Precariat in Western China - Poverty, Risks and Influences

This book provides a comprehensive picture for understanding the experiences and dynamics of precarious workers' in-work poverty in western China.
The research presented in this book identifies the causes and the consequences of precarious employment and in-work poverty and analyses the stakeholders' responses to the changes in the context of employment in China's socialist market economy. The book explains why precarious workers tend to remain outsiders to rapid socio-economic transformation and informs readers as to how people make choices, how those with different abilities adapt to the process of de-traditionalisation and how marketisation changes people's lifestyles, value systems, policy designs.
Detailing empirical investigations of the experience and dynamics of workers' precarious life, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese society, social policy and poverty.

List of contents

Introduction. 1. Capability approach to the study of poverty 2. Precarious Employment and Precarious Life 3. Family Configurations, Support Responsibilities and Wellbeing 4. Dependency on Social Capital and Isolation in Social Relations 5. The Effect of Social Assistance Policy on Precarity and In-work Poverty 6. Subjective Wellbeing, Agency and Coping Strategies Conclusion. Capability Deprivation in the Risk Society

About the author

Xueyang Ma is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Political Science & Public Administration, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.

Product details

• Authors: Xueyang Ma
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 28.11.2025
• EAN: 9781032748474
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3274847-4
• No. of pages: 248
• Series: Routledge Studies on China in Transition
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Social education, social work; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; China, Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Poverty & Homelessness, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Policy, Poverty & unemployment, Politics & government, Social discrimination & inequality, Regional Studies, Politics and government, Regional / International studies, Poverty and precarity, Social discrimination and social justice, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / Asian Studies