Full Description
In the thirty years since the opening of China's economy, China's economic growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. At the same time, however, its employment relations system has undergone a gradual but fundamental transformation from stable and permanent employment with good benefits (often called the iron rice bowl), to a system characterized by highly precarious employment with no benefits for about 40 percent of the population. Similar transitions have occurred in other countries, such as Korea, although perhaps not at such a rapid pace as in China. This shift echoes the move from "breadwinning" careers to contingent employment in the postindustrial United States.
In From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization, an interdisciplinary group of authors examines the nature, causes, and consequences of informal employment in China at a time of major changes in Chinese society. This book provides a guide to the evolving dynamics among workers, unions, NGOs, employers, and the state as they deal with the new landscape of insecure employment.
Contents
1. Introduction and Argument
Mary E. Gallagher, Ching Kwan Lee, and Sarosh KuruvillaPart I: Informalization and the State2. The Informalization of the Chinese Labor Market
Albert Park and Fang Cai3. Legislating Harmony: Labor Law Reform in Contemporary China
Mary E. Gallagher and Baohua Dong4. Social Policy and Public Opinion in an Age of Insecurity
Mark W. FrazierPart II: Transformation of Employment Relations in Industries5. Enterprise Reform and Wage Movements in Chinese Oil Fields and Refineries
Kun-Chin Lin6. The Paradox of Labor Force Dualism and State-Labor-Capital Relations in the Chinese Automobile Industry
Lu Zhang7. Permanent Temporariness in the Chinese Construction Industry
Sarah SwiderPart III: Unions, Nongovernmental Organizations, and Workers8. "Where There Are Workers, There Should Be Trade Unions": Union Organizing in the Era of Growing Informal Employment
Mingwei Liu9. The Anti-Solidarity Machine?: Labor Nongovernmental Organizations in China
Ching Kwan Lee and Yuan Shen10. Conclusion
Mary E. Gallagher, Sarosh Kuruvilla, and Ching Kwan LeeNotes
References
Notes on Contributors
Index
