Examining double precarity from the narratives of immigrants in Hong Kong—a qualitative study

Precarity is attracting growing scholarly attention, yet the intersecting effects of multiple forms of precarity remain underexamined. The study draws on interviews with 26 Chinese migrants in Hong Kong to document employment precarity (e.g., no pay, limited benefits) and housing precarity (e.g., insecure tenancies, and unaffordability), which leads to employment precarity. Moreover, a “double-exploitation” is recorded, as migrants’ surplus value is extracted in both realms. It also demonstrates the socially reproductive relationships between the two precarities. Hence, dual precarities create circuits that dualize between educated migrants adopting a high-road strategy and less educated migrants adopting a low-road one.