This book provides a rare glimpse into how the Chinese urban population is experiencing the rapid shift from a planned to a market economy. The authors, using a dozen recent national social surveys, give voice to workers, civil servants, intellectuals, and women, who report their grievances and joys at home, at work, and in the public sphere. With fresh data on newly emerging patterns of economic inequality, labor-management relations, popular grievances, political participation, and gender inequality, the book comprehensively analyzes how the shifting social contract influences ordinary people’s lives. With comparative data from the more market-based Taiwan, the book illuminates the directions in which China might be headed.