Public Sociology

Policy Impact

In 2021, I collaborated closely with therapists and local government officials in Wuxi on a study of the Work-Related Injury Insurance (WRII) system. One striking problem in China was that workers commonly received financial compensation after severe workplace accidents, yet rarely obtained adequate rehabilitation services, despite expert recommendations and legal support. In this project, I examined how injured workers struggled to navigate a complex public social insurance system and therefore often failed to secure necessary rehabilitation treatment. I found that low rehabilitation rates were produced by the combined effects of jurisdictional fragmentation among experts, cumulative institutional failures across professional settings, and cognitive knowledge gaps that limited workers’ ability to develop lay expertise.

With access to government meetings and hospital spaces as an insider researcher, I was able to trace the system’s failures from within. After identifying the drawbacks of existing policy-medical arrangements, my findings helped inform the development of a more accessible city-level vocational rehabilitation system. For example, in 2024, the hospital I studied established an on-site WRII Consultation Station to provide injured workers and their family members with detailed information about the system. This brokerage role was proposed in my final report, written in collaboration with local experts.

Public Writing

Between 2016 and 2018, I wrote feature articles applying sociological analysis for several WeChat official accounts, including Tsinghua Sociology, as well as for my own social media account. Together, these pieces attracted more than 120,000 views.