| By: |
Meng, Xin (Australian National University);
Zhang, Dandan (Australian National University) |
| Abstract: |
Hundreds of millions of rural migrants have moved into Chinese cities since
the early 1990s contributing greatly to economic growth, yet, they are often
blamed for reducing urban 'native' workers’ employment opportunities,
suppressing their wages and increasing pressure on infrastructure and other
public facilities. This paper examines the causal relationship between
rural-urban migration and urban native workers' labour market outcomes in
Chinese cities. After controlling for the endogeneity problem our results show
that rural migrants in urban China have modest positive or zero effects on the
average employment and insignificant impact on earnings of urban workers. When
examine the impact on unskilled labours we once again find it to be positive
and insignificant. We conjecture that the reason for the lack of adverse
effects is due partially to the labour market segregation between the migrants
and urban natives, and partially due to the complementarities between the two
groups of workers. Further investigation reveals that the increase in migrant
inflow is related to the demand expansion and that if the economic growth
continues, elimination of labour market segregation may not necessarily lead
to an adverse impact of migration on urban native labour market outcomes. |
| Keywords: |
migration, native labour market outcomes, China |
| JEL: |
J80 J45 |
| Date: |
2010–10 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5288&r=cna |