Study On The Impact Of Education On Labor Supply Time Of Middle-aged And Elderly Migrant Workers

Migrant workers have made indelible contributions to China’s economic development,but they have not enjoyed the corresponding work rights protection.Instead of that,they have been working in a dirty,harsh,dangerous and difficult working environment for a long time,where they are Engaging in labor-intensive,long time,low-paying jobs.The long labor supply time for middle-aged and elderly migrant workers has become a realistic problem in China’s labor market.Excessive labor supply time has seriously damaged the physical and mental health of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers and their subjective well-being.In recent years,although the state has introduced many related policies to overcome the overtime problem of migrant workers,but they have achieved little effect.Therefore,this paper aims to explore whether the education,which is the key to improving human capital and working ability,can help reduce the labor supply time of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers.In the theoretical part,this paper firstly discusses and analyzes labor supply theory,human capital theory,labor market segmentation theory,and compensation wage differential theory.Furthermore,this paper combines the work status of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers and the results of theoretical analysis.We introduces comfortable consumption and education on the basis of traditional labor supply model,and the derivation of maximizing personal utility finds that education has a negative impact on labor supply time of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers.In order to prove this inference,in the empirical part,on the basis of least squares estimation,this paper exploits the two exogenous events of the compulsory education reform that began in 1986 and the 1959-1961 famine as instrumental variables as the causality identification strategies.The ordinary least square estimation and instrumental variable estimation both strongly prove the inferences of the theoretical model in this paper.The main findings of the research are as follows: First,the schooling of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers will have a negative causal relationship with the weekly labor supply time,and the OLS estimate is significantly underestimated.Second,compared with individuals who have not gone to school,all types of education will have a negative impact on the labor supply time of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers.Third,there are two potential mechanisms for the impact of education on the labor supply time of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers.One is that education improves the working environment of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers and then affects their labor supply time.Another one is that education improves the job search ability and negotiation ability of workers,which will affect their labor supply time.Based on the theoretical model and empirical results,this paper puts forward the following policy suggestions to alleviate the problem of long labor supply time of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers: First,improving the working ability of middle-aged and old migrant workers through part-time education and skill training;Second,providing employment information services for middle-aged and elderly migrant workers;Third,we should protect the working rights and interests of middle-aged and elderly migrant workers.Fourth,narrowing the gap of social security levels between urban and rural areas;Fifth,improving the work of "controlling dropout and ensuring school security" in compulsory education;Sixth,narrowing the gap of education quality between urban and rural areas.