Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

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

Contents:

Author Info

  • Ayako Kondo
  • Dongshu Ou

Abstract

This paper investigates the occupational attainment and job mobility of permanent rural-to-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 work units, whereas urban migrants are more likely to be promoted within a work unit.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2010/DP0793.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University in its series ISER Discussion Paper with number 0793.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0793

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 6-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0047
Fax: 81-6-6879-8583
Email:
Web page: http://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/index-e.html
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Knight, John & Yueh, Linda, 2004. "Job mobility of residents and migrants in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 637-660, December.
  2. Sylvie Démurger & Marc Gurgand & Shi Li & Yue Ximing, 2008. "Migrants as second-class workers in urban China? A decomposition analysis," Post-Print halshs-00269119, HAL.
  3. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
  4. Meng, Xin & Zhang, Junsen, 2001. "The Two-Tier Labor Market in Urban China: Occupational Segregation and Wage Differentials between Urban Residents and Rural Migrants in Shanghai," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 485-504, September.
  5. Zhong Zhao, 2005. "Migration, Labor Market Flexibility, and Wage Determination in China: A Review," Labor and Demography 0507009, EconWPA.
  6. de Brauw, Alan & Giles, John, 2008. "Migrant opportunity and the educational attainment of youth in rural China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4526, The World Bank.
  7. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2010. "Great Expectations? The Subjective Well-being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 113-124, January.
  8. Yu CHEN & Sylvie DEMURGER & Martin FOURNIER, 2004. "Wage Differentials and Ownership Structure in Chinese Enterprises," Working Papers 200404, CERDI.
  9. Elliott Parker, 1999. "Are Wage Increases In Chinese State Industry Efficient? Productivity In Nanjing'S Machine-Building Industry," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 17(1), pages 54-67, 01.
  10. Liu, Zhiqiang, 2005. "Institution and inequality: the hukou system in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-157, March.
  11. Lu, Zhigang & Song, Shunfeng, 2006. "Rural-urban migration and wage determination: The case of Tianjin, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 337-345.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Kenn Ariga & Fumio Ohtake & Masaru Sasaki & Zheren Wu, 2012. "Wage growth through job hopping in China," KIER Working Papers 833, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0793

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Fumiko Matsumoto).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.