Under China’s centrally-planned economy, one of the key tasks of the government was to ensure full employment by providing every urban resident of working age with an “iron rice bowl,” an unbreakable employment package that would in theory look after them and their family from cradle to grave. Urban residents were allocated by the local government to a work unit, which not only provided them with a job for life, but also their housing, medical care, old-age pension, and education for their children.