Beyond unemployment: Informal employment and heterogeneous motivations for participating in street vending in present-day China

The proliferation of urban street vending in developing countries is generally viewed as being as a result of unemployment. Using a theoretical approach based on mainstream perspectives on informal employment and first-hand material from 200 semi-structured vendor interviews in Guangzhou, we challenge this view by revealing the heterogeneity of people’s motivations for participating in street vending in present-day China. Various types of labourers, including wage workers, farmers, the unemployed and small businesspeople, participate in street vending with diverse motivations, but in a common attempt to improve their livelihoods. Such motivations are driven both by the labourers’ responses to multiple socio-economic forces including unemployment, the low quality of waged jobs, rural poverty, the difficulties of maintaining a formal business and the poor remuneration of jobs in cities, and by their desire to achieve autonomy and flexibility. Street vending is mainly argued to be an effective strategy of ordinary labourers to cope with the unfavourable situations they face amidst socio-economic transformation. It should not be seen as a problem, but a potential part of the solution to the problems arising from socio-economic transformation in post-reform China. 一般认为，发展中国家城市流动商贩的扩散性增长是失业带来的结果。我们采用基于非正规就 业主流观点的理论进路，并运用来自对广州 200 个商贩所做半结构化访谈的一手材料，揭示了 当今中国人们参与流动商贩活动之动机的异质性，从而质疑了上述观点。不同类型的劳动者， 包括工薪阶层、农民、失业人员和小商贩，带着不同的动机参与了流动商贩活动，但都是为了 改善自己的生活。这些动机的背后是劳动者对各种社会经济力量的回应，包括失业、低质付薪 工作、农村贫困、维持正规生意之艰难、城市中的工作薪酬待遇糟糕，以及劳动者希望获得自 主性和灵活性。本文主要认为，流动商贩是普通劳动者应对社会经济转型中所面对不利情形的 有效策略。它不应视为一个问题，而可能是改革开放后中国社会经济转型过程中涌现出来的各 种问题的一部分答案。