From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization

In From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization, an interdisciplinary group of authors examines the nature, causes, and consequences of informal employment in China at a time of major changes in Chinese society.

Sarosh Kuruvilla is Professor of Comparative Industrial Relations, Asian Studies, and Public Affairs at Cornell University, where he serves as chair of ILR International Programs. Ching Kwan Lee is Professor of Sociology at UCLA and the author of Gender and the South China Miracle and Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Mary E. Gallagher is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and the author of Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China.

Kuruvilla et al. chart the journey from employment security—known as the 'iron rice bowl' in colloquial Chinese—to informalization in 10 chapters. This sad tale is standard fare in the global labour studies literature, but the underlying arguments in this book are more nuanced and at times controversial.... This book... [is a] valuable addition to the Chinese labour relations canon. Kuruvilla et. al. point the way to further research opportunities....

Lei Guang, San Diego State University:

This timely volume offers the best empirical analysis of the changing landscape of employment relations in China. It sheds light on the 'hidden abode' of the country's low-cost production: the existence of an ever-growing informal economy that has become a new site of struggle by the workers, activists, employers, and the local and central state actors. The book should appeal to students of China as well as labor scholars in this era of globalization.

Marc Blecher, Oberlin College:

From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization will find an eager readership among scholars and students interested in Chinese politics broadly, in comparative labor relations, and, of course, in China's labor politics and political economy. The international labor policy community (including China's) will find it of high interest, and corporate managers too would do well to take it very seriously.