China's New Underclass

Paid Domestic Labour

Author: Xinying Hu Series: Routledge Contemporary China Series

This book examines the implications of China’s economic reforms for domestic work and domestic workers. It analyses the factors giving rise to paid domestic work in a socialist economy, and the need for social protection of domestic women workers within cities in contemporary China.

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This book examines the implications of China’s economic reforms for domestic work and domestic workers. The author examines the factors that give rise to paid domestic work in a socialist economy, and goes on to look at the need for social protection of domestic workers within cities in contemporary China.

Using a socialist feminist approach, the book investigates how China's economic restructuring has deliberately crafted a domestic service sector from the top-down. Through the analysis of the situation of paid domestic labour, it demonstrates how the changes in socialist ideology under a market economy have justified the state’s support for paid domestic labour; the large role of the state in these ideological changes; and how domestic labour is related to economic changes and the market economy itself. The book argues that state’s economic reforms have changed gender and class relations in Chinese society.

Based on interviews with domestic workers, their employers, their social advocates, and government officials, this book examines the economic and social security of domestic workers and provides information about their precarious working conditions that could be improved through public policy. It also explores women’s agency and activism, and the current role of NGOs and trade unions in labour protection.

Critic Reviews

“"Students of international development would particularly benefit from reading this book, which accomplishes its admirable and practical goal of outlining the many challenges and possible remedies which the state and various actors in civil society should consider in addressing migrant domestic workers as members of China's underclass."- Mei-Ling Ellerman, The Australian National University; The China Journal, No. 68”

"Students of international development would particularly benefit from reading this book, which accomplishes its admirable and practical goal of outlining the many challenges and possible remedies which the state and various actors in civil society should consider in addressing migrant domestic workers as members of China’s underclass."- Mei-Ling Ellerman, The Australian National University; The China Journal, No. 68