Study On Population Aging,Population Mobility And Urban-Rural Income Disparity

The income gap between urban and rural areas is a major factor limiting the sustainable economic development of China.Although the income gap between urban and rural areas in China has continued to decline in recent years,there is still a larger income gap between urban and rural areas.How to effectively narrow the urban-rural income gap in China and realize the integrated development of urban and rural areas has become the focus of scholars’ attention.Most of the existing research results analyzing the causes of the urban-rural income gap in China focus on the economic system and policy factors,ignoring the impact of demographic transformation on the income gap through labor productivity.On the one hand,the current phenomenon of urban-rural inversion exists in China,and the difference in the degree of urban-rural aging will inevitably have different effects on the changes of labor productivity between urban and rural areas;on the other hand,aging reduces the future labor supply,and the consequent increase in labor costs of enterprises will prompt industrial structure upgrading,which further affects the labor productivity gap between urban and rural areas.At the same time,the expansion of labor productivity between urban and rural areas will further promote rural population mobility and increase the income of residents in rural areas,which further affect the urban-rural income gap.Therefore,in order to investigate whether aging and population mobility have an impact on the urban-rural income gap,this paper first reviews and composes the relevant literature and economic theories on population aging,population mobility and the urbanrural income gap,proposes the mechanism of the impact of population aging and population mobility on the urban-rural income gap,and puts forward three hypotheses.Then the development characteristics of the urban-rural income gap from 2002-2018 are analyzed from the time dimension and the spatial dimension.Finally,the proposed hypotheses are tested using provincial panel data from 2002-2018,and the following conclusions are generated.First,the national urban-rural income gap has continued to decline in recent years,but the urban-rural income gap is still at a high level and there are regional differences;second,aging significantly raises the urban-rural income gap,while population mobility significantly reduces the urban-rural income gap,and the results remain significant after robustness tests,indicating that the conclusion possesses significance.Third,aging expands labor productivity and promotes urban-rural population mobility as the mechanism of action affecting the urban-rural income gap,and the interaction term of population mobility and aging significantly reduces the urban-rural income gap,providing empirical evidence for this mechanism.Based on the findings,this paper proposes the following recommendations:(1)increase education investment in rural population to improve the quality of rural labor force;(2)establish urban-rural employment information platform to provide employment information support;(3)improve the household registration system to improve social security for mobile population;(4)accelerate the development and improve the social security system for the elderly to improve the income level of the elderly.