Xu, the migrant worker seeking physical gig work at the Xinqiao site, is a case in point. He has no social insurance in Shanghai. No contract. No pension contributions.
There is an option for workers to pay into Shanghai’s employee social insurance as flexible workers. But they would have to cover both the employer’s share and their own.
For someone earning 200 yuan a day with no guarantee of work tomorrow, this would be tantamount to, as Sun put it, “asking someone who can barely survive to save”.
An occupational injury insurance pilot, initially targeting platform workers like delivery riders, covered 23.25 million people across 17 provinces as of October 2025, according to a State Council report.
Authorities announced in March that it would be expanded nationwide. But the workers at physical gig stations, who are not attached to any platform, remain largely outside its reach.
Sun said the existing legal and institutional framework for protecting these workers is “a blank slate”.
“Their desire to work should be respected – you can’t simply strip them of or restrict their employment rights,” he said.
“But the protections during their labour process need to be strengthened.”
Without coverage, the consequences fall on the workers themselves.
“Some elderly workers just endure it and don’t seek medical care,” Sun said. “It becomes serious. Some even lose their lives.”
Urban pension schemes require 15 or more years of cumulative contributions. Workers in their 50s and 60s with fractured employment histories would not qualify.
When they are no longer able to do physical gig work, many return to their villages, relying on a rural pension of about 100 to 200 yuan a month – funded from state coffers – supplemented by subsistence farming and support from their children, if any.
