Editing Work unit (section)

== The disintegration of the ''danwei'' system ==
During the [[Cultural Revolution]] from 1966 to 1976, both administrative agencies and production regulation in relation to ''danweis'' were extremely disrupted.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last1=Zhao |first1=Qianhui |last2=Song |first2=Feng |date=29 June 2021 |title=XXVIII International Seminar on Urban Form ISUF2021: URBAN FORM AND THE SUSTAINABLE AND PROSPEROUS CITIES |url=https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/80403/1/Zhao_Song_ISUF_2021_Evolution_of_Danwei_system_and_urban_landscape_in_Chinas.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220506042426/https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/80403/1/Zhao_Song_ISUF_2021_Evolution_of_Danwei_system_and_urban_landscape_in_Chinas.pdf |archive-date=6 May 2022 |access-date=29 May 2024 |website=Strath Prints}}</ref> In these years, people often led double lives; praising Mao Zedong and participating in the revolution while engaging in activities that the revolution rejected such as listening to forbidden music.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Radchenko |first1=Sergey |last2=Torigian |first2=Joseph |last3=Yordanov |first3=Radoslav |last4=Dikötter |first4=Frank |date=Spring 2019 |title=Chinese Society amid Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Roots and Nature of the Tragedy |url=https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/726153 |journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]] |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=176 |doi=10.1162/jcws_c_00880 |via=Project Muse |access-date=2024-05-31 |archive-date=2024-04-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240415081400/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/726153 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Along with the emotional and physical devastation in China, this ultimately led to exhaustion of the labor force from endless attempted "brainwashing" in ''danweis''.<ref name=":3" /> In the years during the [[Chinese economic reform]] beginning in 1976 and ending in 1989, led by [[Deng Xiaoping]], the policies surrounding the permanency of the employee to the work unit became more lax, particularly in enterprise units (''qiye danwei'') where there was an increasing lack of a personnel dossier (''dang an'') system that prevented people from transferring or quitting.<ref name=":7" /> The ''danwei'' system only further weakened after 1978 when a [[market economy]] was put in place in lieu of a [[planned economy]], and as the space became more heterogenous, it lost its once collective spirit and became more unstable.<ref name=":2" /> It was in 1978 that Chinese leadership suggested private housing and in 1980, the National Urban Housing and Residence Meeting granted workers permission to build and own property, as well as buy public housing units.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last1=Xie |first1=Yu |last2=Lai |first2=Qing |last3=Wu |first3=Xiaogang |date=1 January 2009 |title=And social inequality in contemporary urban ChinaDanwei |journal=National Institutes of Health |series=Research in the Sociology of Work |volume=19 |pages=283–306 |doi=10.1108/S0277-2833(2009)0000019013 |pmid=20191102 |pmc=2828673 |isbn=978-1-84855-730-7 }}</ref> Eventually, in 1988, the [[State Council of the People's Republic of China|State Council]] stopped issuing the construction of new housing units and instead redirected those funds to support workers buying their own housing units.<ref name=":4" /> By the time the 1990s came around, urban social identity shifted when people began to identify themselves by their individual identity cards rather than their ''danwei'', marking the ultimate dissolution of the ''danwei.''<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=157}} The ''danwei'' lost its economic and social dominance in the lives of Chinese urban workers due to economic reform and changing social attitudes towards individuality and identity amidst political change.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=158}} By 2000 much of the work unit's power had been removed. In 2003, for example, it became possible to marry or divorce someone without needing authorization from one's work unit.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hui Faye |first=Xiao |title=Family Revolution : Marital Strife in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Visual Culture |date=April 22, 2014 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-99349-2 |location=Seattle |pages=3 |language=English}}</ref>