Divide and govern: institutionalisation, worker segmentation, and labour control in China’s bianwai employment reforms

This article draws on Labour Process Theory (LPT) to examine the institutionalisation of bianwai (BW; non-established) employment in China’s public sector. Combining analysis of 76 labour dispute judgements with ethnographic fieldwork in R County, the study shows that BW reforms did not produce universal labour improvement. Instead, institutional recognition divided workers into ‘recognized’ and ‘unrecognized’ groups, generating unequal access to stability, welfare, and legal protection. Courts further reinforced this process through restrictive interpretations of labour relations and compensation claims. The article argues that public-sector employment remains shaped by labour control and cost-reduction imperatives. Rather than proposing a new theoretical framework for labour control, this article applies the broad analytical insights of LPT to China’s public sector, where BW employment has become an increasingly important institutional mechanism for workforce management but has received limited attention from a labour process perspective.