Embedding Chinese Atypical Workers in the Indigenous ‘Unequal Pay for Equal Work’: Introduction and Implications

The employment relationships in the Chinese context have attracted increasing scholarly attention, especially after the last amendment of its labour law in 2008. Despite the growing scholarship studying various aspects of Chinese employment and practices, many indigenous employment phenomena remain veiled in the English literature. In this paper, we aim to make a preliminary attempt to bring to the fore an indigenous feature of the atypical workers in China, i.e., embedding these workers in the ‘unequal pay for equal work’ phenomenon. The opportunities and challenges brought on to management scholars interested in doing future research in the Chinese context are discussed.