A fragmented labor system: From labor dispatch to the “Sanhe Gods” in the Sanhe labor market of Shenzhen

This article examines the competing attitudes toward labor that emerge from the interplay between formal and informal labor systems in Shenzhen, China. Drawing on ethnographic research at the Sanhe labor market, I argue that the privatization of labor markets and state-led efforts to formalize employment relations have paradoxically reinforced precarious informal labor, deepening labor fragmentation while sustaining low wages and high profits. While many migrant workers strategically navigate these precarious conditions to combine income streams, others—such as the so-called “Sanhe Gods”—embrace their marginality, rejecting conventional labor norms. Their anti-economic stance not only challenges dominant narratives of work and productivity but also complicates conventional understandings of class identity and consciousness within China’s evolving labor landscape.