农民工农村土地置换城市社会保障的改革探析

农民工的城市生存需要社会保障，而他们远在家乡的土地不能提供城市生活保障，反而不利于农村土地规模经营。因此，农民工在农村土地承包权可以一次性转换为城市社会保障，但这种转换需要农村土地制度改革和相关的农地管理制度、农民工参保制度的改革相配合。     

身份认同对流动人口家庭在流入地消费的影响

流动人口在城市的社会融合是健康城市化的重要内容，并且其本身也产生众多经济影响。文章利用2014年国家卫计委"流动人口社会融合与心理健康专题调查"的调查数据，分析流动人口不同的本地城市人身份认同对其家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构的影响。由于身份认同受到很多因素影响，具有内生性，因此我们在OLS基准回归之外，采用流动人口"本地话掌握水平"及"流出地土地面积"作为工具变量处理可能的内生性问题。我们也进行了替代变量的稳健性检验以及各种异质性检验。我们发现流动人口不同的身份认同程度对家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构有显著影响：更认同本地城市人身份的流动群体消费更高、恩格尔系数更低。同时，身份认同的消费影响在不同群体间存在一定异质性：这种效应对于年长的流动人口以及农村户籍流动人口更显著，这些异质性发现也符合预期。文章也进行了影响的可能机制检验，发现认可本地人身份的流动人口更倾向于在本地买房、长期工作生活和落户，减少在老家购房和生活的可能。研究结果对认识身份认同经济影响有一定学术价值；同时，文章的政策含义是，促进流动人口本地身份认同可以促进城市消费活力和居民生活质量。     

The Contribution of the Urban Sector to Australian Economic Development Before 1914

This article examines the contribution of the urban sector to Australian economic development before the First World War. This contribution has often been seen in negative terms: contemporary observers generally thought that the major cities were to large and drained resources from the productive sectors of the economy, while some modern historians have portrayed cities as centres of poverty and environmental disamenity. The article evaluates these claims and presents a case for the urban sector having been a powerful stimulus to economic growth. The problems which Australian urbanization created did not stem from cities being too large, with more inhabitants than the number of well-paying jobs; rather, the general preference for low-density suburban living, and the ability of most of the population to be able to afford to live that way, meant that the cities would be expensive to build and difficult to service in a cost-effective way.     

安徽返乡农民工基本情况调查分析与思考——基于对无为、颍上等地66位返乡农民工的访谈

农民工返乡是伴随着"民工荒"问题一个新的社会现象,文章对无为、颍上等地区的66位返乡农民工进行了入户访谈和调查.在对调查结果整理的基础上,分析出农民工返乡是各种因素合力作用的结果:年龄、文化程度、职业技能等因素是深层次的原因;家庭、社会等因素是外在的原因.作为理性的经济群体,农民工返乡只是暂时利益规避的行为,外出务工是总体的趋势.并就如何为农民工创造一个良好的外出务工条件和劳务输出平台提出了政策建议.     

Military service and economic mobility: Evidence from the American civil war

How did geographic and occupational mobility after the Civil War differ between Union Army veterans and nonveterans? By 1880, Union veterans were more likely to migrate to a different state or region than nonveterans. The higher geographic mobility of veterans is likely attributable to their experience of traveling away from their hometowns while in service. Union veterans who held unskilled jobs prior to enlistment were more likely to move up to white-collar or farming jobs by 1880 than unskilled nonveterans. In contrast, unskilled veterans were less likely to become artisans than nonveterans. The differences in occupational mobility by veteran status might be explained by the effects of military experiences such as learning from comrades in the company.     

Temporary Migration, the Informal Economy and Structural Change: London's Bicycle Rickshaw Riders

In the context of social, economic and political change, and of a continuing fall in the real cost of travel, temporary migrations to London, as to other major cities in the global North, have become increasingly common. Indeed, some have speculated that they may come to replace permanent migrations. This trend has intersected with 'informalization' of lower-status jobs in some cities of the global North, including London, and the general depression of migrant wages in low-end jobs in the formal sector. In this context, debate has developed about the role of temporary migrations in migrants' long-term and short-term strategies, and about their impact on host societies. Drawing on a sustainable livelihoods approach the short-term and long-term life strategies and livelihood strategies of 60 Colombian and Polish bicycle rickshaw ('pedicab') riders in London are analysed and compared. Despite the differences in the status of the two groups, findings are that both groups develop and draw on cultural and social capital in the workplace to facilitate dealings with the local economy and polity; both have had an influence on the local economic sector in which they operate; and both migrate temporarily as part of a life strategy at home, as part of which their migrations have a touristic and cultural, as well as instrumental purpose.     

Block Rate Pricing of Water in Indonesia: An Analysis of Welfare Effects

Block rate pricing of piped water in Indonesian cities has a progressive structure: the marginal price paid increases with the volume of demand. This paper estimates household water demand in Salatiga city using the Burtless and Hausman model, and finds that its distribution is not unimodal—that data cluster around kinks. The main estimation results are a price elasticity of approximately–1.2 and an income elasticity of 0.05. These elasticities are mutually dependent. The estimated model is used to investigate the social welfare consequences of a shift to uniform pricing. The principal beneficiaries would be large households, which are not necessarily wealthy. While replacing the complex rate structure by a uniform marginal price would have positive effects on average welfare, the equity consequences would be small. To improve equity, water companies could reduce installation fees, giving low-income households access to water connections, or reinvest profits in network expansion to unserviced areas.     

Consumption Structure of Migrant Worker Families in China

This study draws on a survey of migrants in 12 cities across four major urbanizing areas in China and investigates the structure of migrant worker families' urban and rural consumption. The results show that the structure of migrant worker families' consumption has been dominated by survival consumption. These families tend to live frugally in cities while engaging in conspicuous consumption in their rural hometowns. The structure of migrant worker families' consumption is mainly shaped by their income stability and wealth levels rather than their current income level. Moreover, migrant worker families with high educational levels and those who intend to settle permanently in cities are likely to allocate substantial expenditure to status and hedonic consumption and to upgrade their urban consumption structure.     

Alternative Work Arrangements and Job Satisfaction

The pressures of traditional jobs on working families, along with an aging population facing financial need, have contributed to heightened interest in the percentage of workers participating in alternative work arrangements. These include working as an independent contractor or self-employed, and those employed by others on-call, through temp agency, or as contractors. Examining job satisfaction across work arrangements by occupation and gender is one way to investigate a potential increase in the supply of such workers. Higher job satisfaction may indicate that more workers will select into these work arrangements and away from traditional jobs in the future. If this is particularly true for women, it has important implications for firms that would like to retain more women. Moreover, changes in how individuals earn a living may impact the social safety nets of such workers and their families given the nature of how such benefits are provided in the U.S. economy. This study utilizes recent waves of the General Social Survey to explore job satisfaction for workers in disaggregated alternative work arrangements, while controlling for both occupation and gender. The study finds that female workers who are independent contractors and self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than those in regular salaried jobs, even those in nonprofessional occupations. Job satisfaction for those who work in temp agencies, do on-call work or work for contractors is no different than for those in regular jobs, regardless of occupation and gender.

     

The implications of South Africa's skills migration policy for country competitiveness

South Africa suffers from a shortage of skills, while at the same time having an excess of unskilled labour. The brain drain and the impact of HIV/Aids are threats to the current skills level in the labour force. Skilled workers generally create jobs for unskilled workers, and the level of skills in the labour force is an attraction for foreign investment. The new international migration policy imposes financial penalties and other restrictions on employers of foreigners with skills. The policy is detrimental to South Africa's competitiveness in the global economy and will deter investors and those needing to utilise skills not available in the South African labour market. A general immigration policy would be more appropriate to attract skilled foreigners to South Africa, where their skills can be absorbed into the labour force by supply and demand forces.     

The changing spatial economy of cities: An exploratory analysis of Cape Town

The spatial economy of South African cities is generally believed to be experiencing selective deconcentration, which may exacerbate social inequality because of the physical disconnection between jobs and population. This paper assesses whether the locational pattern of economic activity across Cape Town is following this trajectory, using data from the Regional Service Council levies between 2001 and 2005. One of the main findings is that the city centre and areas close to the centre have maintained their economic dominance, therefore Cape Town remains a monocentric city. Yet the pattern of recent growth is more dispersed than the prior distribution because suburban nodes have gained a disproportionate share of new activity. In addition, the pattern of recent growth is skewed towards the high-income suburbs and away from the Cape Flats where most of the city's poor live. This uneven growth trajectory may be a source of concern for economic, social and environmental reasons.     

Return migration and Hukou registration constraints in Chinese cities

This paper documents the patterns of return migration and labor mobility constraints in China using two unique data: the 2017 China Household Finance Survey and a newly developed urban Hukou registration index. The size of return migrants is larger than that of migrants without local Hukou registration. Majority of return migrants move from more developed region back to their less developed home town where they have Hukou registration. Empirical results show that Hukou registration barrier, typically higher in more developed cities, leads to a higher probability of returning among low-skilled migrant workers, and such an effect only exits among migrants moving across provinces and migrants with rural Hukou.     

Who suffers from the COVID-19 shocks? Labor market heterogeneity and welfare consequences in Japan

Effects of the COVID-19 shocks in the Japanese labor market vary across workers of different age groups, genders, employment types, education levels, occupations, and industries. We document heterogeneous changes in employment and earnings in response to the COVID-19 shocks, observed in various data sources during the initial months after the onset of the pandemic in Japan. We then feed these shocks into a life-cycle model of heterogeneous agents to quantify welfare consequences of the COVID-19 shocks. In each dimension of the heterogeneity, the shocks are amplified for those who earned less prior to the crisis. Contingent workers are hit harder than regular workers, younger workers than older workers, females than males, and workers engaged in social and non-flexible jobs than those in ordinary and flexible jobs. The most severely hurt by the COVID-19 shocks has been a group of female, contingent, low-skilled workers, engaged in social and non-flexible jobs and without a spouse of a different group.     

我国实行交通拥堵费政策的可行性分析

随着我国社会经济的快速发展和城市化进程的加快,城市规模不断扩大,城市人口日益增多,选择小汽车出行的人数越来越多,交通拥堵问题也日渐明显,并逐渐成为部分大城市中的社会问题。文章以外部性理论、公共产品理论和时间价值理论为基础,探讨了我国部分大城市在将来的特定时间和条件下实行交通拥堵费政策的条件和制约因素。笔者认为城市要具备完善发达的公共交通系统、成熟的技术支撑等条件,才能在特定时间和特定路段征收交通拥堵费,以缓解交通拥堵的状况。     

长江下游城市群三生功能分异性研究

基于长江下游城市群三生功能体系,分析城市群空间分布特征及关联特性,研究发现：长江下游城市群三生功能差异显著,由核心城市向外围区域递减趋势明显,低值区域整体成片分布,空间呈现东高西低形态;长江下游城市群生产功能差距明显缩小,生活功能总体水平显著上升,核心城市生态功能拥有比较优势;长江下游城市群内生产功能联系更加紧密,生活功能联系显著增强,生态环境重视度逐渐提升。据此,从产业互补与集聚、宜居宜业环境、生态功能区域联动等方面提出针对性建议,以期促进长江下游城市群绿色可持续发展。     

The Hukou system's constraints on migrant workers' job mobility in Chinese cities

Most studies on discrimination against migrants in Chinese cities focus on wage differentials. This paper endeavours to develop an alternative way of explaining the institutional discrimination against migrants by studying workers' job mobility rates in three cities: Beijing, WuXi and Zhuhai. Migrants are commonly perceived to have high occupational mobility; however, Cox proportional hazards regressions in this paper show a different picture. Institutional discrimination reduces the number of jobs available to the migrants, increases their job search costs and the cost of losing jobs. Even though migrants take jobs unacceptable to local residents, the effects of this institutional discrimination still constrain migrants in changing jobs. The regressions show that temporary migrants have longer job durations and shorter unemployment durations than local people or permanent migrants. Moreover, migrants start to change jobs more often only after they have stayed in the city for some time and have accumulated enough assets to be able to survive when unemployed.     

高职院校大学生就业能力现状及原因探析

高校毕业生就业已成为一个社会性难题。现在社会上经常出现企业找不到合适人才、毕业生找不到合适工作的结构性问题。从就业能力的内涵入手,找出影响大学生就业能力的三个关键指标;比照关键指标的内容,反观高职院校大学生就业能力现状;分析现状产生的原因。     

Fertility and old-age labor supply in aging China

This paper studies the fertility and old-age labor supply decisions of Chinese households along with the relaxation of fertility control and a rise in life expectancy. We first build an overlapping-generations model, where agents make endogenous fertility and old-age labor supply decisions in the presence of fertility constraint. In our model, children serve as an alternative saving technology since they provide intra-family transfer for their old-age parents. Our analytical results suggest that the impact of rising life expectancy on fertility depends on whether children are more like consumption goods or saving vehicles. Relaxing fertility control would induce more leisure in the old age, while a rise in life expectancy would lead to more old-age labor supply. We then calibrate the model to Chinese economy and find that a rise in life expectancy would discourage fertility as intra-family transfer becomes less important. In addition, the implementation of two-children policy rather than full relaxation of fertility control, a rise in child-rearing cost, and an expansion of social security would also reduce fertility, partly offsetting the effects of relaxing one-child policy.     

Social networks,job satisfaction and job searching behavior in the Chinese labor market

This study first investigates determinants of job searching strategies and then examines if social networks are connected with better job outcomes. Unlike previous studies that focus solely on income, this paper pays more heed to job satisfaction. Based on data drawn from China General Social Survey, we find that disadvantaged job seekers rely primarily on informal channels; whereas experienced and better-educated job seekers tend to search for jobs through formal channels. However, those reaping the largest benefit from using networks are the job seekers who are able to use formal and informal channels jointly. By disaggregating the whole sample, we further find that the promoting effect of network use is contingent on factors such as gender and types of jobs. Network use brings about larger benefits to female and job seekers target to prestigious occupations. Finally, it appears that whether a job seeker can receive influential help depends primarily on the social status of the contacts rather than their tie strength. The results of our paper thus urge us to examine the combination of different searching strategies rather than studying them separately.     

Child labor, family income, and the Uruguay Round

Conclusion We are no longer limited to qualitative discussions of the merits of a social clause in the GATT against child labor. Future debates should be in quantitative terms. Child labor can contribute up to 25 percent of family income-contributions that the ILO regards as critical to their survival. Child laborers have few alternatives if they lose their jobs as a result of a social clause on labor standards. It is reasonably clear that child labor falls away quickly with economic development. However, multilateral trade agreements against child labor such as those proposed for inclusion in the WTO (and ILO) do not promote economic development. The contrary is more likely to be the case: they may reduce the range of alternatives available to children and their parents as producers, consumers, and breadwinners in developing countries.