The ILR Undergraduate Research Fellows Program provides ILR undergraduates with the opportunity to work with a professor during academic year 2023-2024. This program was developed in response to numerous requests we have received from undergraduates for research opportunities and in the hope that it will facilitate one-on-one student/faculty interactions. Students participating in this program will receive an hourly pay of $16.50 per hour for up to 10 hours a week. Awards will be made on a one semester basis with renewal possible for the second semester.  Students may not earn credit for the research project during the semester or year they are being paid as a research assistant.

How China’s Incorporation into the Global Economy Impacted Labor in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore

This project analyzes how China’s incorporation into the global economy impacted the class structure and labor politics of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. China’s dramatic entrance and rise in the capitalist system has produced decades of record-setting growth, as the country has pulled in vast streams of capital and raw materials while becoming far and away the world’s most important manufacturer. While much has been said about neighboring countries’ role in providing capital, technology, and know-how that facilitated China’s rapid growth, less has been written about how these seismic events reverberated back into the social and political structures of the so-called “Asian Tigers.” Focusing on the period of 1990 to the present, this project will employ a transnational and comparative perspective in tracing how China’s rise impacted not only its own citizens, but indeed pulled workers throughout the region into the uneven currents of its wake. The undergraduate Research Fellow will code and analyze interview data from student and labor activists in Taiwan. 2014’s Sunflower movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of people against a free trade agreement with China. The project seeks to understand the role that workers and concerns about labor-related issues played in this mobilization. While the Research Fellow would ideally know Chinese, there is also an archive of interviews with activists that has been translated into English. It would be very helpful to have a Research Fellow code these interviews. This is already quite a large task, but if they can complete this, I could also have them work to collect and analyze various party platforms related to labor and the economy. These materials are largely available in English as well. – with Professor Eli Friedman.

To apply for this Fall 2023 research opportunity, please click Apply below.