The making of labour precarity: three explanatory approaches and their relationship

ABSTRACT

The research field of labour precarity is loaded with largely isolated empirical studies focusing on specific forms of precarious labour. This article is a preliminary attempt towards a more systematic understanding of the general causes and modulators of labour precarity under contemporary capitalism. It reviews how different traditions of classical theories explain the dynamics of labour precarity under capitalism and how empirical studies on labour precarity exemplify these explanations. It distinguishes three exploratory approaches: namely exploitation, exclusion, and commodification. They comprise distinct models of causation of labour precarity and corresponding proposals to reduce it. It also discusses the relationship between these approaches and suggests the possibility of selectively integrating certain elements of them in future research. Such integration refuses the reductionist temptation to attribute the occurrence of labour precarity to a single mechanism which is popular in the existing literature and provides a powerful tool for comparative historical studies of labour precarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarious workers
• labour precarity
• exploitation
• exclusion
• commodification

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful for comments from Joel Andreas, Rachel Murphy, Hugh Whittaker, Chris Smith, Guowei Liang, Yige Dong, and two referees on the drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.

Notes on contributors

Xiaojun Feng

Xiaojun Feng is an associate professor of sociology at the China Agricultural University. She is interested in labour politics and political economy in post-1949 China. Her first book The Labour Implications of Technological Upgrading in China was published by the International Labour Organization in 2020. She is currently working on her second book project which is about the making of labour precarity in China between 1949 and 2019. She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as The China Quarterly, Modern China, and Economic and Industrial Democracy.