Job Prospects and Labour Mobility in China
Huaxin Wang-Lu, Octasiano Miguel Valerio Mendoza

TL;DR
This study analyzes how sector-based job prospects influence individual migration decisions across Chinese cities, revealing that better prospects significantly increase migration likelihood and are affected by family networks and individual characteristics.
Contribution
It introduces a proxy for job prospects, applies a micro-founded migration model with fixed effects, and provides empirical evidence on migration determinants in China from 1997 to 2017.
Findings
A 10% increase in job prospects ratio raises migration probability by 1.28-2.19 percentage points.
Family migration networks increase migration likelihood by about 6 percentage points.
Labour migrants tend to be male, unmarried, younger, and more educated.
Abstract
China's structural changes have brought new challenges to its regional employment structures, entailing labour redistribution. By now Chinese research on migration decisions with a forward-looking stand and on bilateral longitudinal determinants at the prefecture city level is almost non-existent. This paper investigates the effects of sector-based job prospects on individual migration decisions across prefecture boundaries. To this end, we created a proxy variable for job prospects, compiled a unique quasi-panel of 66,427 individuals from 283 cities during 1997--2017, introduced reference-dependence to the random utility maximisation model of migration in a sequential setting, derived empirical specifications with theoretical micro-foundations, and applied various monadic and dyadic fixed effects to address multilateral resistance to migration. Multilevel logit models and two-step…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMigration and Labor Dynamics · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Regional Economic and Spatial Analysis
