IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7555.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

China's 2008 Labor Contract Law: Implementation and Implications for China's Workers

Author

Listed:
  • Gallagher, Mary

    (University of Michigan)

  • Giles, John T.

    (World Bank)

  • Park, Albert

    (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology)

  • Wang, Meiyan

    (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Abstract

This paper presents empirical evidence from household and firm survey data collected during 2009-2010 on the implementation of the 2008 Labor Contract Law and its effects on China's workers. The government and local labor bureaus have made substantial efforts to enforce the provisions of the new law, which has likely contributed to reversing a trend toward increasing informalization of the urban labor market. Enforcement of the law, however, varies substantially across cities. The paper analyzes the determinants of worker satisfaction with the enforcement of the law, the propensity of workers to have a labor contract, workers' awareness of the content of the law, and their likelihood of initiating disputes. The paper finds that all of these factors are highly correlated with the level of education, especially for migrants. Although higher labor costs may have had a negative impact on manufacturing employment growth, this has not led to an overall increase in aggregate unemployment or prevented the rapid growth of real wages. Less progress has been made in increasing social insurance coverage, although signing a labor contract is more likely to be associated with participation in social insurance programs than in the past, particularly for migrant workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Gallagher, Mary & Giles, John T. & Park, Albert & Wang, Meiyan, 2013. "China's 2008 Labor Contract Law: Implementation and Implications for China's Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 7555, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7555
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7555.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Almeida, Rita K. & Carneiro, Pedro, 2005. "Enforcement of Regulation, Informal Labor and Firm Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 1759, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Amin, Mohammad, 2009. "Labor regulation and employment in India's retail stores," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 47-61, March.
    3. Djankov, Simeon & Ramalho, Rita, 2009. "Employment laws in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-13, March.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 2007. "Labor Market Institutions Around the World," NBER Working Papers 13242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John Giles & Dewen Wang & Albert Park, 2013. "Expanding Social Insurance Coverage in Urban China," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 123-179, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Fallon, Peter R. & Lucas, Robert E. B., 1993. "Job security regulations and the dynamic demand for industrial labor in India and Zimbabwe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 241-275, April.
    7. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2004. "Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 91-134.
    8. Almeida, Rita & Carneiro, Pedro, 2005. "Enforcement of labor regulation, informal labor, and firm performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3756, The World Bank.
    9. Kaplan, David S., 2009. "Job creation and labor reform in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 91-105, March.
    10. Feldmann, Horst, 2009. "The unemployment effects of labor regulation around the world," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 76-90, March.
    11. repec:zbw:bofitp:2008_029 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ahsan, Ahmad & Pagés, Carmen, 2009. "Are all labor regulations equal? Evidence from Indian manufacturing," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 62-75, March.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Li, Zheng & Gao, Shan & Song, Shunfeng, 2023. "Labor protection, labor costs, and China's outward foreign direct investment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 444-459.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shanthi Nataraj & Francisco Perez-Arce & Krishna B. Kumar & Sinduja V. Srinivasan, 2014. "The Impact Of Labor Market Regulation On Employment In Low-Income Countries: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 551-572, July.
    2. Djankov, Simeon & Ramalho, Rita, 2009. "Employment laws in developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-13, March.
    3. Ali Fakih & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2015. "What factors influence firm perceptions of labour market constraints to growth in the MENA region?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(8), pages 1181-1206, November.
    4. Amin, Mohammad, 2009. "Are labor regulations driving computer usage in India's retail stores?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 45-48, January.
    5. Chaurey, Ritam, 2015. "Labor regulations and contract labor use: Evidence from Indian firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 224-232.
    6. Kaplan, David S., 2009. "Job creation and labor reform in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 91-105, March.
    7. Hadi Esfahani & Roksana Bahramitash & Bin Lin, 2016. "Gender and Labour Allocation: the Role of Institutions and Policies in the Allocation of Female and Male Labor," Working Papers 998, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.
    8. Sonja Fagernäs, 2010. "Labor Law, Judicial Efficiency, and Informal Employment in India," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 282-321, June.
    9. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2011. "Great Expectations: Law, Employment Contracts, and Labor Market Performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 18, pages 1591-1696, Elsevier.
    10. Achyuta Adhvaryu & A. V. Chari & Siddharth Sharma, 2013. "Firing Costs and Flexibility: Evidence from Firms' Employment Responses to Shocks in India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 725-740, July.
    11. Menon, Nidhiya & Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen, 2018. "Child labor and the minimum wage: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 480-494.
    12. Ravi KANBUR & Lucas RONCONI, 2018. "Enforcement matters: The effective regulation of labour," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 157(3), pages 331-356, September.
    13. Angel-Urdinola, Diego F. & Kuddo, Arvo, 2010. "Key characteristics of employment regulation in the Middle East and North Africa," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 55674, The World Bank.
    14. Sher Singh Verick, 2016. "Manufacturing and jobs: is India different?," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 59(1), pages 57-84, March.
    15. Stankov, Petar & Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2015. "What Explains the Diversity of Regulatory Reform Outcomes?," EconStor Research Reports 141915, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    16. Ghosh Saibal, 2017. "Political Federalism and Innovation: Are de jure Labor Regulations Absolute?," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Anirban Karak & Deepankar Basu, 2017. "Profitability or Industrial Relations : What Explains Manufacturing Performance Across Indian States?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2017-01, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    18. Gindling,T. H. & Mossaad,Nadwa & Newhouse,David Locke, 2016. "Earnings premiums and penalties for self-employment and informal employees around the world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7530, The World Bank.
    19. Betcherman, Gordon, 2014. "Labor market regulations : what do we know about their impacts in developing countries ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6819, The World Bank.
    20. Almeida, Rita K. & Poole, Jennifer P., 2017. "Trade and labor reallocation with heterogeneous enforcement of labor regulations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 154-166.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; social insurance; informal sector; labor regulations; migration; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation
    • J53 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.