Wages For Migrant Workers Research Articles

Great gulf heist

The following is a commentary by Rejimon Kuttappan, author of Undocumented: Stories of Indian Migrants in the Arab GulfPenguin 2021, on the wages of migrant workers in the Gulf countries, specifically in Qatar. Wage theft can be defined as non-payment for overtime; denying workers their last pay cheque after they leave a job; not paying for all of the hours worked; not paying minimum wages; not paying a worker at all, and not adhering to the terms of the contract. Wage theft was occurring pre-COVID-19. However, it became more visible during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Influence of Political Capital on Peasants’ Migration Behavior and Its Implications

This study examined the influence of political capital on the migration behavior of peasant households in China’s equitable urbanization. While existing research has proven that political capital can increase the wages of migrant workers, leading to a higher possibility of their rural-to-urban migration, the direct impact of political capital on migration behavior has not received sufficient attention. As China is one of the largest emerging economies, the impact of political capital on the economy and political transformation is typical. This paper reports a survey of 1120 farmer households from Xinxiang, a traditional agricultural area in central China. Using a binary logit model to test whether peasant households will migrate and a multinomial logit model to test where they will migrate to, this study examined whether political capital had a significant influence on the migration behavior of peasant households. The results suggest that the peasant households with political capital have a higher possibility of moving to urban areas, even though there is a better habitational option, namely, a new village in the local rural area. This suggests that reducing the difference in the political capital of migrants through policy propaganda and other methods is an efficient and effective way to achieve and improve equitable access to urbanization.

Institutional Design and Incentives for Migrant Workers to Participate in Social Insurance in China: Evidence From a Policy Experiment in Chengdu City.

Rural-to-urban migration has increased rapidly in China since the early 1980s, with the number of migrants has reached 376 million by 2020. Despite this sharp trend and the significant contributions that migrants have made to urban development, the migrant workers have had very limited access to the social insurance that the majority of urban workers enjoy. Against the background of the social insurance system adjustment in Chengdu in 2011, this study uses a difference-in-differences (DID) model to empirically test the impacts of changes in the social insurance policy contribution rates on the social insurance participation rates of migrant workers, using the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) data for 2009–2016. We find that the social insurance participation rate of migrant workers was significantly reduced after they were incorporated into the urban worker insurance system. There was no significant change in the wages of migrant workers, but the working hours were increased and their consumption level decreased. In other words, simply changing the social insurance model of migrant workers from “comprehensive social insurance” to “urban employee insurance” reduces the incentives for migrant workers to participate in insurance and harms the overall welfare of migrant workers. Our study indicates that the design of the social security policy is an important reason for the lower participation rate of migrants. It is necessary to solve the problem of insufficient incentives through the targeted social security policies; primarily, the formulation of a social security policy contribution rate suitable for the migrants, and the establishment of a comprehensive social security policy and the gradual integration of the social security system.

Labor Dispute Resolution and Migrant Workers’ Legal Rights Protection in China

The formal labor dispute resolution system of administrative organs, arbitration tribunal and courts which have been established to handle labor disputes remains an ineffective tool for migrant workers to resolve their disputes with their employers in China. Moreover, experience has exemplified that among the mediation style, non-official mediators have proven to be more effective in settling cases and helping migrant workers than mediators within the formal system. Taking “Little Bird,” a famous NGO for migrant workers rights protection in China, as an example, this article focuses on the problem of arrears in wages of migrant workers from a sociological-legal perspective. This article argues that the current legal system in China fails to adequately protect the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers and that informal mediation may help resolve disputes between migrant workers and employers more efficiently. The effectiveness of NGO’s role in handling labor disputes as well as its limitations, would also be analyzed and discussed.

Wage increases, wage convergence, and the Lewis turning point in China

We examine the wage trends of ordinary workers and the wage convergence between unskilled and skilled workers in China. First, we find that wages in all non-agricultural sectors, wages of migrant workers, and wages of hired workers in the agricultural sector have increased dramatically since 2003. Second, through comparing wage differentials between migrant and urban resident workers and between heterogeneous education groups within migrant workers, and by investigating the changes in the contribution of the returns to education to wage differentials, we find that the wages of unskilled and skilled workers have converged. Both the increasing wage trends and wage convergence are interpreted as evidence supporting the hypothesis that China has passed what can be called the Lewis turning point in the industrial sector. We conclude that the sustainability of economic growth in China requires an upgrading of labor market institutions to accommodate the merging of the rural and urban labor forces.

Wages for migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta: determining factors1

本文通过对珠江三角洲农民工问卷调查资料的回归分析， 试图检验在市场转型下的企业 制度和社会环境对农民工工资的影响。研究发现， 人力资本中的教育年限、本企业工龄等变 量对农民工工资有显著的正向影响， 年龄和性别也有显著影响；企业制度中的工种对工资有 显著影响， 表现出明显的等级性。企业所属行业、规模和企业性质对工资没有显著影响， 是 否签订劳动合同和缺工情况同样如此。社会资本变量和社会环境变量对农民工工资水平没有 显著影响。文章由此认为， 农民工的工资是处于分割的二元劳动力市场一端， 是高度市场化 的， 缺乏企业内部劳动力市场或晋升机制， 也少受劳动力市场用工情况变化影响， 没有地区 性差异， 是一个实实在在的、刚性的低工资。 1. The main content of this article was published under the title: “Peasant‐worker wages: human capital, social capital, enterprise systems or social environment – determining models for Pearl River Delta peasant‐worker wages” in Sociological studies (社会学研究, 2007, no. 6, Beijing). This research received support from the 2005 China National Philosophy and Social Science Fund (05&ZD034) and the Sun Yat‐sen University Second 985 “Public Management and Social Development” Philosophy and Social Science Innovative Research Fund. This article attempts to examine the effect of the enterprise system and social environment under conditions of market transition on the wages of migrant workers using regression analysis of Pearl River Delta migrant worker survey data. The research found that among human capital variables, educational level and length of employment in their present firms have a significant positive effect on the wages of migrant workers, while age and gender also have a significant effect; among enterprise system variables, the type of work also significantly influences wages, demonstrating clear stratification. Industry, scale and firm type do not significantly influence wages, regardless of labor contract or labor supply status. Social capital variables and social environmental factors do not have a significant effect on peasant‐worker wage levels. The article therefore concludes that migrant worker wages are highly marketized and are at one extreme of a segmented dual labor market. They lack intra‐firm labor markets and promotion mechanisms, are little influenced by changes in labor market conditions, and show no regional variations. They represent low wages of an extreme rigidity.