Yiran Zhang is Proskauer Assistant Professor of Employment and Labor Law at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School and a faculty affiliate with Cornell Law School. She studies how legal systems govern care work at the intersection of the often-informal labor market, the welfare state, and the economic household. Her current projects employ a socio-legal approach to examine public care programs and the employee classification of non-traditional laborers in the US. She also writes about care migration and social reproduction in China. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in UCLA Law Review, Boston University Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Cornell International Law Journal, and Critical Sociology, among others. Dr. Zhang has received an S.J.D. and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and an LL.B. from Tsinghua University. She's a member of the New York Bar.
Teaching Statement
I teach classes on labor and employment law, employment discrimination, the law of care work, and gender and political economy.
Publications
Journal Articles
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- (2024). Gender, Value-Chain Upgrading, and The Costs of Human Capital: The Case of a Garment Supply Chain in China. Cornell International Law Journal, 57(1), 235-66..
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- (2022). Rethinking the Global Governance of Migrant Domestic Workers: The Heterodox Case of Informal Filipina Workers in China. Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, 36(3), 963-1015..
Professional activities
- The Boundaries of Paid and Unpaid Care Work in Consumer-Directed Home Care. Presented to Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). Seattle, WA. 2025.