Contrasting paradigms: segmentation and competitiveness in the formation of the chinese labour market

An urban labour market is in the process of being formed in China. The objective of this paper is to analyse the stage that it has reached. A 1999 household survey is used to investigate whether the labour market has three tiers comprised of recently retrenched and re-employed urban workers, non-retrenched urban workers, and rural–urban migrants. It tests whether wage levels and structures differ across these categories of worker. Panel data are used to model the evolution of the wage structure and, specifically, the impact of retrenchment and re-employment. The results indicate that non-retrenched urban workers enjoy a wage premium, although migrants receive similar returns to education. Re-employed workers receive no return to education and appear to have lost out on the wage rises enjoyed by the non-retrenched. There is evidence to suggest that the urban labour market is segmented into these categories, which differ in their openness to market competition. The urban labour market has a long way to go before it is fully competitive.     

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS ON THE URBAN–RURAL DISPARITY IN HUMAN CAPITAL IN CHINA

With China's economic development and capital accumulation in the industrial sectors, the human capital level of the labours moving from the rural areas could no longer meet the demand of the industrial sectors. Therefore, “structural shortage of technical labour” emerged in the labour market as a result of excess of demand for high‐skilled workers. Previous literature mostly focused on the relationship between rural human‐capital level and labour movement, income change and economic growth, but in this article, the authors focus on the study of the relative disparity of urban and rural human capital and labour movement, as well as the effect of the change of urban–rural human capital gap on industrial output, profit and social welfare. This article shows that bridging the urban–rural gap in respect of human capital level could not only improve the situation of the “structural shortage of technical labour,” but also have a positive effect on the general social welfare.     

Unemployment in LDCs: Worker heterogeneity, screening, and quantity constraints

Unemployment in many less developed countries is characterized by a significant urban-rural wage differential coexisting with high urban unemployment. This may be consistent with optimization when there is imperfect information about a worker's ability, and abilities are heterogeneous. Firms know only the average quality of workers in the labour pool. High urban wages induce immigration of workers from rural areas, improving the average quality of the urban labour pool which has been depleted of high ability workers by previous screening. Hence, both sides of the market way find high non-market-clearing wages optimal. Quantity constraints from imperfect capital markets may strengthen this effect.     

马克思主义城乡关系理论与城乡公共服务均等化

马克思主义认为城乡分离与对立是生产力发展的必然结果,城乡对立会随着生产力的进一步发展而消失,随着私有制和阶级最终消除,社会生产力发展到一定高度,城乡会逐渐走向融合。本文探讨了城乡关系发展的规律和发展态势,分析了我国现阶段城乡关系发展现状及原因,论述了马克思主义城乡关系理论对推进城乡公共服务均等化的理论指导意义。论证了城乡公共服务均等化是符合马克思主义城乡发展规律的选择,同时也是我国城乡发展实际的选择。     

The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China

The paper examines the contentious issue of the extent of surplus labour that remains in China. China was an extreme example of a surplus labour economy, but the rapid economic growth during the period of economic reform requires a reassessment of whether the second stage of the Lewis model has been reached or is imminent. The literature is inconclusive. On the one hand, there are reports of migrant labour scarcity and rising migrant wages; on the other hand, estimates suggest that a considerable pool of relatively unskilled labour is still available in the rural sector. Yet the answer has far-reaching developmental and distributional implications. After reviewing the literature, the paper uses the 2002 and 2007 national household surveys of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to analyse and explain migrant wage behaviour, to predict the determinants of migration, and to examine the size and nature of the pool of potential rural–urban migrants. An attempt is also made to project the rural and urban labour force and migration forward to 2020, on the basis of the 2005 1% Population Survey. The paper concludes that for institutional reasons both phenomena are likely to coexist at present and for some time in the future.     

Has China run out of surplus labour?

Many recent studies claim that China has reached a Lewisian ‘turning point’ in economic development, signalled by rising wages in urban areas and the exhaustion of rural surplus labour. In this paper we show that despite some evidence of rising nominal urban unskilled wages between 2000 and 2009, there is little in the data to suggest that this wage increase has been caused by unskilled labour shortages. China still has abundant under-employed workers with very low income in the rural sector. We argue that China's unique institutional and policy-induced barriers to migration have both prevented many rural workers from migrating to cities and also reduced the migrants' length of stay. We project that under alternative institutional settings, the migrant stock could easily be doubled from the current 150 million to 300 million by increasing either the average length of migrant stay, or the migrant inflow, or both.     

加强城乡基本公共服务均等化制度建设是农民市民化的关键

中国城乡分割的二元结构一直是农民市民化的“瓶颈”,破解中国城镇化的难题是城乡统筹,但统筹城乡不能只统“土地”而不统“农民”,而是要以公平的方式为农民提供更多的公共服务,如廉价住房、基础教育、医疗、社保、就业和培训机会。文章认为,加强城乡基本公共服务均等化制度建设是实现农民市民化的关键,也是实现人的城镇化的关键。重点是要建立劳动力工资合理增长机制,促进农民工在城镇稳定就业;逐步实现基本公共服务由户籍人口向常住人口全覆盖;逐步突破户籍与福利合一的社会管理制度。     

China's new Labour Contract Law: No harm to employment?

In January 2008, China adopted a new labour contract law. This new law represents the most significant reform to the legislation on employment relations in mainland China in more than a decade. The paper provides a theoretical framework on the inter-linkages between labour market regulation, option value and the choice and timing of employment. All in all, the paper demonstrates that the Labour Contract Law in its own right will have only small impacts upon employment in the fast-growing Chinese economy. Rather, possibly induced increasing unit labour costs may adversely affect employment.     

Education and the labour market in Botswana

Using primary data from a 1993/4 Household Income and Expenditure Survey in Botswana, this article presents empirical results on occupational attainment, its determinants, and the extent of filtering down in Botswana's labour market, given changes in labour market conditions over time. It was found that the Botswana labour market has been characterised by some ‘filtering down’ of educated workers into less skilled jobs as the supply of skilled manpower exceeded demand. Those who entered the labour market earlier, those with more education, those located in the urban areas and male workers are more likely to occupy jobs that are higher up in the hierarchy than to be in an unskilled blue-collar job. Jobs higher up in the hierarchy are also more rewarding financially. The article shows that there is occupational segregation of workers by gender in Botswana's labour market in that female workers are generally confined to a narrow range of occupations. The policy implications are that employment creation has to be pursued vigorously and the issue of gender discrimination investigated further.     

Employees who do not know their labour contract term and the implications for working conditions: Evidence from Japanese and Spanish microdata

In this paper, we analyse the relationship between employees who do not know the length of their labour contract (hereafter, DNK employees) and working conditions. In developed countries, labour standards regulations generally require employers to provide a labour contract with a clearly defined duration to protect the fundamental rights of workers. However, the data reveal that in the developed countries on which we focus, Japan and Spain, non-negligible proportions of employees, 8% and 11%, respectively, do not know the duration of their labour contracts. Utilizing 2012 data from the Employment Status Survey for Japan and the Economically Active Population Survey for Spain, we find that whether workers are ignorant of their contract term commonly depends on their human capital level. Women, single people, younger and older workers and less-educated workers are more likely not to know their labour contract duration. Compared with other employees, DNK employees are more dissatisfied with their current job, more likely to search for other jobs and less likely to seek more work in their current jobs. We find that DNK employees suffer from a wage penalty for non-standard status and have less access to job training, as occurs in Japan, and that specific attributes, such as immigrant status, tend to be closely related to DNK status, as occurs in Spain. Overall, DNK employment is related to poor working conditions, which indicates the importance of educating workers about labour laws to maintain the welfare of disadvantaged workers.     

居民收入差距与财政政策的关联度

改革开放以来,我国城乡经济获得较大的发展,城乡居民的收入水平有了很大的提高,城乡关系也得到了逐步改善,但城乡居民收入差距过大问题依然存在。财政是政府发挥作用的重要方式和手段,有其不可替代的功能,在缩小城乡居民收入差距、促进农民增收过程中担负着重要使命。建议加大财政对农业的总量投入,优化财政支农资金结构,加大财政对农村公共品供给的投入,完善现行财政管理体制。     

Incentives versus equality: What does China's recent experience show?

Since 1978, China's economic policies have stressed differential rewards for higher productivity, particularly through the contract system in rural areas. This has permitted and encouraged some families to achieve relatively high incomes. However, there was considerable inequality in China before 1978, particularly the persistent and wide disparity between urban and rural incomes. The economic reform has had some tendency to increase slightly the share of income received by the very top group and to reduce slightly the share of the bottom one-third. However, the principal effects have been to raise total income for most residents and to reduce substantially the urban-rural gap.     

保障失地农民权益的政策建议

城市化进程中,失地农民权益保障还存在一些问题,如失地农民没有得到土地市场化的增值收益、就业难及社会保障体系不健全等.原因有土地管理和征收制度存在缺陷,城市化与工业化发展不协调,城乡二元经济结构等.要从根本上解决失地农民的权益保障问题,必须让失地农民参与分享土地市场化的增值性收益,建立有效的就业保障机制和完善的社会保障体系,让失地农民分享城乡之间均等的公共产品供给,实现城乡兼顾的包容性增长.     

Rural Industrialization: A comparison of development planning in China and India

This paper attempts to show the very considerable differences in rural industry promotion and development in China and India. Both countries have a rural industrial sector with employment levels in the region of 20 million. Overall figures and characteristics are compared and contrasted. The Chinese planners stress skill formation and the development of regional industrial structures while employment per se is emphasized in India. This has considerable consequences for urban–rural relations, which are specifically discussed in the Chinese context. Finally, the paper shows how the expansion of the rural industrial sector enables the consolidation of the collective economy at a higher level and thus assists the implementation of socialist transformation.     

浅析中国城镇失业认识的三大误区

我国经过20多年的经济体制改革,计划经济正迅速地向市场经济转变,由于中国特有的人口包袱、改革前国企所沉淀的大量隐性失业人员、大批农村剩余劳动力,再加上产业结构调整所带来的结构性失业等,使失业问题变得十分严峻。当失业率超过了一定的限度时,其结果必将影响社会的稳定     

以人为本原则是中国城镇化的科学选择

城镇化需要贯彻什么原则?以资本为本的城镇化原则属于非科学发展,这与盲目追求经济增长政绩、强化地方政府土地财政有关。以规模扩张解决城镇化"滞后于"工业化的依据已不存在,城乡关系调节的重心已不在城镇化。"以人为本"的城镇化原则,符合马克思主义消灭城乡差别思想的精华——消灭人的发展上的差别,体现消灭城镇化当中产生新的社会成员不平等、造就新一代农业劳动者、兼顾从民生角度摆正城市发展等的使命和原则。中国城镇化要在科学导向下作出一系列正确选择,包括指导思想、依托、总格局、人口城镇化方式,应推进城乡一体化、促进非农产业城乡交融、由农民主导的城镇化。     

东北三省城乡一体化面临的主要问题及对策研究

近年来,东北三省城乡一体化建设成效显著,然而,城镇化进程缓慢、农业比较劳动生产率低、农村固定资产投资不足、农村公共事业发展滞后仍然是进一步推进城乡一体化面临的主要问题,而破解这些问题的关键在于打破城乡分割的体制结构,实现城乡规划、产业、基础设施、公共服务、市场机制和管理体制的一体化。文章在分析东北三省城乡一体化建设面,临主要问题的基础上,提出了建设城乡全面覆盖的规划体系、统筹城乡产业发展、建立覆盖城乡的公共财政体制等加快推进东北三省城乡一体化建设的对策建议。     

Reinterpreting the convict labour market

The convicts transported to NSW between 1817 and 1840 were young, fit, highly literate and brought occupational skills which were broadly representative of the British and Irish working classes. In the colonial labour market where convicts were coerced, more labour was forthcoming and at a lower wage than in a free labour market. The assignment of convict labour in the colony was efficient; skilled urban and construction tradesmen were employed in the same jobs in NSW as they had held in Britain. Domestic servants and unskilled urban workers whose skills were not suited to the needs of the colony experienced job restructuring. The organization of convict workers into teams and gangs in Australia was similar to the way work was organized in free labour Britain, and a mbc of incentives and rewards characterized the extraction of work from convicts. The human capital of the transportees and the labour system within which they worked help to explain the rapid growth of the colonial economy before 1840.     

我国城乡一体化的动力体系研究

城乡一体化是新形势下解决“三农”问题的根本途径,对深入贯彻落实科学发展观有重要的现实意义。城乡一体化的动力机制是城乡一体化研究的核心,通过城乡一体化动力机制的研究,明确推动城乡一体化的各项动因,有助于制定推动城乡一体化的政策,为各地城乡一体化发展提供理论和实践指导。城乡一体化的动力机制主要包括产业发展、城乡利益差别、政府利益驱动、政府制度、信息化等,它们共同推动了城乡一体化的发展。