Globalization and industrial labour in China: A critical review

This paper reviews existing studies on the impact of globalization on indus trial labour in China. It is shown that debates within the literature arise because of (a) different methodological choices, (b) different ways of mea suring globalization and (c) different ways of measuring impacts on labour This is illustrated by examining the ways in which three prominent theoreti cal frameworks (associated with the World Bank, the ILO and Marxian approac hes) have analysed the issue. The second part of the paper reviews empirica l evidence on a number of the indicators previously highlighted and the imp lications of these findings for the three theoretical frameworks discussed.