Migration, Precarity and Solidarity Among Migrant Platform Workers in China’s Food Delivery and Ride-Hailing Sectors
Yang Zhou
1 Introduction
Like anywhere else in the world, China has in the recent years saw a steady growth of a large body of gig workers in its various service sectors. Official statistics show that until 2022, around 84 million worked in China’s platform economy, mainly in ride-hailing, courier service, food delivery and logistics.<sup>1</sup> While no precise figures are available, several survey reports show that most of these workers are rural-to-urban migrants. For example, a 2021 report by International Labour Organization shows that nearly 80% of Meituan’s<sup>2</sup> riders previously worked in manufacturing, construction, mining, transportation, catering and accommodation sectors that were once dominated by rural-to-urban migrants. The figure is slightly lower, but still significant in the case of Didi, which is around 65% according to the same report (I Zhou, 2020). In general, these workers have relatively low level of education, typically graduates of high and vocational schools, although since the pandemic, more and more people with higher education degrees took these jobs due to the bleak labour market condition. Geographically, while in the case of exportoriented manufacturing, most migrant workers concentrated in cities of China’s industrial heartlands like Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, platform workers did their daily grinds in both industrial heartlands and industrial peripheries.
<sub>Y.</sub> <sub>Zhou</sub> <sub>(</sub>B<sub>)</sub>
CHAPTER 8
<sup>1</sup> https://www.acftu.org/xwdt/ghyw/202302/t20230228\_825484.html?7OkeOa4k= qAk.rqkRgB\_5Ttirn2uVzJdJKQNF4OtOpuvNkA4nEOlqqmxJcxFDqAqqgG.
Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China e-mail: yangzhou@ln.edu.hk
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025 F. Della Puppa et al. (eds.), Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy, Dynamics of Virtual Work, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91262-7\_8
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