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Trapped in Precariousness: Migrant Agency Workers in China's State-owned Enterprises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2019

Xiaojun Feng
Xiaojun Feng*
Affiliation:
College of Humanities and Development Studies, Chinese Agricultural University, Beijing, China. Email: xiaojun.fengg@gmail.com.
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Abstract

This article develops an integrated perspective to study whether formalization can significantly reduce precariousness for informal workers. This perspective combines the analysis of employment dualism with that of rural–urban dualism and the analysis of the production sphere with that of the social reproduction sphere. By applying this integrated framework to the case of a state-owned enterprise (SOE) in China, this article finds that formalization does little to reduce precariousness for the migrant agency workers there. Migrant agency workers in China are in a precarious position not only because of their employment status but also because of their incomplete citizenship and the commodification of social reproduction materials. With the compensation gap between formal and agency workers narrowed primarily owing to the deterioration of formal employment, formalization has little effect on increasing the income of agency workers or alleviating the financial pressure upon them in the sphere of social reproduction; neither can formalization raise migrants up to full citizenship or reduce related precariousness.

摘要

本文提出了一个分析转正是否能显著降低非正规工人不安全性的综合视角。这个视角一方面结合了对就业二元制和城乡二元制的分析，另一方面结合了对生产领域和再生产领域的分析。通过应用这个视角分析中国一家国有企业的案例，本文发现转正对降低派遣农民工的不安全性效果有限。中国派遣农民工的脆弱境况不仅与其非正规就业有关，同时与其公民权缺失和再生产领域的商品化有关。随着国企正式工处境的恶化，正式工与派遣工的收入差距在缩小。转正难以显著提高派遣工的收入以缓解其在再生产领域的财务压力。转正也无法赋予其完整的公民权以减少与此相关的不安全性。

Keywords

agency workerslabour dispatchprecariousnessformalizationSOEs派遣工劳务派遣不安全性转正国企
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 238 , June 2019 , pp. 396 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2019 

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