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Would you like to leave Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen? An empirical analysis of migration effect in China

Author

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  • Tingting Liu
  • Hong Feng
  • Elizabeth Brandon

Abstract

This study aims to estimate the migration effect of the overall samples and different flowing scales for the floating population from the perspective of personal wages. Although we used both the OLS and PSM methods to estimate the migration effect, we found that the PSM method was preferred in the study of migration as a result of the selection bias. The empirical results show that there is a significant difference in wage before and after migration. In fact, migration increased wages by 15.18% to 23.63% overall. Additionally, wages were increased by 44.96% to 59.20%, 23.06% to 26.18%, and 10.89% to 15.08% respectively for these three migration patterns: flowing into the three largest megacities, inter-provincial migration, and inter-city migration within a province, but for this pattern of inter-district migration within a city, the migration effect is not significant. We concluded that the floating population removing policies of the largest megacities maybe are effective because of the administrative power of their government. On the other hand, for these policies of non-largest megacities to attract labor and local employment and local urbanization near the floating population’s place of origin, they were not effective enough as a result of the lack of significant migration effect in these cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Tingting Liu & Hong Feng & Elizabeth Brandon, 2018. "Would you like to leave Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen? An empirical analysis of migration effect in China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0202030
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202030
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    Cited by:

    1. Marta Bengoa & Christopher Rick, 2020. "Chinese Hukou Policy and Rural-to-Urban Migrants’ Health: Evidence from Matching Methods," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 224-259, April.
    2. Chan Mono Oum & Gazi M. Hassan & Mark J. Holmes, 2021. "Direct Monetary Costs and Its Determinants in Migration Decisions: Case of Cross-Border Labour Migration from Cambodia to Thailand," Working Papers in Economics 21/06, University of Waikato.
    3. Chan Mono Oum & Gazi M. Hassan & Mark J. Holmes, 2022. "Impact of Microcredit on Labour Migration Decisions: Evidence from a Cambodian Household Survey," Working Papers in Economics 22/01, University of Waikato.
    4. Xiaoxi Wang & Yaojun Zhang & Danlin Yu & Xiwei Wu & Ding Li, 2022. "Changes in Demographic Factors’ Influence on Regional Productivity Growth: Empirical Evidence from China, 2000–2010," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, April.

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