Beyond unemployment: Informal employment and heterogeneous motivations for participating in street vending in present-day China

Gengzhi Huang, Hong-ou Zhang and Desheng Xue
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Gengzhi Huang: Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology and Application, China
Hong-ou Zhang: Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology and Application, China
Desheng Xue: Sun Yat-sen University, China

Urban Studies, 2018, vol. 55, issue 12, 2743-2761

Abstract: The proliferation of urban street vending in developing countries is generally viewed as being as a result of unemployment. Using a theoretical approach based on mainstream perspectives on informal employment and first-hand material from 200 semi-structured vendor interviews in Guangzhou, we challenge this view by revealing the heterogeneity of people’s motivations for participating in street vending in present-day China. Various types of labourers, including wage workers, farmers, the unemployed and small businesspeople, participate in street vending with diverse motivations, but in a common attempt to improve their livelihoods. Such motivations are driven both by the labourers’ responses to multiple socio-economic forces including unemployment, the low quality of waged jobs, rural poverty, the difficulties of maintaining a formal business and the poor remuneration of jobs in cities, and by their desire to achieve autonomy and flexibility. Street vending is mainly argued to be an effective strategy of ordinary labourers to cope with the unfavourable situations they face amidst socio-economic transformation. It should not be seen as a problem, but a potential part of the solution to the problems arising from socio-economic transformation in post-reform China.

Keywords: Asia; employment; geography; heterogeneity; informal employment; migrant workers; motivations; street vending; urbanisation and developing countries; 亚洲; 就业; åœ°ç †; 异质性; é žæ­£è§„å°±ä¸š; 进城务工人员; 动机; æµ åŠ¨å•†è´©; åŸŽå¸‚åŒ–ä¸Žå ‘å±•ä¸­å›½å®¶ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:55:y:2018:i:12:p:2743-2761

DOI: 10.1177/0042098017722738

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