Changes in compliance to personal preventive measures and mental health status among Chinese factory workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: observational prospective cohort study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic is a sub-population of higher risk of COVID-19 infection than that of the general population. Maintaining good compliance with personal preventive measures during the pandemic plays an important role in achieving the balance between COVID-19 control and work resumption. OBJECTIVE This observational prospective cohort study investigated the changes in compliance to personal preventive measures (i.e., facemask wearing, hand hygiene, household disinfection, avoiding social/meal gathering and avoiding crowed places), depressive symptoms and sleep quality among factory workers who resumed work within a 3-month follow-up period. METHODS Inclusion criteria for this cohort study were the following: 1) full-time employees aged ≥18 years who had resumed work, and 2) willing to leave contacts (mobile or social media account) to complete the follow-up survey. A stratified two-stage cluster sampling design was used. We randomly selected 12 factories in Shenzhen. And all eligible employees in these factories were invite to complete two web-based surveys three months apart. A total of 1311 Chinese adult factory workers completed the baseline survey in March 2020, and 663 (50.6%) completed the follow-up survey three months later. RESULTS Significant decline was observed in consistent facemask wearing in workplace (from 98.0% at baseline to 90.3% at Month 3, P<.001) and in other public spaces (from 97.1% at baseline to 94.4% at Month 3, P=.02), sanitizing hands (from 70.9% at baseline to 48.0% at Month 3, P<.001), household disinfection (from 47.7% at baseline to 37.9% at Month 3, P<.001) and moderate-to-severe depression (from 6.0% at baseline to 0.6% at Month 3, P<.001) over the follow-up period. Significant improvement in avoiding crowed places (from 69.8% at baseline to 77.4% at Month 3, P=.002) and sleep quality (proportion of participants reporting poor sleeping quality dropped from 3.9% at baseline to 1.2% at Month 3, P=.002) was also observed. CONCLUSIONS There were significant decline in some personal preventive measures and significant improvement in mental health status among a cohort of Chinese factory workers who resumed work during COVID-19. Health promotion are needed to maintain good compliance to personal preventive measures. Psychological support for workers during work resumption is necessary.

The digital Dasein of Chinese Rural Migrants

This paper sets out to acknowledge the radical possibilities in the way in which human existence is perceived and constructed in the digital age. A 15-month ethnography, focused on the use of social media among Chinese factory workers, is employed to create a conversation with philosophical thoughts on human existence and anthropological thoughts on objectification. Social media is more than a form of communication, or a technology, that facilitates the connection between different locations. By exploring the three layers of existential experience of Chinese rural migrants in the context of ubiquitous social media use, this paper suggests that we might start to consider the degree to which digital media is itself a place in which people actually live and feel at home. The acknowledgement of such place-making via the digital allows us to re-think the relationship between the materiality and digital possibilities for human existence and further explore the fundamental process of objectification through the lens of digital anthropology.

Behavioral intention to receive self-financed and free COVID-19 vaccination among Chinese factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic: cross-sectional online survey (Preprint)

BACKGROUND COVID-19 vaccines would become available in China very soon. A timely understanding of community responses to the forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines would be important. OBJECTIVE This study investigated prevalence of and factors associated with behavioral intention to receive self-financed and free COVID-19 vaccination among Chinese factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic. Behavioral intention to reduce compliance with some personal preventive measures after receiving COVID-19 vaccination was also investigated. METHODS Participants were full-time employees aged ≥18 years who had resumed work in factories in Shenzhen. Factory workers in Shenzhen are required to receive physical examination once a year. Eligible workers attending six designated physical examination sites were invited to complete an online survey during September 1-7, 2020. Out of 2653 eligible factory workers being approached, 2053 (77.4%) completed the online survey. Multivariate logistic regression models were fitted. RESULTS The prevalence of behavioral intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination was 66.6% (n=1368, conditional on 80% vaccine efficacy and market rate) and 80.6% (n=1551, conditional on 80% vaccine efficacy and free vaccines), respectively. After adjusting for significant background characteristics, positive attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination (AOR 1.20, 95%CI 1.15-1.25 & AOR 1.26, 95%CI 1.20-1.32), perceived significant others supporting COVID-19 vaccination uptake (AOR 1.44, 95%CI 1.32-1.56 & AOR 1.40, 95%CI 1.27-1.53), and perceived behavioral control to take up COVID-19 vaccination (AOR 1.51, 95%CI 1.32-1.73 & AOR 1.31, 95%CI 1.12-1.54) were positively associated with both dependent variables. Regarding social media influence, higher frequency of exposure to positive information related to COVID-19 vaccination was associated with higher intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination at market rate (AOR 1.54, 95%CI 1.39-1.70) or receive free vaccination (AOR 1.53, 95%CI 1.36-1.72). Higher self-reported compliance with facemask wearing in workplace (AOR: 1.25, 95%CI 1.00-1.55 & AOR 1.67, 95%CI 1.24-2.24) and other public spaces (AOR 1.85, 95%CI 1.46-2.34 & AOR 1.34, 95%CI 1.01-1.77), hand hygiene (AOR 1.52, 95%CI 1.20-1.94), and avoiding social/meal gathering (AOR 1.23, 95%CI 1.02-1.49 & AOR 1.60, 95%CI 1.27-2.01) and crowed place (AOR 1.26, 95%CI 1.04-1.53 & AOR 1.79, 95%CI 1.42-2.25) were also positively associated with one or both dependent variables. Number of COVID-19 preventive measures implemented by the factory were positively associated with intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination under both scenarios (AOR 1.08, 95%CI 1.04-1.12 & AOR 1.07, 95%CI 1.03-1.12). The prevalence of behavioral intention to reduce frequency of facemask wearing, sanitizing hands, and avoiding social gathering/crowed places after receiving COVID-19 vaccination was 34.5% (n=708), 32.9% (n=675), and 28.0% (n=575), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Factory workers in China reported a high behavioral intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination. The Theory of Planned Behavior is a useful framework to guide the development of future campaigns promoting COVID-19 vaccination. However, risk compensation was a concern and should be addressed during COVID-19 vaccination promotion.

Capturing the psychological well-being of Chinese factory workers

PurposeBusinesses are under pressure to ensure social responsibility in their globalised supply chains. However, conventional factory audits are not providing adequate data about production workers’ well-being. Industry attempts to measure working conditions have shown bias and inconsistency, and there is no consensus on what to measure, or how. Well-being can be intangible and difficult to capture without appropriate theoretical and methodological frameworks. This paper investigates factors influencing the well-being of a Chinese factory’s workers, tests an innovative research method, and proposes interventions to improve well-being in factories.Design/methodology/approachThis is a longitudinal study using the diaries of production workers at a large assembly manufacturing site in China. Workers left daily digital voice diaries about their day, which were analysed to identify factors related to their well-being at work.FindingsThe picture is more complex than the concerned Western narrative suggests. Workers’ personal and professional concerns extend beyond the criteria currently measured in audits, tending to be more relational and less about their physical state.Practical implicationsThe current approach of auditing management practices neglects workers’ well-being. This study offers a more comprehensive view of well-being and tests a new method of investigation.Originality/valueThis is the first study to use diary methods in a Chinese factory. It addresses an issue supported by little empirical evidence. It is the first longitudinal study to hear from factory workers themselves about how they are and what impacts their well-being daily.

Labor and Domination: Worker Control in a Chinese Factory

China’s export-led manufacturing model has been built on extensive exploitation of its migrant workforce under a despotic labor regime, but the methods of control have shifted considerably during the past decade and a half. This article examines new modes of domination over Chinese factory workers, based on fieldwork conducted while the author was living with workers at a foreign-invested garment factory in southern China. The article shows how mechanisms to control the workers are embedded today not only in directly coercive practices but also in a new shop floor culture with affective personal ties and implicit bargaining in wage systems. Against the scholarly literature of management controls that emphasizes rupture and discontinuity between labor regimes, this article argues that China’s emerging labor regime, here referred to as “conciliatory despotism,” inherits despotic features of the labor regime exercised in the 1990s but adds new normative measures of soft control that seek to conciliate worker resentments. This hybrid form of management control represents a stage in China’s evolving labor-management relations in which workers possess more implicit power and can push management into greater concessions than previously.