3 - Under the “Three Big Mountains”: Family, Finance, and the Future Good Life of China's Laid-off Workers Who Reentered the Labor Market in Mongolia

Since China transitioned to the market economy, certain social responsibilities have been transferred from the state and workplaces to families and individuals. Most notably, housing, healthcare, and education are commonly referred to as the “three big mountains” in Chinese society. Between 2018 and 2019, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork among factory workers at a Chinese-owned private mine in Mongolia. Laid off by state-owned enterprises in China in the 2000s, these workers reentered the labor market during Mongolia’s mining boom. The workers, who were no longer in their prime, perceived the influx of Chinese capital into neighboring countries under the “going out” policy and the Belt and Road Initiative as an opportunity for them to regain an economic foothold and mitigate their precariousness. Building on Yan Yunxiang’s concept of “neo-familism,” this paper examines the workers’ inclination to engage in short-term labor migration to enhance long-term family welfare. By investigating the impact of transnational circular migration on family dynamics in the household and labor relations at work, this paper also traces the continuity and ruptures in industrial workers’ perceptions of social obligation and imagination of the good life in the socialist market economy.