The Study On The Employment Impacts Of The Minimum Wage In China

The minimum wage system,as one of the policies and measures to ease labor-management conflict,was introduced in 1994 in China,the establishment of the minimum wage system and the setting of the minimum wage standards has always been the focal point of controversy among domestic scholars.In my opinion,for a country like China,it is necessary to establish the minimum wage system.The minimum wage system has played a positive role in protecting the legitimate labor rights and interests of workers,narrowing the income distributi gap,enhancing the capacity of human capital investment of low-level workers,promoting industrial restructuring and improving labor productivity,etc.However,as the minimum wage system in China only been established in a short time,there are still many problems,including the setting of the minimum wage is too low and the implementing of the minimum wage system has been not effective.Currently,the employment effects of minimum wage is discussed mostly btween domestic and foreign scholars,but most foreign scholars are studying on the employment effects in developed countries,only a very small number of people studying on the employment effects in developing countries,and the domestic scholars only stay in the general level of discussion,lacking empirical researches.In view of this,this paper discusses the employment effects of the minimum wage in China through theoretical and empirical study.In the theoretical study,we based on Dickens,Machin and Manning's theoretical model,analyzed the long-term employmen effects of the minimum wage standard-setting and adjustment from the perspective of the scale effects and substitution effects.According to initial wage level,enterprises were divided into three categories, through analysis we found that the different types of enterprises have different employment effects,it can be positive,negative,or zero.In addition,from a theoretical perspective,the overall employment effects of the minimum wage is still not sure,it also need to take into account the number of other factors..In the empirical study,we adopted the weighted cross-section area fixed effects method,investigated the employment effects from the national,sub-regional,sub-industry perspective respectively and concluded that,nationwide,there is a negative employment effect in this year,but it is smaller than 0.1,and the employment effect is smaller in the next year; regionally,there is a negative employment effect in the eastern and western regions,but the employment effect of the western region is significantly smaller than the eastern region,The employment effect of the central region in this year,as well as the employment effect of eastern,central and western regions in last year will be not significant;vew by industry,the employment effect of the construction industry is not significant.in this year,but the employment effect in last year is significantly positive;the employment effect of the manufacturing industry is significantly negative in this year,but it is not significant in last year.Finally,base on the front analysis,this paper presented a number of policy recommendations about how to improve the minimum wage system in China,including further increase in the minimum wage; strengthening the Government's announcement of the labor market price information and guidance,and improving employment assistance mechanisms;improving the measurement of local performance evaluation system, and publishing the regional minimum wage standard guide lines regularly;strengthening the supervision system of minimum wages; strengthening the publicity work of the minimum wage;the setting of the minimum wage standard should be more detailed;unifing all the regional minimum wage standard caliber.