In Search of a Better Life: The Occupational Attainment of Rural and Urban Migrants in China

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper investigates the occupational attainment and job mobility of permanent ruralto-urban migrants and compares them with migrants who were born with an urban hukou.Using data from the 2003 China General Social Survey, we examine how much of the gaps in occupational-prestige scores between rural-and urban-born migrants can be explained by differences in observable characteristics up to the time of migration. We find that, with controls for these characteristics, the difference in occupational attainment between rural and urban migrants becomes statistically insignificant or even positive for some subgroups. In contrast, our analysis of job mobility reveals that rural migrants are generally more mobile and also more likely to move to better jobs by changing workunits, whereas urban migrants are more likely to be promoted within a work-unit. JEL-codes: O15, J0, J61, J62

Wage Growth Through Job Hopping in China

“…Thus, the di¤erent mobility is due to the segregation of the labor markets which, in turn, is responsible for the gap in the access to the 'good'jobs. Kondo and Ou (2010), on the other hand, compares two types of permanent migrants and …nds that rural to urban migrants are more mobile across jobs and they are more likely to move to better jobs by changing work units, whereas urban migrants are more likely to be promoted within a work-unit. Our own results are in line with the ones in Kondo and Ou in that the immigrants are more mobile both in terms of job changes and relocation.…”

“…8 We could assume alternatively that the reported wages are at the beginning of the job, or mean of the wage during the job. The substantive results are not sensitive to these speci…cations as in either way the tenure e¤ect tends to favor the current job over the new job o¤ers.…”