High speed broadband and the employment quality of rural migrant workers in China

Abstract

With the increasing progress of information and communication technology, the employment quality of the rural migrant population is an important yet less-investigated issue related to rural revitalisation in China. Using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper examines the effect of the broadband speed increase on the employment quality of these migrant workers. We explore the effects of the ‘faster speed and lower rates’ policy implemented around 2015 and the variations in remote work flexibility across industries for model identification and causal inference. Results show that the upgrading of broadband and mobile internet services improves the wage rate and reduces overtime work. At the same time, such policy increases the proportion of wage earners and reduces the proportion of the self-employed, which suggests the potential improvement in working stability. After excluding other mechanisms, the flexibility of working modes appears to be an important channel to explain the findings. In specific, the comprehensive index of employment quality increases by 0.49% for each standard deviation increment in the remote working index. The estimates are larger among the younger, female, and more educated population.