Institutional complicity under platform economy: welfare misalignment and precarity among platform workers in China

The expansion of social protection for platform workers has been widely promoted as a response to precarity in the gig economy, yet formal inclusion does not always produce participation or effective protection. This article examines why contributory welfare arrangements remain difficult to use for platform-based food delivery workers in China. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with riders and station managers in Chengdu and Shenyang, we identify two intertwined dimensions: welfare misalignment and platform precarity. Volatile earnings make current contribution costs especially salient, while uncertainty about transfer procedures and future entitlements can strengthen workers’ preference for immediate income. Algorithmic management also encourages individualized coping, leaving much of the management of risk with workers themselves. We conceptualize these interactions as institutional complicity, a contingent, non-intentional relation between platform governance and welfare institutions mediated by workers’ adaptive strategies. Within Chengdu, lower out-of-pocket costs were associated with greater willingness to participate, although the qualitative comparison does not isolate subsidy effects from occupational position. The study shows how formal inclusion, affordability, and effective protection can diverge under fragmented employment and highlights contribution costs, transfer uncertainty, and fragmented responsibility as key areas for institutional adaptation.