Life-course experiences of laid-off workers and their attitudes towards migrant workers in urban China

Abstract

The labour market experiences of laid-off workers from three Chinese cities were analysed to determine how the event of being laid off impacted the lives of the workers over the ten-year period since redundancy. The trajectory for the workers over this period was downward sloping, with many workers descending into poverty. Some have been able to be upwardly mobile, due to social networks (guanxi) or taking advantage of market opportunities through education and training, but many of the workers who were upwardly mobile simply found unskilled jobs, which were less unappealing than manual factory work. Overall mobility, whether up or down, was on a minor scale. Older workers are still the most vulnerable group and require assistance in adjusting to the new labour system. Those workers who are feeling optimistic about their future in the open market and are not threatened by migrant workers, who fill the ranks of the supplementary-service sector, feel that they are contributing to the general increase in pro...