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This book is the culmination of advanced historical and sociological fieldwork in China, Japan and France. It explores the evolution of working and living conditions in industrialized societies that have reached a certain level of wealth in a few decades, seeking to offer a more nuanced view on the profound changes experienced by the population in their daily lives. While high growth is generally associated with an increase in workers' standard of living, the high growth seen in China over the last thirty years has also produced situations of precariousness among the working class. This book questions the link between rapid growth and the generalized securitization of the salaried population, which has been assumed in contemporary sociological works, focusing not only on the evolution of labor and life conditions, but also on how labor-relation actors and experts perceive the precariousness experienced in the context of high growth.
Table des matières
Introduction
Chapter 1 Payslips: Personal records to explore labour conditions
Chapter 2 The working-class household economy: frugality, discipline and strategies
Chapter 3 Finding a voice: worker demands for recognition
Chapter 4 A regulated class struggle? Minimum wage policies in a growth regime
Chapter 5 In the name of human value. Religion and ethics in the business world
General Conclusion
A propos de l'auteur
Gilles Guiheux is Professor at Université Paris Cité (France). A China specialist, he works on economic sociology and the sociology of labor. His most recent research focuses on Chinese garment workers. His publications include
Contemporary China: 1919 to the Present (2023) and, with Eric Florence, a special issue of
Le Mouvement social on "Labour Regimes in China" (2023/24).
Bernard Thomann is Professor at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco, Paris), Director of the Institut français de recherches sur l'Asie de l'Est, where he conducts research on the history of labor and social policies in contemporary Japan. He is the author of
La Naissance de l'Etat social japonais. Biopolitique, travail et citoyenneté dans le Japon impérial (1868-1945) (2015),
Le Salarié et l'entreprise dans le Japon contemporain. Formes, genèse et mutations d'une relation de dépendance, 1868-1999 (2008)
.
