This research guide provides an overview and starting guidance to research for Labour Studies 330: Labour and China.

Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Labour Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

For more sources, try Labour Studies Research Guide

Essay  

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias and handbooks to obtain an overview of a topic and to identify key authors and resources on a topic.

• Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic Views of the World's Newest and Oldest Global Power
• China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020
  • Guo, R. (2020). Employment and Income Distribution. In: China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1007/978-3-030-49024-9_3
• China population and labor yearbook Volume 3 [2012]
• China Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the People's Republic
• Handbook of Chinese business and management (2024)
  • Brown, W., & Cao, X. (2023). Trade Unions in China: The Dynamics of Labour Relations and State-ancillary Unionism in Transition. , 169-184.
• Handbook of research on the global political economy of work
• Oxford Handbook of Employee Relations: Comparative Employment Systems
• Palgrave Handbook of Global Migration in International Business
• St. James Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide: Major Events in Labor History and Their Impact

For more, try the side tab, Background information

Journal articles in social science journals

Databases let you easily to search for articles from within scholarly journals for a discipline.

• How to find journal articles tutorial. 
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Social Sciences Full Text - full-text articles from social sciences journals
• Political Science Complete - scholarly articles related to labour, migration, unions, policies and remittances
• Academic Search Premier - multidisciplinary database.  Limit search results to "academic / scholarly"
• Business Source Complete - indexes many business journals.  Provides a "business management" perspective on labour topics. Limit search results to "academic or scholarly" articles
• Bibliography of Asian Studies
• JSTOR.​ Scholarly journals mainly in the arts, humanities and social sciences, including Asian studies.
• Project Muse Search. Humanities and social sciences periodicals, including periodicals on Asian studies.
• Women's Studies International for any issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
• EconLit - indexes economics journals
• Statista - statistics from thousands of sources. Can export of both data and charts in multiple formats.
• China Academic Journals Online. Articles are in Chinese. Series F (Literature, History and Philosophy); Series G (Politics/Military Affairs/Law).

Articles in legal journals

• HeinOnline - database for articles in legal journals
  Law and law-related research material, including legal journals, government documents, classic legal treatises, and world trials. Contains Canadian, American and international laws and agreements.
  • TIP:
    • Choose "Advanced Search".  In the "fulltext" field field, construct your search such as:
      • (labor OR labour) AND china AND migrant*

Database for newspapers

• Nexis Uni Plus - database with access to articles in Chinese English language newspapers
  Full-text database containing comprehensive information in the areas of news, government, business, and law from newspapers, journals, reports, cases, and patents from the early 1970s to the present. Content is strongly American with significant coverage of Canadian and international topics.

Selected journals and newspapers

• China: An International Journal
• The China Journal
• China Quarterly
• China Today [online or print]
• The China journal = Chung-kuo yen chiu
• The China Report
• Journal of Contemporary China

Newspapers

• China daily (2012 on, Nexis Uni)
• People's Daily
  An official newspaper of the central government of the People's Republic of China. Coverage spans May 1946-present.
• South China morning post (1992 on, Nexis Uni)
• Xinhua general news (1977 on, Nexis Uni)

For more, search the Nexis Uni Plus database. 
   Limit search to "news".  
   Change the default date limit of two years to a longer time frame.

Find books

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced keyword

Keyword searches:

• China AND (migrant* OR "temporary foreign") AND (work* OR labour OR labor) AND (rights OR code* OR laws OR legislat*)
• China AND economic reform* AND (labor OR labour OR work OR employ* OR job* OR work)
• China AND (labour OR labour OR worker* OR employee*)
• China AND hukou AND (labor OR labour OR work*OR employ* OR job*)
• (Chinese OR China) AND (worker OR employee* OR labor OR labour) AND global*
• China AND (industrial relations OR labor relations OR unions OR collective bargain*)
• China AND (labor OR labour) AND (movement OR rights OR laws OR legislation)
• China AND (precar* OR gig OR temp* OR part-time) AND (work* OR jobs OR employ*)
• China AND capitalism AND (work* OR labor* OR labour* OR employee*)
• China AND "migrant labor"
• China AND (wages OR pay) AND (gap OR inequality OR equit*)
• China AND (labour OR labour OR worker* OR employee*) AND (minorit* OR gender OR women OR LGBT*)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

• Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• A Deep Analysis of the Chinese Hukou System: Facts, Impacts, and Reform Paths
• A New Deal for China’s Workers?
• Ageing in China : What Does It Mean for the Job Market?
• Beijing from Below: Stories of Marginal Lives in the Capital's Center
• Building China : informal work and the new precariat 
• Challenge of labour in China : strikes and the changing labour regime in global factories 
• China: The Great Transition: From Agrarian Economy to Technological Powerhouse
• China's changing workplace : dynamism, diversity and disparity
• China's citizenship challenge: Labour NGOs and the struggle for migrant workers' rights
• China's new underclass : paid domestic labour 
• China's peasants and workers : changing class identities
• China's rural labor migration and its economic development 
• Chinese labour law : theory and practice
• Chinese Politics and Labor Movements
• Chinese Rural Households in Relative Poverty and Their Economic Activities
• Chinese way : alternative policy perspectives and challenges
• Chinese workers in comparative perspective
• Chinese women in leadership 
• Contagious capitalism globalization and the politics of labor in China
• Doing labor activism in South China : the complicity of uncertainty
• Economics of Gender in China : Women, Work and the Glass Ceiling
• Emerging industrial relations of China
• Female Employment and Gender Gaps in China 
• From iron rice bowl to informalization markets, workers, and the state in a changing China 
• Fundamental Labour Rights in China - Legal Implementation and Cultural Logic
• Game changers in labour law : shaping the future of work 
• Global Labor Migration : New Directions
• Globalization and labour in China and India : impacts and responses
• Globalizing China : social and governance reforms 
• Hegemonic Transformation: The State, Laws, and Labour Relations in Post-Socialist China
• Human rights in China : selected examinations 
• Insurgency trap : labor politics in postsocialist China 
• Knowledge workers in contemporary China : reform and resistance in the publishing industry
• Labour and employment compliance in China [print]
• Labor relations and human resource management in China
• Mapping China : peasants, migrant workers and informal labor 
• Migrant labor in China : post-socialist transformations
• Minimum Wages in China Evolution, Legislation, and Effects
• New journey of China's economic and social development 
• Out to work : migration, gender, and the changing lives of rural women in contemporary China
• Population and labour market policies in China's reform process
• Quality of life in contemporary China 
  • Fan, L. (2022). Quality of Employment and the Underlying Factors. In The Quality of Life in Contemporary China (pp. 25-40). Singapore: Springer Singapore.
• Regulating gig work : decent labour standards in a world of on-demand work 
• Rural Labor Migration, Discrimination, and the New Dual Labor Market in China
• Rural-Urban Migration in China : the Impact of New Media
• Social integration of rural-urban migrants in China : current status, determinants and consequences [print]
• Southern insurgency : the coming of the global working class
• Spatial Mobility of Migrant Workers in Beijing, China
• Temporary and Gig Economy Workers in China and Japan : The Culture of Unequal Work
• Trade unions in China : the challenge of labour unrest 
• Transnational Activism, Global Labor Governance, and China
• Understanding labor and employment law in China 

Browse Books in the Library Catalogue Using Subject Headings

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter your subject term

• Agricultural laborers -- China
• Capitalism -- China
• China -- Economic conditions
• China -- Economic policy
• Capitalism -- China
• Discrimination in Employment -- China
• Industrial relations -- China
• Industrialization -- China
• Labor -- China
• Labor laws and legislation -- China
• Labor market -- China
• Labor mobility -- China
• Labor movement -- China
• Labor policy -- China
• Labor supply -- Asia
• Labor supply -- China
• Labor unions -- China
• Migrant labor -- China
• Migration internal -- China
• Personnel management -- China
• Working class -- China

Country information and statistics

• China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020
  • Guo, R. (2020). Employment and Income Distribution. In: China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1007/978-3-030-49024-9_3

Using Google and Google Scholar

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

While searching the internet can find unexpected gems, be sure to evaluate the sources using the guide, "Evaluating sources"

• Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results.  Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases.  With a Google search the Boolean operator "AND" is assumed, so you don't need to use it in your search strategy.
   
• intitle:"future of work"
• (migrant workers OR migrant labour OR “temporary foreign workers”) Canada

Google Scholar for topic and "citation" searches

Set up Google Scholar library links and button 

Topic search

• (migrant workers OR migrant labour OR “temporary foreign workers”) Canada

E.g. 

Flawed by design? A case study of federal enforcement of migrant workers' labour rights in Canada

"Citation" searching

Search for your "key" article.  Check the link "cited by" right beneath the reference to that article

E.g. Who has cited the following article?

Strauss, K., & McGrath, S. (2017). Temporary migration, precarious employment and unfree labour relations: Exploring the ‘continuum of exploitation’ in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Geoforum. Vol 78, 199–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.01.008

The above 2017 article has been cited more than 275 times.

Library guides

• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles.
• Library Catalogue search guide.
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them.

Presentation skills

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Academic writing resources
  • Book a consultation