A Study On The Selections Of Different Approaches For Rural Labor Force To Seek Employment In Cities And Related Influencing Factors

Despite the rapid process of urbanization, it is still lagging behind industrialization. In rural areas, there is a huge amount of surplus laborers, and an increasing number of new laborers are added to the force annually; however, it takes several decades to transfer this surplus. The transfer involves developing modern and efficient agriculture, transferring into the nearest town and township enterprises and developing small towns into cities so as to enlarge employment. Non-agricultural employment transfer of rural surplus labor is the universal law of urbanization in developing countries; and given the reality in China, the transfer is mainly that of rural surplus labor into the cities, including doing business, taking odd jobs or working in the enterprises, which accounts for a large percentage of rural laborers. Hence, this dissertation studies the employment of rural laborers into the city, mainly referring to those who go to cities and become enterprise workers. There are different approaches for rural labor force to seek employment in cities, including the help from their fellow-villagers, relatives and friends, the government support, the recruitment ads, the recommendation from employment agencies, the arrangement of labor-dispatched organizations, and directly walk-in inquiries. Statistics indicate that a large majority of rural labor force turn to their villagers, relatives and friends for help while less people choose to depend on the arrangement of government or labor-dispatched organizations.Employing a series of related theories, such as the dual economic theory, human capital theory, asymmetric information theory, the cost - benefit theory, transaction cost theory, externality theory, public policy theory and fundamental theories in economics, sociology, management and other disciplines, the dissertation, via social survey, statistical analysis, comparative analysis, a combination of normative analysis and empirical analysis and an integration of qualitative analysis into quantitative analysis, aims at a comprehensive analysis of various factors influencing the different approaches for rural labor force to seek employment in cities and a comparison among these different approaches so as to find out the approaches that promise higher income for rural labors and compare these approaches with those that are chosen by most of the rural laborers, and finally puts forward corresponding recommendations and strategies. The conclusions are as follows:First, despite various approaches for rural labor force to seek employment in cities, most people choose"to be recommended by their fellow-villagers, relatives or friends".Secondly, according to an analysis of the measurable personal characteristics: genders, ages, education levels, marital status and migrant experiences, logistic regression model shows that only education levels have a prominent effect on the choices of different approaches to seek employment in cities, and rural labor force with lower education levels are more inclined to turn to their fellow-villagers, relatives or friends for helping them find employment.Third, manufacturers do not understand the personal information of rural laborers, and for the sake of reducing recruiting and training costs, they do not want to spend the high cost recruiting low-end rural labor force featured with high mobility, thus promoting and strengthening the above-mentioned most popular approach to seek employment.Fourth, the deficiencies in the work of the government where rural labor force is exported exist in many aspects including the transmission of employment information, the training of laborers to be exported and proper employment guidance, plus goal-oriented performance evaluation and financial phased implementation in the government where they receive those migrant workers, causes the lack of motivation to care for the employment of migrant workers, and as a result, rural labor force tend to be more dependent on their fellow-villagers, friends or relatives.Fifth, labor institutions and organizations that help rural labor force to seek employment in cities are still developing, which have not yet grown into a large scale, plus insufficient propaganda, and as a result, rural labor force lack of understanding of these organizations. In addition, some labor-dispatched agencies violate the interests of the dispatched workers, leading to less choices of this approach.Sixth, the vacancies provided by public employment agencies are often oriented towards urban workers, what's more, there exist good and bad private employment agencies, which is not easy for rural laborers to tell one from another and some laborers, having been set up by illegal intermediaries, suffer a huge loss. Consequently, rural laborers abandon the original idea--"first enter the city and then looking for work"and instead turn to their fellow-villagers, friends and relatives.Seventh, the comparative analysis shows that the arrangement of the government or legal labor-dispatched organizations can bring migrant workers relatively higher incomes compared with the most popular approach that rural laborers seek employment with the help of their fellow-villagers, relatives and friends.From the above conclusions, in order to encourage more rural laborers to select employment approaches promoted by government institutions or legal labor-dispatched organizations, to reduce the laborers'dependence on their fellow-villagers, relatives or friends, to improve the orderly organization of the rural labor force working in cities and to increase the income of migrant workers, this dissertation puts forward the following proposals: accelerate the construction of the service platform for rural employment information;increase the training of rural labor force and improve the capital stock of human labor into the city;shoulder the responsibility of preserving the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers;establish an equal employment system for both rural and urban workers;improve services functions of public employment agencies, and rectify and regulate all intermediaries.With its novel contents and perspectives, together with its innovative conclusions, this dissertation can enhance the understanding of the rural labor force transfer issues in the theoretical circle.