Human Capital,Institution,and Our Country’s Rural Labor Migration

Based on the perspective of institutional transition.this thesis analysis the impact of human capital on our country’s rural labor migration,constructs rural-urban migration model which is according to the view of that human capital is the impetus for migration,discuss the different migration decisions in different sectors-the rural sector and the urban sector-for rural labor force,analysis the impact of human capital on migration within different stage and different decision with the help of panel data, investigates the dynamic game of human capital investing for government and rural labor force in the process of institutional transition and with the help of game analysis method. This thesis focus on several issues:(1)The rural labor migration process is simultaneous with the institutional transition process in China. Under the system restriction, it long-term coexistence of two kinds of migrants for flow or integrate which is attribute to the impact of human capital, and then forming the special rural labor migration patterns in China; (2)Rural-urban migration model shows the impacting mechanism of human capital on migration:human capital endogenously determines the decision of leaving rural for rural labor force and decisionof integrate into urban for migrant, and exogenous determines the migrant flowing or integrating finally to an important extent; (3)For the different migrating decisions and in the different migrating stages, the impacts of human capital on migration are different too, which is need to discuss respectively; (4)In the process of institutional transition, the dynamic game analysis between the government and the rural labor force which is based on the human capital investment strategy is helps to further understand the relationship between human capital and rural labor migration.This thesis contains seven chapters, of which the main parts are the chapter III, IV, V and VI. From a realistic observation of the periodic and structural changes of our country’s rural labor migration patterns,it discusses both the formation mechanism and the impacting factors of rural labor migration, constructs rural-urban migration model which is according to the view of that human capital is the impetus for migration, empirical analyzes the role of human capital accumulation at different migration stages and different migration decisions, and investigates the dynamic game process for human capital investment strategy of government and of rural labor force along with the process of institutional transition by means of game analysis method. The main contents of each chapter the study are as follows:Chapter I puts forward the questions to be researched of this thesis, shows the main line of analysis and characteristics of study, generally explains some concepts and data used in this thesis, illuminates the structure and the main content of this thesis, and points out the possible innovation points as well as the shortages.Chapter II sorts out and reviews related literature, including rural labor migration related theory that consists of dual economic theory, neoclassical theory, human capital theory of migration and so on, as well as China’s rural labor migration related literature that consists of institution, human capital and others, so as to find the appropriate theory,methods and paths for China’s rural labor migration, and further summarize the purpose and significance of this thesis.Chapter III investigates the stage, characteristics, classification, decision-making mechanism and influencing factors of rural labor migration as a whole. It analyzes the relationship between the national institutional transition and the formation of migration patterns, as well as it between human capital and migration decision. And it puts forward the research object of this thesis and the logical relationship between different migration groups. Based on these above,it proposed the research direction and the research framework.Based on Lucas’model,Chapter IV constructs rural-urban migration model which is according to the view of that human capital is the impetus for migration. It explains that whether the rural labor force who are in the rural sector and deciding going out or staying, or the migrants who are in the urban sector and choosing flowing or integration, the role of human capital would both endogenous decision and exogenous influence for them. What means that the human determines the formation of migration patterns, and also important mutual impacts exist in migration and human capital.Chapter V does empirical analysis to the impacts of human capital on migration. It distinguishes the different economic sectors, different migration groups, different migration stages and different levels of human capital,then investigates the human capital’s impacts on the choice of rural labor force deciding going out or staying and on the selection of migrants deciding flowing or integrating,and further analyzes the impact of migration on human capital.Chapter VI illustrates dynamic games between the government and the labor force in the process of institutional transition. By establishing a game model, it reviewed the interactive determine relationship between the decisions of country’s migration control and the decisions of rural labor migration, and further reviewed the reflection for that two kinds of decisions above on the change of human capital investment within the process of institutional environment change.Chapter VII is a summary and policy recommendations which summarizes the main conclusions and puts forward policy recommendations as well as the prospects for further research.The main conclusions of this thesis can be summarized as follows:(1) Our country’s rural labor migration phenomenon is very special. There is long-term coexistence of two kinds of migration of flow and integrate that are contribute to a series of national formal institution regulations which are represented by the urban-rural dual economic structure and the household registration system. The former is represented by the older generation migrants with lower level of human capital,who repeatedly flow between rural and urban, and the vast majority will eventually return to the rural.The latter is represented by both the new generation migrants and the college students from rural areas whom with higher level of human capital,and who are eager to integrate into urban society by doing everything possible to stay in the city, and the vast majority will become the new city migrants.In this migration pattern, The rural labor force in the agricultural sector to go out or stay behind as well as rural migrants in the urban sector to flow or integration. Human capital is the key to influence their decision-making.(2) Rural-urban migration model which is according to the view of that human capital is the impetus for migration shows that:In the rural sector, rural labor force’s initial human capital is the key factor of decision that going out or staying behind, and the higher the level of human capital, the more tend to migrate. In the urban sector, human capital that would be accumulated by formal or informal education is the key factor for flow or integrate,that migrants whose human capital is less than the average skill requirements of urban workers will eventually return to the rural area. Simultaneously, there are interaction influence between human capital and migration,it means that the integrative migrants who with higher human capital will have "demonstration effect" on other migrants,which will encourage them to keep on accumulating human capital,and help to enhance all the rural labor force’s human capital level as well.(3) Empirical analysis results from human capital which is measured to the average years of education show that different educational human capital has different impact on different migration decision and at different stages. Human capital lower than the high school education play the main impact on the decision that the rural sector’s labors decide whether going out or not,and it plays different impact in three stages of 1986-1992,1993-1998,1999-2010.Overall,impact of human capital with senior high school education was increased gradually, and the impact of human capital level lower it was decreased gradually. Human capital level with higher education mainly impact on the decision that the urban sector’s migrants decide whether integrate into the city or not.The empirical results shows that almost all the migrants with higher education stayed in the city and increased the proportion of people who have higher human capital level with senior high school education in the total rural population.(4) In the process of national institutional transition, the government and the rural labor force gamed based on the education human capital investment. During this process, deregulation is beneficial to investment in human capital education actively for rural labor force and increases employment of rural migrants in the urban labor market as well as government effectiveness. Tightening control will curb education human capital investment and decreases employment of rural migrants in the urban labor market as well as government effectiveness. The results of dynamic game analysis show that the optimal strategy of the government is to relax controls on rural labor migration, and the optimal strategy for rural laborers and migrants is investment in human capital education actively. This means that if the government relaxed controls on migration, the human capital education level of migrants and rural labor maybe upgrade automatically, while with no need for the government’s extra investment on education human capital.The probable innovation of this thesis is that the research object contains two categories groups of migrant workers and college students from rural area,constructs rural-urban migration model which is according to the view of that human capital is the impetus for migration,analysis the human capital impact on the different migratory group and whose different migrating decision within the process institutional environment change, makes empirical analysis as well as dynamic game analysis under the perspective of institutional change.