Understanding Employment Discrimination Litigation in China Through the Notion of ‘Rights Apathy’

The psycho-legal concept of ‘rights apathy' is developed in this paper as an underlying factor of the very low incidence of workplace discrimination lawsuits filed in China, despite an increasingly elaborate legal framework on paper and workers' rising awareness of their legal rights under anti-discrimination laws. ‘Rights apathy' is underpinned by the notions of ‘frustration' and ‘learned helplessness' to depict the indifference of workers in exercising their legal rights before a tribunal or court. It is argued that a number of institutional problems, namely defects in existing anti-discrimination provisions, judicial practices, and contradictions in other laws, policies, and practices, can contribute to the ‘rights apathy' of workers experiencing discrimination in the workplace