Transitional Labor
For over a decade, China’s platform economy has exploded, turning food delivery riders from a niche gig into the face of digital precarious work. While U.S. platforms like Grubhub kicked off the global food delivery boom in 2004, China’s market has since grown into the world’s largest, amplifying labor tensions that resonate across gig economies worldwide. *Transitional Labor* dives into the paradox of these riders: most join seeing their jobs as temporary stepping stones to better opportunities, yet many end up trapped in this "permanent transition" for years. Drawing on six years of on-the-ground fieldwork across Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities, Sun Ping unpacks how platform algorithms, layered outsourcing models, and capital logic create a system where riders have the illusion of freedom but are tightly controlled. The book explores riders’ hidden resistance strategies (like outsmarting algorithms), the unique struggles of female riders balancing work and family, and challenges the binary "control vs. resistance" framework in gig work research—highlighting riders’ digital resilience and the urgent need for fairer labor policies.