A Study On The Bilateral Employment Effect Of For Trade Between China And The Countries Along The "Belt And Road"

Since China put forward “The Belt and Road” initiative in 2013,bilateral trade between China and the “B&R” countries has continued to expand,with an average annual growth rate higher than that of China's foreign trade in the same period.Trade is an important factor affecting employment,which is a livelihood issue that the parties and governments of all countries pay great attention to and want to solve.For countries along "The Belt and Road",China's total import and export trade increased from 84 billion 903 million 600 thousand US dollars in 2001 to US $1 trillion and 278 billion66 million in 2018,with an average annual growth rate of 18.638%.China's total employment increased from 720.85 million in 2000 to 775.86 million in 2018,with an average annual growth of about 3 million“ The average unemployment rate of the countries along the B&R has decreased in general.Among the seven regions,the unemployment rates of East Asia and South Asia in 2018 increased by 0.25% and 0.23%respectively compared with that in 2000,while the unemployment rates of the other five regions decreased,and the decline rate was much higher than that of the above two regions.With the proposal of “The Belt and Road” initiative,will sustained and steady growth of trade have any impact on bilateral employment between China and the “B&R”countries,and if so,what impact will it bring? How does trade in different directions affect the quantity,quality and structure of bilateral employment? What other important factors will influence the employment effect of bilateral trade between China and the“B&R” countries? Is the effect positive or negative,and to what extent? On the basis of studying and answering the above questions,this paper further puts forward countermeasures and suggestions that are beneficial to increasing the number,improving the quality and optimizing the employment structure of both sides under the background of “The Belt and Road” initiative.The above are the key issues of this paper.This paper reviews the previous literature on the impact of trade on employment,and puts forward the research ideas,methods and framework on the basis of reviewing the impact of trade on employment quantity,employment quality,employment structure and its mechanism.Based on relevant employment theories,this paper puts forward the internal mechanism of trade's influence on employment from the aspects of demand,national income,industrial structure,trade relations and technological progress.On the basis of theoretical analysis,combined with China's trade with the “B&R” countries and the actual conditions of employment,this paper select import,export,import and export volume as the explained variable,select production level(GDP),prices(consumer price index),foreign direct investment(FDI)and policy(“The Belt and Road”initiative was proposed)as control variables,constructs a dynamic panel data system GMM model of the influence of foreign trade on employment.The model takes employment as the explained variable,measures the impact of trade on employment from three aspects: employment quantity,employment quality and employment structure,in which the employment structure is divided into gender structure,industry structure and regional structure.From the needs of research and the availability of data,in China,the number of employment is expressed by the urban employment rate at the end of the year,Employment quality is measured from four dimensions: employment environment,employability,employment remuneration and employment equity,the gender structure is expressed by the ratio of male employees to female employees,and the industry structure is expressed by the proportion of agricultural,industrial and service employees in the total employment respectively,the regional structure is expressed by the influence on the employment rate of the eastern region and the central and western regions.As for the “B&R” countries,the employment rate is expressed by the employment rates of various countries along the route,the quality of employment is expressed by the private transfer payments and employees' salaries of various countries along the route,the ratio of female unemployment rate to male unemployment rate in each country is indicated by the gender structure,the industrial structure is expressed by the proportion of employment in agriculture,industry and service respectively,and the regional structure is expressed by the influence on the employment rate in Asia and non-Asia area.This paper analyzes the status quo of bilateral trade and the dynamic change of employment brought by trade before and after “The Belt and Road” initiative was put forward,which provides an important basis for empirical research.Before the empirical study,in order to maintain the integrity of the data,the linear interpolation method was used to complete some missing values;in order to make the data more stable,some variables are treated with logarithm;LLC test in homologous root test and IPS test in heterologous root test were used to test the stationarity of data series;in order to solve the endogeneity problem that may exist in the model,one and two lag periods of trade variables were used as instrumental variables to conduct endogeneity test.The dynamic panel data system GMM model are also used to study the impact of export volume,import volume and import and export volume on the bilateral employment quantity,employment quality and employment structure of China and the “B&R” countries.The control variables include production level,consumer price index,foreign direct investment and “The Belt and Road” initiative.In terms of the empirical analysis of the impact on employment in China,65 “B&R”countries are included.It is found that the trade between China and “B&R” countries has a positive impact on Chinese employment.First,the trade between China and the "B&R" countries has achieved remarkable results in increasing the number of jobs in China.In terms of trade direction,the employment effect of trade on China mainly comes from the exports to countries along the route,import trade can also increase the employment rate in all provinces and cities of China,and the total amount of import and export trade also has a significant positive effect on the number of employment.Second,trade between China and the “B&R” countries can effectively improve the quality of employment in China.The influence coefficients of the core explanatory variables under the three different trade models are close,about 0.06,which fully affirms the positive effect of trade on improving employment quality.Third,the trade impact on the employment structure between China and the "B&R" countries is differentiated.China's trade with the "B&R" countries has a weak effect on the optimization of employment gender structure,a significant effect on the optimization of employment industrial structure,and a greater impact on the eastern provinces and municipalities,but the impact on the central and western provinces and cities is less restricted by the direction of trade.Fourth,the control variables selected in this paper are important factors affecting employment.The "Belt and Road" initiative has a positive impact on the number,quality and structure of employment;the role of regional GDP is highlighted in the optimization of the gender structure of employment;consumer price index is an important factor affecting wages and plays a certain role in the optimization of employment gender structure;the optimization of employment industry structure benefited the most from the increase of foreign direct investment;and the delayed employment variables have a positive role in promoting current employment.In the aspect of empirical analysis of the impact on employment of the "B&R" countries,59 "B&R" countries are selected based on the availability of data.The trade between China and the "B&R" countries can also play a positive role in promoting employment in those countries.First,the trade between China and the "B&R" countries has a significant positive impact on the employment quantity in the countries along the route.Export trade plays a greater role and import trade is relatively small.Second,trade between China and the “B&R” countries can improve the quality of employment in these countries.However,it is more restricted by trade direction than trade on the number of jobs.Only in the export and import and export models,it has a significant impact on the quality of employment,and the impact coefficient is only 0.012.Third,China's trade with the "B&R" countries has different effects on employment structure.China's trade with the "B&R" countries can significantly reduce the proportion of agricultural employed people and increase the proportion of service workers in order to optimize the employment industrial structure;the regional structure is more effective in reducing unemployment in non-Asian countries;in terms of gender structure,the increase in total imports and exports can improve the employment gender structure of countries along the route to some extent.Fourth,GDP,prices,policies and investment have an important impact on employment.The quantity of employment is positively affected by GDP and prices;Most of the control variables significantly improved the employment quality,and can reduce the employment ratio in agriculture,and increase the employment ratio in industry and service;There are differences in the impact of trade on the structure of employment regions,Non-Asian countries can achieve an increase in employment rate under all trade models,but the improvement of employment in Asian countries is only achieved when China imports more from countries along the route.Finally,according to the results of empirical research,from the expansion of production scale and the development of high-quality trade,reasonable control of price level and scientific layout of investment fields,actively publicize and make full use of“The Belt and Road” policy,this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to increase the number of employment,improve the quality of employment and optimize the employment structure.