From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization: Markets, Workers, and the State in a Changing China

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)

From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization addresses fast-changing capital-labour relations in contemporary China in general, and particularly the process of informalization that is occurring across all industrial sectors and in all regions of China. While not all the chapters address the nature and the process of informalization of the Chinese economy, this book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars working on the recent changes in state policy, legal reform, labour market and industrial restructuring that have had an impact on the working conditions and labour rights of the new working class. This new working class is composed of the urban poor, who have suffered from the breakdown of the iron rice bowl system, and the rural migrant workers who have become the second generation of dagongzai/mei.

The shift from an iron rice bowl system to informalization signalled a change from a state socialist economy to a global capitalist economy, in which the working lives of the Chinese people were increasingly subjected to new labour situations and capital-labour relations. In these new labour relations,...