9. Wage Arrears and Discrimination against Migrant Workers in China’s Urban Labor Market

Abstract

The higher returns to labor in nonagricultural sectors in China motivated farmers to migrate out of agriculture. Since the 1980s, China has implemented, to varying degrees, reforms in different social and economic systems that are aimed at dividing up the urban and rural labor markets. Rural-to-urban migrant workers, as the late-comers of the urban labor market, face different treatment from their urban counterparts. A survey on migrant workers conducted in Beijing in 2001 shows that about 24 percent of interviewees have suffered from wage arrears or wage deduction. Earnings differential between migrant workers and urban workers is a very important question in the context of Chinas economic development. With the development of Chinas urban labor market, the discrimination against migrant workers has decreased in some degree. The econometric analysis tells us that migrant workers from construction are more likely to suffer from wage arrears than those from other sectors. Keywords: Chinas urban labor market; labor market discrimination; migrant workers; wage arrears