Globally, most workers live precarious lives. In this examination of China's industrial relations since 1949, Xiaojun Feng explores why this should be. China provides an important case to examine this question because it has gone through both socialist revolution and marketized reforms, the major economic and political dynamics that have shaped the world since the twentieth century. Developing a comprehensive analytical framework for the interpretation of archives, interviews and participant observation, Feng explores the causes of and potential remedies for labour precarity in China. Bridging the 1949 and 1978 divides, this study unveils continuities and more fundamental discontinuities across these watershed moments, and sheds fresh light on the extent to which popular policy can counter labour precarity and the future dynamics of labour movements.

‘The Making of Labour Precarity in China is a tour de force. Feng traces the evolution of precarious labour in urban China over the past century, an era marked by a series of radical changes in employment relations, mastering the complexities of each period.’

Joel Andreas - Johns Hopkins University

‘This is a book of great ambition, executed effectively. Feng shows that worker precarity is not a condition limited to China’s era of marketization, but in fact has emerged in different guises throughout the 20th century. Distinguishing herself from existing studies by unravelling distinct regimes across state socialist and market reform-era China, Feng deepens our understanding not only of China’s labor history, but of how we should think about precarity more generally.’

Eli Friedman - Cornell University