’s skill formation system and thus its long-term industrial upgrading reform. Date: 2026 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-95-2656-7_5 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-2656-7_5 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Springer Books from Springer |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.