Skill regimes and rural industrial transformation in China: A case study of textile industry in Wujin County from 1949 to 2015

Abstract

This paper examines the transformation of rural textile production in Jiangsu Province, China, during the socialist period (1949–78), and traces the subsequent development of the region’s rural textile industry. Based on data collected from Wujin County in the province, the paper reveals how socialist China had trained and transformed rural artisans into workers of collective factories. Along this process was the transition between two skill regimes: household and collective skill regimes. The collective skill regime facilitated the adoption of advanced technologies and the acquisition of diverse skills, while also reproducing social inequalities and generating new forms of social differentiation among workers. By examining skill formation and social differentiation of rural artisans and workers in the socialist and reform periods, this paper illuminates how rural China had transformed from a handicraft-based economy into an industrial powerhouse. This holds implications for rural development and nonfarm economic transitions in China and other contexts.