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Unemployment duration and job-match quality in urban China: The dynamic impact of 2008 Labor Contract Law

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  • You, Jing
  • Wang, Shaoyang

Abstract

We assess the dynamic impact of employment protection legislation in transition economies. We use the Chinese 2008 Labor Contract Law to identify the effects of employment protection on job-finding rates and subsequent job-match quality, in relation to the duration of workers' past unemployment. The causal effects are estimated in a sharp regression-discontinuity design, allowing for workers’ unobserved characteristics to jointly underlie their sequential and multidimensional outcomes in labor markets. Even though the law protracts unemployment duration in the short run, once an individual succeeds in finding a job, it improves job-match quality including better job security, higher wages and higher likelihood of receiving social insurance. However, where there is equal unemployment duration, migrants have lower job-finding rates and worse job-match quality than locals. Men have lower job-finding rates but better job-match quality than women. Future research should use longer panel data to evaluate long-term effects on labor markets.

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  • You, Jing & Wang, Shaoyang, 2018. "Unemployment duration and job-match quality in urban China: The dynamic impact of 2008 Labor Contract Law," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 220-233.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:71:y:2018:i:c:p:220-233
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2017.12.012
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    Cited by:

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    6. Kang, Yankun & Liang, Shuyuan & Bai, Caiquan & Feng, Chen, 2020. "Labor contracts and parents’ educational expectations for children: Income effect or expected effect?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor protection; Unemployment; Job-match quality; Regression-discontinuity design; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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