Opening to the outside world, Industrial upgrading and Labor market integration: An empirical study of Chinese data from the perspective of enterprise ownership structure

Abstract

Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper studies the impact of opening to the outside world on labor market integration under the mechanism of industrial structure upgrading from the perspective of enterprise ownership structure. The findings are as follows: (1) the increase in opening to the outside world significantly reduces the average wage gap and employment gap between state-owned and non-state-owned sectors, which contributes to the integration of the Chinese labor market; (2) The level of opening to the outside world has a significant effect on the upgrading of industrial structure, industrial upgrading is a mechanism of opening to the outside world affecting our labor market integration; (3) The effect of the level of opening to the outside world on labor market integration has obvious regional characteristics. The findings of this paper have important implications for understanding the relationship between opening to the outside world and labor market integration from the perspective of different enterprise ownership structures and the mechanism of industrial structure upgrading.