Prekarität in der chinesischen Hochwachstumsgesellschaft: Eine Fallstudie zur Situation von Wanderarbeitern im Perlflussdelta

Precariousness has become a key concept in the current sociological
discussion in Europe and North America. However, it remains rather unclear whether
it is a suitable concept to grasp the social reality in the Global South. In this paper,
we refer to the work of Bourdieu, Castel and Dörre in order to analyse the sense
of insecurity of migrant workers in Guangdong province, China – the so-called
“workshop of the world”. For this purpose, we have evaluated 37 guideline-based
interviews with migrant workers. We observe two main factors influencing the scale
of their subjective sense of insecurity: age and social security. An important result of
our study is that due to a labor shortage in China’s coastal regions, young workers
tend to perceive their situation as rather secure, while older workers with insufficient
social security fear social decline in the face of the current industrial transformation.
We indicate how this feeling of insecurity becomes a new driver of labor unrest and
conclude that precariousness may continue to grow.