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From ‘Labour Dividend’ to ‘Robot Dividend’: Technological Change and Workers’ Power in South China

In: Labour Questions in the Global South

Author

Listed:
  • Yu Huang

    (The Minzu University of China)

  • Naubahar Sharif

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

China became the world’s largest market for industrial robots in 2013. The robotic revolution gained pace and occurred after the 2008 financial crisis as many export-oriented firms coped with dwindling orders, rising labour costs and growing concerns over occupational safety. Unlike workers in the Global North who experienced automation in the 1960s and 1970s against a backdrop of strong union activism, whether semi-proletarian peasant-workers in China ultimately enjoy the ‘beneficial’ effects of industrial upgrading is questionable. However, very little social science research has investigated how automation, in light of the negative consequences of unemployment and deskilling, can continue to be advanced. Drawing on Beverley Silver’s concept of workers’ power, this article explores how workers’ marketplace and workplace bargaining power interfaces with technological change. The Chinese case may offer important lessons to those in the under-technologized South seeking to conceptualize strategies for social change in the context of industrial upgrading.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu Huang & Naubahar Sharif, 2021. "From ‘Labour Dividend’ to ‘Robot Dividend’: Technological Change and Workers’ Power in South China," Springer Books, in: Praveen Jha & Walter Chambati & Lyn Ossome (ed.), Labour Questions in the Global South, chapter 0, pages 147-173, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-33-4635-2_8
    DOI: 10.1007/978-981-33-4635-2_8
    as

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