In this book, an international team of scholars explores not only the politics of xiagang, but also the effect on Chinese workers and their families, and the variety of their responses to this unprecedented dislocation in their lives.

THOMAS B. GOLD was founding Director of the Berkeley China Initiative and is a member of the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. WILLIAM J. HURST is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. JAEYOUN WON is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. LI QIANG is Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science, and Professor of Sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.