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Using national longitudinal survey data, this study examines the impact of international trade on income gaps between formal and heterogeneous informal workers in China. The results demonstrate that the positive effect of trade on income is larger for informal employees and smaller for self‐employed workers compared to formal employees. The decomposition results indicate that the disproportionate geographic distribution in tradable regions widens the income gaps between employment sectors, while the difference in international trade income premiums widens the income gap between formal and informal employees and narrows the income gap between formal employees and self‐employed workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Siguiendo el marco de Dingeldey et al. (2021), pero con un enfoque cualitativo, se analiza la segmentación legal del trabajo en China, la India, Malasia y Viet Nam, prestando atención a los niveles de exclusión y a las jerarquías de protección otorgada. El autor observa varios factores que diferencian a estos países de los del Norte y que determinan sus mercados de trabajo: el tamaño relativo de la población activa que opera fuera de la cobertura efectiva de la reglamentación laboral; la terminología jurídica, de difícil traducción a los idiomas occidentales; y la historia jurídica, especialmente en lo que respecta al desajuste entre los marcos jurídicos y el mercado laboral resultante del colonialismo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a qualitative approach to the legal segmentation analysis developed by Dingeldey et al. (2021), considering exclusion from, and hierarchies of, worker protection. Examining the cases of China, India, Malaysia and Viet Nam, the author finds that several factors distinguish these countries from those in the global North and produce distinct labour market outcomes, namely: in terms of the relative size of the workforce operating outside the effective coverage of employment regulation; legal terminology that is not readily translated into Western languages; and legal history, especially as regards the mismatch between statutory frameworks and the labour market resulting from colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under a centrally planned system, China made significant achievements in gender equality. Half a century later, China has joined the ranks of upper‐middle‐income countries, and decades of rapid growth have accompanied major structural changes in the economy. We assess the evolution of women's economic opportunities during the period, focusing on labour force participation, occupational segregation, leadership in business, and the gender wage gap, as well as informal sector employment and migration. We undertake a review of existing research and conduct new empirical analysis using a combination of data sources, including four waves of Chinese population census data through 2010, and province‐level migration data. We focus especially on migrant women, a group typically excluded from similar studies. Although investments in human capital have advanced prospects for better‐paid jobs for women, we find that rapid economic growth has not alleviated discrimination against women rooted in cultural and social norms and that the implementation of existing laws designed to protect and support women needs to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, China has experienced the most dynamic economic development lifting living standards and resulting in fast‐growing use of natural resources. In the past, the focus has been on national MFA accounts which do not do justice to the second largest economy, home to 19% of the world population and having 30% of global material use. In this research, we calculate material extraction for China at the regional level during 1995–2015 using the most recent available statistical data and applying the most up‐to‐date international calculation methods. In particular, we combine a bottom‐up and top‐down approach for constructing the dataset of China's economically used Domestic Extraction (DEU) in an integrated way. This approach also improves the Chinese national material flow accounts and allows us to present a reliable database of DE of materials for China to date. Our new dataset provides the basis for calculating material footprints and environmental impacts of China's regions. The dataset enables us to evaluate regional resource efficiency trends in China. We find that during the past two decades, China's material use has grown strongly from 11.7 billion tonnes in 1995 to 35.4 billion tonnes in 2015. Material use has accelerated between 2000 and 2010 but slowed down between 2010 and 2015 reflecting the economic contraction caused by the Global Financial Crisis which reduced the global demand for China's manufacturing and a reorientation of China's economic policy settings toward quality of growth. Unsurprisingly, different regions play different roles in the supply chain of materials, achieving different economic performances resulting in very diverse material efficiency outcomes. This information is important to allow for a targeted policy approach to increase resource efficiency, reduce environmental impacts of resource use, and grow wellbeing in China with large positive implications for global sustainability. This study provides the basis for the development of relevant resource management policies for different regions in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The criminalization of Chinese counterfeit goods in the global market calls for a fresh approach to understanding well‐established binary distinctions such as legal/illegal, licit/illicit, and formal/informal. Based on a multi‐sited ethnography in China, Paraguay and Brazil, I examine five commodity chains of two products – toys and watches – and their regulatory frameworks in terms of merchandise status, business formality, and international transaction legality. Certain merchandise produced in the formal economy has no legal definition a priori, but legal variability starts when goods leave the factory. A great interchangeability of a product's legal status existed along its chain according to governance structures, legal cultures, geographical domains, and power relations. These findings suggest that the illicit is a relational category and the so‐called criminal economy is not a segmented market, but part of a global process integrated with formality and marked by great legal variability within and between nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to the recent geographical debates on the connection between dispossession and informality. Existing scholarship recognises that informality is an integral part of capitalism. Arguments reinforcing the formal–informal dichotomy dominate research on processes of dispossession. Drawing on analyses of the struggle of waste recyclers in Beijing, this paper conceptualises informal activities in relation to circuits of capital. It contends that theories of dispossession need to be extended in order to analyse processes of enclosure in the informal economy. The conclusion discusses the potential of reconceptualising dispossession as a variegated process operating both outside and within the capitalist space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key feature contributing to the rapid economic development of China is the deregulation of the labour market and the dramatic growth in the use of informal employment. This paper reviews recent developments of informal employment in China and the role of institutional actors. It also examines the role of government policy and regulation in improving or worsening, directly and indirectly, the terms and conditions of those engaged in informal employment. The study contributes to the understanding of the situation of informal employment in China as one of the countries that contains the largest number and proportion, in relation to formal employment, of informal workers, not only in the semi- and manual skilled segment, but also increasingly extended to include highly educated workers, notably university graduates. It has implications for employment relations and social policy for foreign firms wishing to enter or already operating in China in terms of their human resource acquisition and management. The paper concludes that strong state intervention is necessary to uplift the employment prospect of workers in informal employment, particular in labour markets where workers hold weak bargaining power and are largely unorganised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of decline in traditional industrial relations institutions in post-Fordist economies, the authors review the patterns of counter-movement to globalization that are emerging in the defence of workers in developing countries, with a particular focus on Asia. From the Marxian struggle they identify in China to the widely varied forms of protest and representational organization they observe in India, they argue for a more inclusive approach to industrial relations, both in practice and in research. The future, they suggest, will be shaped by the interplay of reform from above and the social movements spontaneously filling today's representational vacuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2011 the Cuban government announced a suite of national reforms with deeper socioeconomic ramifications than the limited liberalizations it permitted in the 1990s. Although unprecedented in revolutionary Cuba, the proposed changes draw on previous efforts to manage decentralization, employment and the informal sector. The paper examines two case studies of prior experimentation with liberalization since 2000 in the municipality of Old Havana and the neighbouring district, Barrio Chino (Chinatown). We argue that the 2011 reforms are informed by specific lessons and insights from these two experiences and also by general development principles advocated by China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]