Occupational Segmentation and Huji Discrimination on Rural and Urban Migrants：An Analysis Based on the Age Difference

Abstract

Considering the heterogeneity among migrants, this thesis divides migrants into groups by every five years and utilizes China Migrants Dynamic Survey in 2016 to examine age-specific issues regarding huji discrimination from the perspective of occupational segregation. According to the study, a U-shaped characteristic of huji discrimination among different age groups has been detected, with rural migrants born between 1970 and 1989 suffering the least degree of huji discrimination, and those born before 1970 and after 1990 suffering the worst. An analysis of huji discrimination has revealed that the U-shaped characteristic has mainly stemmed from U-shaped shifts of unequal pay for equal work, with rural migrants born between 1970 and 1989 suffering the least degree, and those born before 1970 and after 1990 suffering the worst. And occupation entry discrimination decreases significantly as the workforce gets younger, which means the younger the rural migrants are, the less occupation entry discrimination they face. The further mechanism analysis shows that the U-shaped characteristic of unequal pay for equal work within occupations is from the wage preference of urban migrants, with urban migrants born between 1970 and 1989 receiving less wage preference, and those born before 1970 and after 1990 receiving more. Although the phenomenon of wage penalty imposed on rural migrants still exists, its impact is relatively small from the view of numerical value and there is no manifest trend in age. Occupation entry discrimination is mainly expressed by occupation entry preference of urban migrants, and the declining trend of occupation entry discrimination also originates from the downward trend of occupation entry preference of urban migrants. Overall, the younger the urban migrants are, the less occupation entry preference will be. Also, there is no direct occupation entry discrimination against rural migrants in the urban labor market. Occupation entry penalties are all negative in different age groups. Although occupation entry penalties for rural migrants fluctuate in different age groups, they differ not much. In the further discussion, it finds that occupation entry preference to urban migrants is mainly reflected in the fact that the proportion of white-collar occupations is higher than that of non-discrimination. The declining occupation entry preference to urban migrants also stems from the declining entry preference of white-collar occupations along with the age increasing. The results of the paper show that the current huji discrimination is more manifested as employment preference for urban migrants. The policy implications are: we should pay attention to the age difference and the form change of huji discrimination, adopt more competitive differentiation measures to attract talents, and achieve the full flow of talents and the optimal allocation of social labor resources through marketization.