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Autonomous precarity or precarious autonomy? Dilemmas of young workers in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Victor Wong  and
Tat Chor Au-Yeung
Victor Wong*
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Tat Chor Au-Yeung
Affiliation:
The University of Sheffield, UK
*
Victor Wong, Department of Social Work, Hong Kong Baptist University, Academic and Administrative Building, 15 Baptist University Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon 999077, Hong Kong. Email: vicwong@hkbu.edu.hk
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Abstract

Informed by autonomist perspectives on precarious work and labour subjectivity, this article discusses the dynamics between autonomy and job precarity. Based on purposive sampling, the qualitative findings, drawn from interviews with precarious workers aged 18–29 years in Hong Kong, reveal tensions among four types of aspirations. First, the desire for achieving freedom and individual ambition in work made the respondents critical of the notion of employment-related stability. Second, a determination to break with mainstream career paths empowered young people to take alternative pathways to new modes of work and life. Third, precarious employment was seen as a stepping stone for realising plans for travel or study. Finally, tolerance of precarity was perceived as a transitional stage in their striving for future stability. However, the findings also show the structured dilemmas experienced by young workers regarding the complex relationship between autonomy and precarity in a neoliberal labour market. Some young workers pursued work–life autonomy, constrained by precarious employment relations, acknowledging and bearing the costs, while some strategically used precarity in individual negotiations with employers to realise their goals. This article analyses young workers’ subjectivity through the lenses of autonomy and age and pushes the boundary of precarity studies beyond an implicit dichotomy between determinism and voluntarism.

Keywords

I38J38J62Autonomismcreative workHong Konglabour market flexibilitylabour subjectivityneoliberalismnon-unionised workprecarious workprecarityworker autonomyyoung workersyouth labour market
Type
Youth precarity
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 30 , Issue 2: Symposia: Australian Regulatory Failure: Labour Markets and Banking Practice Youth Precarity , June 2019 , pp. 241 - 261
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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