A study on the income gap between urban household registrants and rural migrant workers from the perspective of occupational stratification

Abstract

This chapter combines the research framework of sociology and economics with the theory of labor market segmentation and occupational stratification to analyze the income gap between the registered urban population and migrant workers. It analyzes the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the income gap between the urban household registered population and migrant workers in order to analyze the overall income gap. The existence of occupational stratification means that the current Chinese labor market is selectively open to migrant workers. In a planned economy, the urban-rural dual division brought about by the household registration system has led to widespread institutional discrimination against the rural labor force in the labor market. As China’s economic development enters a new normal characterized by a focus on industrial restructuring, it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain an export-dependent economic model that relies on cheap labor as a comparative advantage.