The Contours Of Working-Class Debt: Precarity, Gender, And Labour Discipline In Cambodia’s Construction Sector

This article argues that in Cambodia’s construction sector, overall levels of precarity play a key role in shaping the extent to which debt functions as a mechanism of labour discipline. Building on LeBaron’s reconceptualisation of debt bondage as a class-based form of labour discipline, it situates worker indebtedness within the broader structural conditions through which it acquires coercive force. Drawing on data collected from 600 workers employed in cement factories and on construction sites, the article reveals that debt’s coercive power stems less from its absolute burden than from its interaction with employment precarity. Although workers in both sub-sectors faced significant indebtedness, cement factory workers benefited from relatively stable employment, monthly wages, and access to social security, whereas construction workers were paid irregularly, experienced wage theft, and were excluded from social protection. These dynamics operated in profoundly gendered ways, reflecting women’s household financial responsibilities and difficulties securing formal credit. By foregrounding the relationship between indebtedness and structural precarity, the article argues that it is the configuration of precarity itself that determines the depth of debt-based coercion in contemporary Cambodia.