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Research On The Influence Of The National Common Language Proficiency On Labor Income

Posted on:2024-06-17Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X W LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:1525307202994899Subject:Language of economics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The promotion and popularization of China’s national common language not only plays a long-term and far-reaching role in the economic and social development of a country,but also plays an important role in improving the employment and increasing the income of individual labor.In the early studies on the impact of Mandarin proficiency on income,the emphasis was mainly on the wage premium it brought as a single factor,and more on the comparison with the dialect or other languages.In the long run,although existing studies have conducted heterogeneity analysis on the economic return of Mandarin proficiency in different dimensions,whether it interacts with other factors in economic return has not received much attention.Further speaking,while improving the income of individual labor,whether the promotion and popularization of Mandarin,as a national common language,can narrow the income gap between labor forces needs to be answered.Significantly,the language work since the found of the PRC has been continuously and profoundly optimizing the national language ability of the country’s population,and these years of effort can be seen in the popularity of Mandarin.Undoubtedly,the current popularization of Mandarin in China has reached a new phase,and the significant increase in the popularization is not the end of the task of promoting Mandarin,but a new starting point.Meanwhile the imbalance of Mandarin’s promotion and popularization also produces a series of differences in its economic returns,and the mechanism behind the heterogeneity is the key to the future implementation direction of Mandarin’s promotion.As a national common language,Mandarin is an extremely important human capital.Other factors affecting labor income(such as education,work experience,health,etc.)have complex and far-reaching effects on income.The influence of Mandarin proficiency on the income of individual labor is not limited to the single improvement,but should be diverse and multi-directional.As the old saying goes,"Not worry about scarcity or poverty,but rather about the inequality and insecurity." At present,people’s expectation of economic life is no longer limited to simply increasing of income,but to narrowing the income gap between people and groups.For the moment,the strategy of targeted popularization of Mandarin and targeted poverty alleviation have been jointly implemented,and the promotion of Mandarin has been positioned as a powerful boost in the battle against poverty.In this context,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to explore the regional heterogeneity,educational heterogeneity and income heterogeneity of Mandarin proficiency on individual labor income from the perspective of national common language ability.In this study,literature econometric analysis,signal game model,simulation model,OLS regression,instrumental variable estimation,interaction term design,moderating effect model,conditional quantile regression,generalized quantile regression,RIF regression,Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition,Oaxaca-RIF decomposition and other methods were comprehensively used to carry out research.The findings and main conclusions of this study are as follows:First,taking the founding of PRC as the starting point,and the changes of working direction as the node,the language work after the foundation is divided into reform period(1949-1985),construction period(1986-1999)and targeted governance period(2000-present).The study finds that the three stages of contemporary China’s language work are basically closely integrated with the current national conditions of time and space.In fact,at the four levels of ethnic minority,region,gender,and education,there are still problems such as the uneven popularity of Mandarin,the income inequality,and the unbalanced development.Most of the internal causes that lead to the enduring impoverishment and returning to pauperism of individual labor have persistence and fixity,and improving their Mandarin proficiency is a more efficient entry point in the current poverty alleviation.The practical significance of targeted popularization is to carry out more efficient measures in line with the actual national conditions on the existing work results,with the theoretical basis of the existing research results on the economic return to Mandarin proficiency.Under the background of the new era of Chinesetype modernization,the promotion of Mandarin and poverty alleviation should be organically combined,reflecting the economic logic with Chinese characteristics.This study puts forward the theoretical basis for the targeted implementation of China’s language work,and analyzes the direction of accuracy.Second,on the basis of sorting out China’s language work and putting forward its targeted direction and economic logic,this paper regards Mandarin proficiency as a kind of human capital signal released by individual labor,and analyzes its signal transmission and screening role in the labor market.The study finds that,Mandarin proficiency can bring a wage premium in the labor market in either way;Once individuals know that,they will choose to improve their Mandarin proficiency.This study constructs a virtual working environment for simulation,and finds that under different starting states and preset conditions,the final equilibrium and curve in the process are also different.In the future,according to the results of the regional and industrial language proficiency surveys,the proportion of high level can be used to adjust the policy.Third,based on the Mincer income equation and the data of Chinese General Social Survey(CGSS),according to the Language Atlas of China and China’s realities,the regions involved in the data are divided into Mandarin areas,dialect areas and minority areas,and the economic return to Mandarin proficiency and regional differences were investigated-The study finds that Mandarin proficiency has a significant positive impact on individual’s income.It is worth noting that there are significant differences in the economic return to Mandarin proficiency between Mandarin and dialect areas,Chinese dialect areas and ethnic minority areas.The main reason for this phenomenon is also attributed to the human capital nature of language ability and the language differences between different dialect areas in China.In addition,this study finds that the maternal education level is a relatively robust instrumental variable in the study of economic returns to Mandarin proficiency.Fourth,based on the Mincer income equation and the data of Chinese General Social Survey(CGSS),the heterogeneity of the economic return to Mandarin proficiency of the labor force with different education backgrounds is analyzed by taking the complete compulsory education as the cut-off point.The study finds that educational heterogeneity does exist in the process of Mandarin proficiency’s influence on the individual’s income.Concretely Speaking,individuals with primary education or below can get nominally higher economic returns per unit of Mandarin proficiency than those with higher education,indicating that Mandarin proficiency plays a better positive effect on individuals with lower education.Explaining and testing this heterogeneity by establishing a model with years of schooling as a mediating variable,the study finds that the significance and degree of the indirect effect of the years of education are not consistent among the individual labor with different educational backgrounds.This study proposes that the effect of years of education on the economic return to Mandarin proficiency requires a certain degree of accumulation.In addition,this study finds that the frequency of reading and the nature of the mother’s work in adolescence are also relatively robust instrumental variables in the study of the economic returns on Mandarin proficiency.Fifth,based on the Mincer income equation and the data of Chinese General Social Survey(CGSS),Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and RIF regression method are used to study the income heterogeneity of Mandarin proficiency and its relation with individual income gap by considering Mandarin proficiency as a factor that may cause discrimination in the job market,such as gender and household registration.The study finds that the Mandarin proficiency can not only significantly increase income,but also play a role in narrowing the income gap.For the entire workforce,Mandarin proficiency as a kind of human capital can effectively narrow the income gap,which is particularly evident for individuals with incomes below average.Through the mechanism hypothesis,verification and analysis of the above findings,it is found that there are two possible causes:First,with the increase of income,the wage premium of Mandarin proficiency is gradually diluted;Second,Mandarin proficiency has an inverted U-shaped effect on income,so the impact of each unit of ability improvement on income gap is not uniformly simple.The study takes the heterogeneity of the impact of Mandarin proficiency as a national common language ability on income and its gap included in the research framework.The theoretical value and practical guidance of this series of findings to existing policies are further discussed.Among above findings,regional heterogeneity analysis confirmed the human capital nature of language ability and the influence of language differences between different dialect areas,while educational heterogeneity confirmed the nominal indirect effects of individual years of schooling on the economic return to Mandarin proficiency.Moreover,from the perspective of the high-quality development of the national social economy,the promotion of Mandarin is not only conducive to improving individual income,but also has an important impact on narrowing the income gap.The influence of Mandarin proficiency on labor income is closely associated to its role as a national common language ability.Based on the above findings,this study suggests that:Firstly,China’s language work should attach importance to hierarchical design,match policy formulation with actual national conditions,and combine micro and macro;Secondly,in the new era,targeted measures will be implemented to every stage and level of the popularization of Mandarin;Thirdly,regional language proficiency surveys are carried out in order to offer certain policy preference treatment to the regions with low popularization according to the results of the language work;Fourthly,the organic combination of targeted popularization of Mandarin,targeted poverty alleviation and educational poverty alleviation will promote Mandarin for the labor force with lower education;Sixthly,with the advantage of the impact of Mandarin profici ency on the income gap,the low-income labor force is included in the focus.In general,language work is not simply related to language.Due to the human capital attribute of language,China’s language work has been closely related to economic development,and has derived an economic logic with Chinese characteristics.The formulation of differential economic policies according to the actual national conditions is the same reason for the formulation of language policies.Meanwhile exploring the heterogeneity of economic returns to Mandarin proficiency can help supplement and expand the above economic logic frame in theory,and feed back into the process of policy formulation and implementation of measures.
Keywords/Search Tags:National Common Language Ability, Mandarin, Wage Effect, Income Gap
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