TY - JOUR T1 - Building China: Precarious Employment Among Migrant Construction Workers JF - Work Employment & Society Y1 - 2015 A1 - Swider, Sarah KW - China KW - China precarious work KW - construction work KW - employment configuration KW - informal labor market KW - informal work KW - migrant workers KW - migration KW - precarious employment KW - urban employment AB -

In China, informal precarious work has exploded and now represents a majority of urban employment. This article explores precarious informal work by presenting a case study of migrant workers in the construction industry. Despite the fact that these workers are all unregistered migrants performing informal construction work, there exists a diversity of labor market situations, working conditions and work relations. This article introduces the concept of ‘employment configuration’ to analyze this diversity and to bring informal workers, who are operating outside of state regulations, back into our industrial labor relations framework. The concept of employment configuration also refocuses our attention from the dyadic worker–employer relationship to the more complex triad of the worker, the employer and the state, shedding light on varying sources of control and exploitation of these migrant workers.

VL - 29 L2 - eng CP - 1 ER -