Abstract
With the reforms of the Chinese economy, an enormous new moving population of rural-urban migrants is transforming the rural and urban labor force. Expected rural-urban income differences are used instead of absolute income diversity, namely the migrant is motivated by predictable income streams over time rather than by current earnings. Also, the employment opportunity is not exclusive determinant for rural-urban migration and some factors from both rural and urban sectors should be taken into account. The relationship between urban resident and rural migrant employment is consistent with the existence of continued labor market segmentation. It is also the increasing competition between the two groups. Meanwhile, many evidences indicate that there are two simultaneous phenomena which are surplus labor in rural areas and rising rural migrant wages in urban areas.
Highlights
With the increase in the demand for labor in urban areas, China’s economic reforms have led to rural-to-urban labor migration that is unparalleled in scale
To the extent that this research is exploratory, result of this study provide insights into the importance of recognizing causes and implication of the new rural-urban labor mobility in China
Incentives and causes of rural-to-urban migration in China can be represented in terms of urban and rural sector, including the effect of household responsibility system, less profitable conditions and surplus labor in agriculture, growing income gap between urban and rural residents as well as magnetic city
Summary
With the increase in the demand for labor in urban areas, China’s economic reforms have led to rural-to-urban labor migration that is unparalleled in scale. Depending on the neoclassical model, more previous researches focus on exploring the massive rural-urban internal migration proceeding in China (Seeborg, Jin & Zhu 2000). They argue that huge new floating population in China’s urban regions can provide urban development vitality by means of affording required labor for current explosion of urban construction and service industry (ibid). Two phenomena like concurrent surplus labor in rural areas and migrant labor shortage in urban areas are considered a puzzle. It is worth exploring the interpretation through more research
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