• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.177-211
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• 2013

The Chinese dual structure of employment('Shuangguizhi') has been retained through the Economic Reforms, and has been supported and reproduced by the system of division between rural and urban household registration. In the 2000s, efforts of the government to abolish the division appeared to be effective with the introduction of the 'Labor Contract Act'. However, the eclecticism of the Act and the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 gave new momentum to the revival of the Chinese dual structure of employment by increasing the scale of labor dispatching. Labor dispatching in China has become a regular form of employment rather than an exceptional one. Labor dispatching reveals its Chinese characteristics against the particular background formed during the periods of state-owned-enterprise restructuring around 2000. The combined effects of the 'Labor Contract Act' and the global financial crisis brought about the effect of increase rather than control of labor dispatching, and gave a signal to enterprises to use various forms of labor dispatching including 'reverse directional labor dispatching' to lessen burdens and costs caused by the Act and the crisis. As labor dispatching strengthens or displaces the existing dual structure of employment, social groups which need more social protection tend to be much more excluded from the protection of the government and the society.