Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination

Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination PDF Author: Kaxton Siu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9813291230
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book explores three major changes in the circumstances of the migrant working class in south China over the past three decades, from historical and comparative perspectives. It examines the rise of a male migrant working population in the export industries, a shift in material and social lives of migrant workers, and the emergence of a new non-coercive factory regime in the industries. By conducting on-site fieldwork regarding Hong Kong-invested garment factories in south China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, alongside factory-gate surveys in China and Vietnam, this book examines how and why the circumstances of workers in these localities are dissimilar even when under the same type of factory ownership. In analyzing workers’ lives within and outside factories, and the expansion of global capitalism in East and Southeast Asia, the book contributes to research on production politics and everyday life practice, and an understanding of how global and local forces interact.

Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination

Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination PDF Author: Kaxton Siu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9813291230
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores three major changes in the circumstances of the migrant working class in south China over the past three decades, from historical and comparative perspectives. It examines the rise of a male migrant working population in the export industries, a shift in material and social lives of migrant workers, and the emergence of a new non-coercive factory regime in the industries. By conducting on-site fieldwork regarding Hong Kong-invested garment factories in south China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, alongside factory-gate surveys in China and Vietnam, this book examines how and why the circumstances of workers in these localities are dissimilar even when under the same type of factory ownership. In analyzing workers’ lives within and outside factories, and the expansion of global capitalism in East and Southeast Asia, the book contributes to research on production politics and everyday life practice, and an understanding of how global and local forces interact.

The Work, Lifestyles and Domination of Chinese Migrant Garment Workers, in Comparative Perspective

The Work, Lifestyles and Domination of Chinese Migrant Garment Workers, in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Yukwan Siu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Clothing factories
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
This dissertation, The Work, Lifestyles and Domination of Chinese Migrant Garment Workers, reveals three major changes in the circumstances of the migrant working class in south China over the past two decades, from historical and comparative perspectives -- the rise of a male migrant working population in the export industry sector, a notable shift in the material and social lives of migrant industrial workers, and the emergence of a new factory regime in the export industries that relies increasingly on non-coercive modes of domination over the factory workforce. By carrying out on-site fieldwork regarding Hong Kong-invested garment factories in south China, Hong Kong and southern Vietnam, as well as factory-gate surveys of workers in China and Vietnam, the study examines how and why the circumstances of the workers in these different localities are dissimilar even when under the same type of factory ownership. In analysing workers' lives within and outside factories, as well as tracing the expansion of global capitalism in East and Southeast Asia, the dissertation not only seeks to contribute to research on the politics of production and everyday life practice, but also to an understanding of how global and local forces interact.

Migrant Labor in China

Migrant Labor in China PDF Author: Pun Ngai
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509503382
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Long known as the world's factory, China is the largest manufacturing economy ever seen, accounting for more than 10% of global exports. China is also, of course, home to the largest workforce on the planet, the crucial element behind its staggering economic success. But who are China's workers who keep the machine running, and how is the labor process changing under economic reform? Pun Ngai, a leading expert in factory labor in China, charts the rise of China as a world workshop and the emergence of a new labor force in the context of the post-socialist transformations of the last three decades. The book analyzes the role of the state and transnational interests in creating a new migrant workforce deprived of many rights and social protection. As China increases its output of high-value, high-tech products, particularly for its own growing domestic market of middle-class consumers, workers are increasingly voicing their discontent through strikes and protest, creating new challenges for the Party-State and the global division of labor. Blending theory, politics, and real-world examples, this book will be an invaluable guide for upper-level students and non-specialists interested in China's economy and Chinese politics and society.

Gender and the South China Miracle

Gender and the South China Miracle PDF Author: Ching Kwan Lee
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052092004X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Both Yuk-ling, a busy Hong Kong mother of two, and Chi-ying, a young single woman from a remote village in northern China, work in electronics factories owned by the same foreign corporation, manufacturing identical electronic components. After a decade of job growth and increasing foreign investment in Hong Kong and South China, both women are also participating in the spectacular economic transformation that has come to be called the South China miracle. Yet, as Ching Kwan Lee demonstrates in her unique and fascinating study of women workers on either side of the Chinese-Hong Kong border, the working lives and factory cultures of these women are vastly different. In this rich comparative ethnography, Lee describes how two radically different factory cultures have emerged from a period of profound economic change. In Hong Kong, "matron workers" remain in factories for decades. In Guangdong, a seemingly endless number of young "maiden workers" travel to the south from northern provinces, following the promise of higher wages. Whereas the women in Hong Kong participate in a management system characterized by "familial hegemony," the young women in Guangdong find an internal system of power based on regional politics and kin connections, or "localistic despotism." Having worked side-by-side with these women on the floors of both factories, Lee concludes that it is primarily the differences in the gender politics of the two labor markets that determine the culture of each factory. Posing an ambitious challenge to sociological theories that reduce labor politics to pure economics or state power structures, Lee argues that gender plays a crucial role in the cultures and management strategies of factories that rely heavily on women workers. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999. Both Yuk-ling, a busy Hong Kong mother of two, and Chi-ying, a young single woman from a remote village in northern China, work in electronics factories owned by the same foreign corporation, manufacturing identical electronic components. After a decade o

Made in China

Made in China PDF Author: Pun Ngai
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822386755
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
As China has evolved into an industrial powerhouse over the past two decades, a new class of workers has developed: the dagongmei, or working girls. The dagongmei are women in their late teens and early twenties who move from rural areas to urban centers to work in factories. Because of state laws dictating that those born in the countryside cannot permanently leave their villages, and familial pressure for young women to marry by their late twenties, the dagongmei are transient labor. They undertake physically exhausting work in urban factories for an average of four or five years before returning home. The young women are not coerced to work in the factories; they know about the twelve-hour shifts and the hardships of industrial labor. Yet they are still eager to leave home. Made in China is a compelling look at the lives of these women, workers caught between the competing demands of global capitalism, the socialist state, and the patriarchal family. Pun Ngai conducted ethnographic work at an electronics factory in southern China’s Guangdong province, in the Shenzhen special economic zone where foreign-owned factories are proliferating. For eight months she slept in the employee dormitories and worked on the shop floor alongside the women whose lives she chronicles. Pun illuminates the workers’ perspectives and experiences, describing the lure of consumer desire and especially the minutiae of factory life. She looks at acts of resistance and transgression in the workplace, positing that the chronic pains—such as backaches and headaches—that many of the women experience are as indicative of resistance to oppressive working conditions as they are of defeat. Pun suggests that a silent social revolution is underway in China and that these young migrant workers are its agents.

Born Out of Place

Born Out of Place PDF Author: Nicole Constable
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520957776
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Hong Kong is a meeting place for migrant domestic workers, traders, refugees, asylum seekers, tourists, businessmen, and local residents. In Born Out of Place, Nicole Constable looks at the experiences of Indonesian and Filipina women in this Asian world city. Giving voice to the stories of these migrant mothers, their South Asian, African, Chinese, and Western expatriate partners, and their Hong Kong–born babies, Constable raises a serious question: Do we regard migrants as people, or just as temporary workers? This accessible ethnography provides insight into global problems of mobility, family, and citizenship and points to the consequences, creative responses, melodramas, and tragedies of labor and migration policies.

China's Workers Under Assault

China's Workers Under Assault PDF Author: Anita Chan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315502119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This important book contains case studies with substantive analysis of Chinese workers in a variety of settings: state enterprises, urban collectives, township and village enterprises, domestic private enterprises, and foreign funded enterprises. The cases include urban workers migrant workers from the countryside, and workers who are sent to work outside of China. The analytical framework for these case studies lays out why labor rights violations have been occurring in China and highlights the contex in which these violations operate and the extent to which these selected cases are not isolated incidents. Moreover, the dilemma of Chinese workers is put into international perspective: the context of the international labor market, the setting of competitive minimum wages in Asia, and the concern for Chinese workers' rights taken up by the International Labor Organization (ILO). This book debunks the conventional wisdom that Chinese workers are thriving because the Chinese economy is booming. Indeed the wage structures of these enterprises of different ownership types contribute to widening income disparities in China. The book uncovers what exactly overseas Chinese entrepreneurship (Taiwan and Hong Kong), means at the factory level. And it calls for a new approach to scrutinizing the phenomena of the so-called Chinese economic miracle and it's repercussions on other economies and labor markets.

Out to Work

Out to Work PDF Author: Arianne M. Gaetano
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888208535
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Out to Work is a fresh, engaging account of the lives of a group of rural Chinese women who, while still in their teens, moved from villages to Beijing to take up work as maids, office cleaners, hotel chambermaids, and schoolteachers. By pursuing new opportunities afforded by migration and strategically applying accumulated knowledge and resources, these women were able to forge better lives for themselves and their families. But as this book also makes clear, broader social inequalities persist to make these women's futures precarious. "This book's unique approach offers readers an intimate look at the impact of labor migration on young women over a ten-year period. We follow Gaetano's informants as they adapt to Beijing, visit their home villages, and move on to new jobs and postmarital homes. Gaetano does an excellent job showing how these young female migrants navigate constraints and challenges, enhancing their own and their family's social and economic status."—Hong Zhang, Colby College "This fresh, highly readable book demonstrates vividly how gender norms and rural-urban inequalities not only shaped women's identities and aspirations but also had palpable physical and material consequences for them. Yet despite the discrimination and hardship they experienced, they were able to build better lives for themselves. Gaetano's book convincingly shows that labor migration has increased many rural women's possibilities for exercising agency."—Rachel Murphy, University of Oxford

Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China

Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China PDF Author: Errol Mendes
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
ISBN: 077661780X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China focuses on the most challenging areas of discrimination and inequality in China, including discrimination faced by HIV/AIDS afflicted individuals, rural populations, migrant workers, women, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities. The Canadian contributors offer rich regional, national, and international perspectives on how constitutions, laws, policies, and practices, both in Canada and in other parts of the world, battle discrimination and the conflicts that rise out of it. The Chinese contributors include some of the most independent-minded scholars and practitioners in China. Their assessments of the challenges facing China in the areas of discrimination and inequality not only attest to their personal courage and intellectual freedom but also add an important perspective on this emerging superpower.

Rural Origins, City Lives

Rural Origins, City Lives PDF Author: Roberta Zavoretti
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 029599925X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
A new understanding of rural-urban migration and inequality in contemporary China Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences are far more nuanced than popular narratives might suggest. Rural Origins, City Lives probes long-held assumptions about migrant workers in China. Drawing on fieldwork in Nanjing, Roberta Zavoretti argues that many rural-born urban-dwellers are—contrary to state policy and media portrayals—diverse in their employment, lifestyle, and aspirations. Working and living in the cities, such workers change China’s urban landscape, becoming part of an increasingly diversified and stratified society. Zavoretti finds that—more than thirty years after the Open Door Reform—class formation, not residence status, is key to understanding inequality in contemporary China.