The evolution of China's rural labor market in the 21st century: an empirical study based on nationally representative survey data at the household level

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the development of China's rural labor markets and the identification of the important factors that affect rural labor's off-farm employment and migration.Design/methodology/approachBased on a set of long-term panel data, this paper makes a clear judgment on the trend of rural labor transfer. High-quality survey design makes it possible to examine the development of the rural labor market from multiple dimensions. Adding household fixed effects to the empirical model alleviates endogenous problems.FindingsThe authors find that the increasing trend toward off-farm employment, which is dominated by migration, has continued. There are some other important findings: (1). young male workers dominated off-farm employment, but the gap between groups continues to narrow; (2). the structure of employment is a good response to the economic transformation and (3). the quality of off-farm laborers, especially in terms of human capital, has also enhanced significantly and has continued to support off-farm employment and migration. These findings all indicate that the China's rural labor markets have been constantly improving in recent years, although there is still segmentation.Originality/valueIt is the first paper that uses a nationally representative survey data to address the development of rural labor market in the 21st century. With the help of a long-term panel data structure and by controlling the household-level fixed-effect, the authors obtained a deeper and more robust conclusion. Specifically, this article finds that whether it is for the off-farm transfer or the migration, the influence of labor age, gender, human capital and marital status is gradually weakening.

Regional differences and threshold effects of labor transfer affecting the technical efficiency of China’s agricultural industry: A case study of the apple industry

“…The proportion of irrigation and drainage fees per hectare in the output value per hectare was replaced by the proportion of irrigation and drainage fees per hectare; the annual urbanization rate of each province in China was taken as the threshold variable. The measured value of technical efficiency in China's major apple-producing areas was explained through the three main indicators of labor quantity, quality, and structural proportion to measure regional differences in technical efficiency caused by labor transfer [34]. To eliminate differences in each variable dimension, data were normalized using the extremum method.…”

“…Threshold model. Urbanization rate is the main factor affecting labor-force transfer [34,42]. Based on the technical efficiency analyzed above using SFA, here, we consider the nonlinear relationship between labor transfer and technical efficiency at different stages of urbanization by taking urbanization level as the threshold variable.…”

How farmland circulation affects household financial vulnerability in China: The chain mediation effect of labor transfer and financial literacy

“…In the context of the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization in China, a great deal of rural labor has chosen to seek employment opportunities by moving from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector (Deng et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2021). In process of transferring rural labor, there are certain costs and expenses, which are known as "economic threshold" (Chen and Wang, 2017).…”

How does digital inclusive finance influence non-agricultural employment among the rural labor force? ——Evidence from micro-data in China

“…As China's urbanization continues to progress, the labor market is expanding. This has led to a significant migration of rural laborers to urban areas or other non-agricultural regions, facilitating the transition from agricultural to non-agricultural employment [ 1 ]. The “Survey Report on Migrant Workers" 1 released by the National Bureau of Statistics, as shown in Fig.…”