Working reward refers to the remuneration that people get from their organization after putting in labor. It includes not only compensations like wages and bonuses but also incentives like praises and honors, which are manifested as a reward for the labor that people put in. Wages as an important form of working reward are the most fundamental relational factor between labor and capital in an organization, as well as the primary manifestation of the share received by the laborers. They reflect the legitimate right of laborers to participate in the distribution of wealth and how well such a distribution is fulfilled, thereby directly impacting changes in the conflict and compromise of labor relations. Indeed, working reward serves as a yardstick that not only measures the efforts an individual puts in at work but also reflects a person’s work competence and how his/her work performance is recognized or acknowledged by organizational leaders and colleagues.

    In this research, working reward is examined from the aspects of wage as a direct financial reward and welfare as an indirect financial reward. Wage income as a common gauge variable in scholarly research denotes the amount of a laborer’s pay. It is found that wage income has the highest explanatory power for the Gini coefficient of per capita income among the urban population and a significant implication for explaining the income gap between urban laborers. Wage income satisfaction describes the overall perception, namely, positive or negative sentiment, of a laborer towards his/her wage level. The indicator helps understand whether a laborer’s current wage level meets his/her psychological expectations and has a vital impact on his/her working attitude and behaviors. Additionally, the composition and form of wage income reflect an individual's transverse wage structure. Position-, competence- and performance-based wages reflect different theoretical hypotheses and carry with them different wage management strategies of an organization, which can help understand the functional orientations of wage management of different organizations across different industries in China. Hence, in terms of wage income, this research focuses on the level, satisfaction, composition and form of wage income among Chinese urban laborers (Table 1). 

Table 1 Operational question items on wage income

    Welfare benefits consist of national statutory welfare and welfare designated by enterprises. From a content perspective, they can be divided into insurance, leave, welfare subsidy and shared welfare facilities. Therefore, this research strives to understand to what extent that working reward is gained by Chinese urban laborers from various factors of wage income and welfare. The scale involving such latent variables as insurance, leave, subsidy security and shared welfare facilities is shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Operational question items on welfare