MIGRATION,LABOR MARKET FLEXIBILITY,AND WAGE DETERMINATION IN CHINA: A REVIEW

This paper reviews economic studies on rural‐urban migration issues in China. The paper focuses on four issues: the household registration system in China, the profile of the migrants, explanations for rural‐to‐urban migration, and the interaction between migration and labor market evolution, with special reference to labor market segregation, labor market flexibility, and wage differentials. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research topics.     

Decomposing wage differentials between migrant workers and urban workers in urban China's labor markets

This paper looks at wage discrimination faced by China's rural–urban migrants. Using data from the China Urban Labour Survey, it uses standard wage decomposition techniques to measure the extent wage gaps between migrants and locals are attributable to migration. Because the survey covers five cities, the results allow for an investigation regarding how much variation in discrimination there is. Unlike previous studies of wage discrimination in China, this research includes a more full measure of remuneration by including non-financial benefits as well as bonuses earned. The results suggest that migrants still face a significant amount of discrimination, but that this varies a lot between cities.     

Did children's education matter? Family migration as a mechanism of human capital investment: evidence from nineteenth‐century Bohemia

This article analyses the rural–urban migration of families in the Bohemian region of Pilsen in 1900. Using a new 1,300‐family dataset from the 1900 population census, the role of children's education in rural–urban migration is examined. The findings indicate that families migrated to the city such that the educational attainment of their children would be maximized, and that there is a positive correlation between family migration and children being apprentices in urban areas. The results suggest that rural–urban migration was powered not only by the exploitation of rural–urban wage gaps but also by aspirations to engage in human capital investment.     

Where are the migrants from? Inter- vs. intra-provincial rural-urban migration in China

Using a representative sample of rural migrants in cities, this paper investigates where the migrants in urban China come from, paying close attention to intra-provincial vs. inter-provincial migrants, and examining the differences in their personal attributes. We find that migrants who have come from within the province differ significantly from those who have come from outside of the province. Using a nested logit model, we find that overall, higher wage differentials, larger population size, higher GDP per capita, and faster employment growth rate are the attributes of a city that attract rural-to-urban migrants. In addition, moving beyond one's home province has a strong deterrent effect on migration, analogous to the “border effect” identified in international migration studies. We also explore the role of culture, institutional barriers, and dialect in explaining such a pronounced “border effect”.     

Migrants and urban wage: Evidence from China's internal migration

Using China's 2005 1% population survey, this paper examines the wage impact on urban workers of rural to urban migration. We find that, on average, migrants increase the wages of urban workers, with the effect being magnified for more skilled urban workers. This suggests that migrants with skills similar to those of urban workers may complement them. We explore the possible channels of these effects. From the supply perspective, we find that migration inflows accelerate the occupational upgrading of urban workers, especially for low- and medium-skilled workers. From a demand perspective, as the share of migrants in the urban labor force increases, the number and output of industrial firms also increase, and firms become more reliant on low-skilled workers. The more migrants in a city, the greater the available employees for industrial firms, particularly for low-skilled employees. However, the effects on high-skilled firms are much smaller or insignificant. In addition, we find that migrants have little impact on firms' capital-labor and capital-output ratios. This suggests that firms can expand through capital adjustments to absorb inexpensive migrants, which alleviates the possible negative impact of migrants on the urban labor market.     

Off‐farm wage returns to education: Evidence from Lesotho

This article presents estimates of off‐farm wage returns to education in rural areas of Lesotho. Results from a sample survey conducted in the northern Lowlands and Foothills of Lesotho indicate that returns to education are relatively higher for people wage‐employed in Lesotho than those wage‐employed as migrants in South Africa. For people working within Lesotho, education appears to have a significant and positive effect on off‐farm wages. Most people working within Lesotho are employed as teachers, nurses and civil servants and these job categories require an educated labour force. For people wage‐employed in South Africa, education appears not to have a significant effect on off‐farm wages. Most men working in South Africa are employed as labourers in mines while women working in South Africa are employed as domestic servants.     

Wage differentials between urban and rural-urban migrant workers in China

Since the end of the 1980s, the number of migrants working in the urban labor market has increased dramatically. However, migrant workers are treated differently from urban workers. In this paper we examine the labor market discrimination against rural migrants from the point of view of wage differentials using CHIP-2007 data. We apply Jann pooled method to deal with index number problem and use Heckman two step model to correct selection problem when decomposing the wage gap. The decomposition results show that a significant difference in wage gains persists between the two groups as late as 2007. In 2007 migrants only earned 49% of urban workers' income and 17% of the wage gap cannot be explained by observed factors. In detail, differences in educational attainment, work experience and distribution across industry, occupation, and ownership of enterprises account for most of the explained wage gap.     

Return Migration from Nineteenth Century Australia: Key Drivers and Gender Differences

This paper sheds new light on return migration from Australia to the UK in the latter nineteenth century. It uses data from shipping records, and from a random sample of the 23,000 Australian‐born in the 1911 Census of England and Wales. Based on these sources, it estimates some 20% of migrants to Australia returned: higher among the wealthy, but still 12% of semi‐ and unskilled working class migrants returned. There was a preponderance of women among returnees. From that, and other evidence such as the geographic spread of returnees across England, the paper argues that social networks played critical roles in decisions to return.     

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.     

二元结构下我国城镇劳动力市场中的性别工资差异研究

文章利用CHIP2002和CHIP2013数据,采用基于RIF无条件分位数回归的分解法,比较了不同时间维度和不同分位数水平上,我国农民工和城镇职工的性别工资差距及其形成机理。研究结果表明：第一,我国城镇劳动力市场中的性别工资差距不断扩大,其中农民工的性别工资差距全方位扩大,且低分位数上的增速最快,致使2013年其各分位数上的性别工资差距超过城镇职工。其中,低收入城镇职工与中等收入农民工群体的性别工资差距及其来源具有相似特征。第二,系数效应是造成城镇职工和农民工性别工资差异的主要因素,两个群体的性别歧视均有所增强。但与城镇职工相比,农民工群体的性别歧视较大且增速较快。由于低收入群体中性别歧视的快速增长,城镇劳动力市场中遭受性别歧视最严重的群体由2002年的高收入的城镇女性职工和高收入的女性农民工,转变为2013年中等收入的女性农民工和低收入的城镇女性职工。第三,尽管针对中高收入城镇女性职工的市场前歧视和市场歧视均有所弱化,但低收入的城镇女性人力资本水平及其回报率仍低于同类男性,呈现与女性农民工相似的特点。上述结果意味着,城镇劳动力市场中不同户籍、不同收入水平的女性,遭受着不同程度的性别歧视,应针对不同群体采用差别化的性别干预政策。     

Constructing migration: Infrastructure,poverty and development in KwaZulu‐Natal

Migration and population movement are probably the most neglected of the significant dynamics behind rural poverty in South Africa. Little is known about how people move from place to place, and much of what we thought we knew may be incorrect. In KwaZulu‐Natal job search is no longer the single dominating reason given for migration. Instead, infrastructure ties with it for first place today, with land close behind. The first article in this two‐part report notes that as many as two thirds of the province's disadvantaged families have broken away from their communities of origin and moved at least once during their lifetimes. Perhaps three million have migrated in the last fifteen years. A second unexpected finding is the predominance of rural‐to‐rural migration. Three quarters of all moves recorded were rural to rural, with many orientated towards advantaged rural areas around small towns and secondary cities. Results show how streams are channelled towards poverty or opportunity, and argue for a review of prevailing concepts of rural‐urban relations which structure delivery efforts. The second article, to follow later, notes that recorded income levels are now higher in some rural destination areas than in the urban shack communities that accommodate rural‐to‐urban migrants. Results of various studies presented show how access to information affects migration patterns, and the article also explores the role of infrastructure as a determining force in the regional distribution of population and as a factor in people's own bootstrap anti‐poverty efforts.     

‘Real’ wages? Contractors,workers, and pay in London building trades, 1650–1800

Existing series suggest wages in London were higher than in other European cities from 1650 to 1800. This article presents new evidence from the construction sites that supplied the underlying wage data, and uncovers the contractual and organizational context in which they were recorded. Institutional records of wages were profoundly affected by structural changes in the seventeenth century, particularly the emergence of large‐scale building contractors. The actual wages paid to London building workers were substantially below current estimates.     

Glass ceiling effect in urban China: Wage inequality of rural-urban migrants during 2002–2007

The paper studies the levels and changes in wage inequality among Chinese rural-urban migrants during 2002–2007. Using data from two waves of national household surveys, we find that wage inequality among migrants decreased significantly between 2002 and 2007. Our analysis on the wage distribution further shows that the high-wage migrants experienced slower wage growth than middle- and low-wage migrants—a primary cause of declining inequality of migrants. By using distributional decomposition methods based on quantile regression, we find that an overall between-group effect dominates in the whole wage distribution, which means that the change in returns to the characteristics (education, experience and other employment characteristics) plays a key role, but on the upper tails of the wage distribution, the within group effect (residual effect) dominates, implying that the unobservable factors or institutional barriers do not favor the migrants at the top tail of the wage distribution. We also study wage differential between migrants and urban natives, and find that though the wage gap is narrowed, the gap at the upper wage distribution is becoming bigger. Overall, the results suggest that there exists a strong “glass ceiling” for migrants in the urban labor market.     

Modeling the age and age composition of late 19th century U.S. immigrants from Europe

Using panel data on 12 European source countries that are followed for 26 years (1873-1898), this paper studies age-specific emigration rates and the age composition of U.S. immigration. Two age groups are the focus of attention, 15-40 and over 40. Emigration-rate models and compositional models that satisfy adding-up conditions are estimated by the Hausman-Taylor Instrumental Variable approach. Younger migrants responded more strongly to job opportunities than to wage differentials, whereas older migrants responded more strongly to wage differentials. Both age groups tended to follow recent past migrants to the U.S. Relatively many younger (and relatively fewer older) migrants came from countries with higher percentages of their work forces in agriculture. Higher source-country birthrates discouraged younger migrants, presumably by raising the cost of family migration.     

Perceptions of return migration and rural development: A case study of migrant views prior to the lifting of influx control measures∗

Until recently circulatory migration was entrenched in legislation controlling the influx control of labour to South African centres of employment. Research conducted among urban‐based male migrants in 1983/84 revealed that a majority held an ideal conception of migration which was consistent with the prescribed pattern of that period. Subjects’ projections of successful return migration was typically conservative rather than innovative or development‐oriented. However, research results intimated that landless migrants would contemplate deviation from the circular pattern of migration. The conclusion is drawn that South African labour migrancy may undergo a major shift in paradigm in future, particularly in areas where rural resources are overstressed. These conclusions gain new significance in the light of the recent abolition of influx control legislation.     

Rural–urban migration and urbanization in China: Evidence from time-series and cross-section analyses

Since 1978, China has experienced a rapid and unprecedented process of urbanization, created by the history's largest flow of rural–urban migration in the world. This article attempts (a) to assess the role of the cityward migration in China's urbanization in 1978–1999 and (b) to empirically investigate factors behind the migration boom with time-series and cross-section data. We find that (a) rural–urban migration made dominant contributions to Chinese urban population growth; (b) while moving together with the Chinese economy, the causal link runs from economic growth to migration, not vice versa; (c) interprovince migrants were encouraged by the rural–urban income gap and discouraged by their geographic distances to destinations; and (d) the amount of intraprovince migrants is positively related to rural–urban income gap and urban population in that province.     

Migrants’ self‐selection in the early stages of modern economic growth,Spain (1880–1930)

Drawing on a large database from the register of inhabitants of Madrid, this article confirms that the literacy levels of internal migrants moving to the Spanish capital city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were higher than that of those who remained in their provinces of origin. This article also explores the different factors influencing the nature and intensity of the selection process. The empirical exercise stresses that the stock of previous migration was a fundamental factor in allowing less literate individuals to join the migration process as well. Interestingly, distance to Madrid hardly affected the profile of male migrants, but it was a strong influence on female migration, although its importance diminished over time. Lastly, the results presented here show that other internal destinations were attracting different types of migrants, often resulting in negative self‐selection.     

Domestic service,gender, and wages in rural England,c.1700–18601

Domestic service was a vital occupational sector in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—particularly for women. This article uses a new series of wage observations from across England, focusing on rural areas. Analysis of the dataset shows that wages paid to servants in rural England slightly increased over the period considered, but at uneven rates dependent on region and precise occupation of servant. The majority of servants, particularly maids, did not experience any significant increase in the wages they were paid. This article also shows a widening wage gap between male and female servants. When differences between regions were analysed, it was shown that the wages paid to servants did not match the model of the north becoming the high wage zone of England by the mid‐nineteenth century, although rates of growth there were the highest. For servants the south generally remained an area of higher wages even in the mid‐nineteenth century. Geography was probably not the key variable in determining wage levels. The type of household in which a servant was employed was more important than where it was located. The most important variables were the servants' gender, and their occupations in the household.     

Cohort-specific rural-urban migration in Africa

"Rural-urban migration has been modeled by both demographers and economists since the 1960s. Little regard has been given by either discipline for the other's models.... The purpose of this paper is to address this void in the African context. We examine three hypotheses: (1) that variables explaining the net urban in-migration rates vary with the age of the migrants; (2) that changes in the availability of services in urban areas [are] a factor in migration; and (3) that cohort structures (age pyramids) are also part of the explanation."