For the love-and hate-of factory work

For a farmer, getting a job at a factory was a major step up the social ladder. Those who entered textile factories in the late 1970s and early 1980s described to me how proud they were of their occupations. When I started work, we wore our uniforms like badges of honour, said a woman who retired in 2010 after a 30-year career. As Chinas economy evolved during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, factory work lost its lustre. First, many rural communities began opening their own factories. Then more and more state-run factories went bankrupt or were privatised