Research On The Labor Migration In China From The Perspective Of City Amenity

In recent years,with the rapid development of urbanization in China,enormous labors migrate from rural areas into urban cities,and from small sized cities into large sized cities.Small and medium sized cities face the problem of attracting labors to prompt the economic growth of cities.In the new situation of the economic development and the increasing income in China,labors especially the high skilled labors may take more account of quality of life.Factors affecting labor migration may change.therefore,it is of theoretical and practical significance to research the factors affecting labor migration and the economic consequence of labor migration.This disertation concentrates on the the determinants and economic consequence of labor migration in the new economic situation.For the determinants,the role of city amenity on the location choice of labor is discussed to reveal the new feature of labor migration.For the consequence of labor migration,this paper focus on the city wage premium of migrants from the micro aspects and the within city income inequality from the macro aspects,and especially discuss the impact of city amenity on wage premium of heterogeneous labor,thereby providing policy implications for leading the rational migration of labor and realizing the optimization of spatial allocation of labor.Chapter 2 reviews the literature relating labor migration theory,empirical researches about factors affecting labor migration and the economic consequence of labor migration,which has laid a foundation to this paper.Chapter 3 systemically describes the development of policies relating labor migration,and then put emphasis on analyzing the scales and characteristics of migrant labor since the reform and opening up,which has provided basis for the following research.Chapter 4 studies the wage,unemployment,industrial structure and other factors affecting location choice of labor,especially focus on the role of amenity in the location choice of labor so as to recognize the driving factors of labor migration in the new situation.It analyzes the mechanism through which city amenities affect the location choice of labor,after which it constructs a man-made amenity index and a natural amenity index and use the data from China Labor-force Dynamics Survey(CLDS)and data of city characteristics for 121 Prefecture-level and above to study the impact of amenity and other city characteristics on location choice of migrants in China with conditional logit model.The results are as follows:(1)Man-made amenity and natural amenity are important factors for cities to attract migrants;Labors migrate to cities with high man-made amenity level in order to enjoy the local services of education,medical care,culture,health and environment;Cities with desirable weather will attract migrants as well.(2)Migrants with different ages and educational levels show heterogenous responses to man-made amenity and natural amenity: younger and more educated migrants are more responsive to man-made amenity,and migrants who are older and more educated are less sensitive to natural amenity.(3)The extent to which the impact of man-made amenity and natural amenity on migrants' location choice are less than the impact of wage.In chapter 5,the micro economic consequences of labor migration are researched from the perspective of wage premium effects for migrants.The role of city amenity on the wage premium of heterogeneous labor are examined,by using the datasets of Rural-Urban Migrant Household and the Urban Household from China Household Income Project in 2013.The estimated results show that,(1)city size significantly increases local workers and rural-urban migrants' nominal income.(2)Wage premium effect for rural-urban migrants is lower than the local workers.(3)For both rural-urban migrants and local workers,the wage premium effect for high skill group is higher than for the low skill group.(4)After controlling for cost of living,real wage premium effect is higher for high skill group than low skill group,and the effect is higher for rural-urban migrants than for local workers.(5)City amenity has no significant effect on real wages of both high skill and low skill local workers.However,it has significant positive effect on real wages of rural-urban migrants,especially the high skill migrants.After controlling cost of living and amenity,both the local labor and the rural-urban migrants can gain real wage premium in cities,which shows that real wages do not compensate for city amenities,and the spatial general equilibrium is not reached in China.The results do not change after considering the endogenous problem by 2sls methods.In chapter 6,the macro economic consequences of labor migration are researched from the perspective of within city income inequality.Theoretical analysis shows that labor's location choice depends on spatial sorting,selection and agglomeration.The location choice of labor affects within city income inequality through the effect on city size,the skill distribution and the skill premium within cities.After that,it measures the income inequality of 125 cities by the datasets of Rural-Urban Migrant Household and the Urban Household from China Household Income Project in 2013,and then estimates the effect of labor migration on within city income inequality.The results show that,(1)within city income inequality measured by Gini coefficient is higher if the migration rate is higher.(2)labor migration affects the skill premium within cities,and in cities with high migration rates,college premium and high school premium are both higher which leads to the more unequal income within cities.furthermore,the results show robustness by using different measures of within city inequality.Chapter 7 makes conclusions of the research,and then discuss policy implications.(1)Increasing the level of city amenities is beneficial for attracting labor especially the high skilled labor,which can prompt city economic growth.(2)Providing trainings for low skilled labor is beneficial for increasing the wage premium of them.(3)Promoting the free mobility of labor is beneficial for the realization of general spatial equilibrium and the optimization of city size distribution.(4)Promoting the equal access to public services is beneficial for the migrants to share the benefits of urbanization,and for reducing the welfare inequality within cities.