Precarious Employment, Pension Participation, and Retirement Deferment in China

ABSTRACT: Recent changes in the relationship between the postponement of the statutory retirement age, pension participation, and the precariousness of employment in China may conceal the lasting negative effects on workers’ current and ongoing welfare. Grounded on China’s normalised precarious employment with individualisation, insecurity, and instability, and identifying the current Urban Employee Basic Pension (UEBP) as based on traditional industrialism, the empirical evidence from 68 workers in precarious employment shows how limited UEBP participation even extends working life. Under the institutionalised inequality of UEBP, and without long-term coworkers who can promote understanding of the system, the uncertainties of future livelihood and “voluntary” participation in the UEBP (re)shape the rationality of precarious workers towards minimum participation. Hence, raising the statutory retirement ages is unlikely to improve their UEBP participation, but rather lengthen the period of precarious employment. KEYWORDS: precarious employment, pension participation, postpone retirement, institutionalised inequality, spread precarity, cognitive function of institutions.