Gradual abolition of the work unit and its social consequences One of the most profound social changes in recent years is the gradual abolition of the work units in the city and of communes in the countryside. In the first 35 years of communist history, migration from a small to a big city was hard except for: going to school, getting married, and job assignment. Going from the country to the city was virtually impossible. The work unit and the household registration system made enforcing this policy possible.  As a market economy went underway, the household registration system was becoming irrelevant, although it still existed, and the work unit started to disintegrate. This is first true of the countryside, where, with the abolition of the People's Communes and the beginning of the household responsibility system, hundreds of millions of peasants flock to the cities annually in search of work.  The reforms in industry, similar to that of the countryside in the mid-1980s, allowed collective and private enterprises to exist, and gradually led to the abolition of unprofitable state enterprises, leading to many industrial workers’ loss of the work unit, either voluntarily or involuntarily. When the work unit was gone, gone with it was also its social functions. Some people compare the work unit system to the family clan. Like the clan, it provides security and a lot of services, including housing, cafeteria, medical care, child care. Almost all used to get virtually free housing from their work unit, which is usually walled, providing a protective environment separate from the outside, similar to the traditional type of Chinese housing. This is where Communist China continued and adapted certain traditional practices. Just as the traditional family clan, where occassionally 100-200 clan members lived, emphasized harmony, so in the work unit overly competition was discouraged. The focus was on interpersonal relations, and productivity came secondarily. The work unit often evoked very ambivalent sentiments among people, including a warm neighborly community, an even, smooth job. On the other hand, it meant lack of opportunities to advance, lack of privacy, and restrictions of other kinds. It meant intervention in individual lives by the neighborhood committees, whether it was about spousal fightings, discerning possible acts of adultery ("Residency Check," in Chen Jo-hsi.), or taking down drying racks according to the directives of the Party ("Nixon's Press Corps," Chen Jo-hsi.), colleagues dropping by without an appointment, children of the compound growing up together. All this ontrasted to private high rise housing and private sector jobs that separate housing and work.