Precarity and the State: Insights from China’s Hukou System

• In Event: Labor and Labor Movements Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 2: Migration, Dispossession, and Transnational Labor Regimes

Abstract

This paper advances a state-centered approach to theorizing precarity. Dominant accounts often link rising insecurity to neoliberal deregulation, labor market flexibilization, or the erosion of the standard employment relationship. I argue that precarity should be conceptualized not only as a market condition but also as an institutional configuration structured through systems of social classification. Drawing on the evolution of the hukou system in China as an illustrative case, the paper demonstrates how citizenship-based stratification can mediate access to employment, welfare provision, and mobility across different economic periods. Rather than disappearing with market reform, such institutional arrangements may persist and adapt, continuing to organize differential incorporation into labor markets. The case highlights how insecurity can be embedded in durable governance frameworks rather than emerging solely from deregulation. By illustrating administrative incorporation as a dimension of precarity, this paper aims to broaden market-centered theories and invites a more expansive understanding of how institutional orders shape both the material and subjective dimensions of insecurity.

Author

• Yuntong JI, Northeastern University