The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China

Abstract

The paper examines the contentious issue of the extent of surplus labour that remains in China. China was an extreme example of a surplus labour economy, but the rapid economic growth during the period of economic reform requires a reassessment of whether the second stage of the Lewis model has been reached or is imminent. The literature is inconclusive. On the one hand, there are reports of migrant labour scarcity and rising migrant wages; on the other hand, estimates suggest that a considerable pool of relatively unskilled labour is still available in the rural sector. Yet the answer has far-reaching developmental and distributional implications. After reviewing the literature, the paper uses the 2002 and 2007 national household surveys of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to analyse and explain migrant wage behaviour, to predict the determinants of migration, and to examine the size and nature of the pool of potential rural-urban migrants. An attempt is also made to project the rural and urban labour force and migration forward to 2020, on the basis of the 2005 one per cent Population Survey. The paper concludes that for institutional reasons both phenomena are likely to coexist at present and for some time in the future.

The bittersweet fruits of industrialization in rural China: The cost of environment and the benefit from off-farm employment

“…As shown in Table 2, annual per capita off-farm employment time increased from 80 to 83 days from 2008 to 2012. This is consistent with previous studies (Jia et al, 2013;Knight, Deng, & Li, 2011;Wang et al, 2011). At the same time, annual per capita off-farm wage income grew even faster, which increased from 2999 to 5444 yuan between 2008 and 2012, which were put into real 2008 yuan terms using the Consumer Price Index from the China Statistical Yearbook (China National Statistical Bureau, 2013).…”

A suicide survivor: the life of a Chinese worker: The life of a Chinese worker

“…Under the national one child policy implemented since the late 1970s, coupled with the hypermobility of workers, Foxconn and other enterprises are experiencing incipient signs of labour shortage in coastal and inland cities (Gu and Cai, 2011;Knight et al, 2011). In the face of growing pressure on wages, Foxconn is subject to relentless demands from Apple and other electronic giants for just-in-time production, and to competition from other manufacturers bidding for contracts.…”

Impact of rural-to-urban migration on family and gender values in China

“…Between 1958 and1978, further regulations were implemented to prohibit individually initiated migration up the urban chain, which almost completely barred the outmigration of rural residents. The symbolic status conferred by urban hukou and the difficulties faced by rural Chinese in obtaining urban hukou persist to the present day (Knight, Deng, & Li, 2011).…”

“…Following previous research on rural-to-urban migration and family and gender values in China (e.g. Chan, 2010;Wang et al, 2002;Knight et al, 2011), a wide range of individual, parental and household characteristics are used as covariates in the PSM (presented in Table 2 in the next section). I include age and its squared form.…”