中國移民和工資的關係

Abstract

中國過去幾十年中移民的增加，已經被廣泛認為在驚人的經濟發展中扮演了重要角色。暫且不論這些成就背後所帶來的社會成本，這其中衍生出一個有趣的問題 : 這些發展能否公平地對社會全部成員均有所助益。 探究其中，移民所從事的工作相對而言都是低技術性的。因此，比起當地較高教育水準之勞動參與者而言，移民們必須與當地低技術勞動參與者進行更加激烈地競爭。 這份論文主要在比較移民對非技術與技術人員薪資的影響，將採用中國健康與營養調查所統計的個人數據、中國統計年鑑與中國普查中的省份數據進行迴歸分析。為了處理移民的潛在內生性，本文採用了工具變數法。所使用的替代變數是災害的發生。在解決了移民的內生性後，本文發現證據指出：非技術人員自移民現象中受益的程度比其他勞動參與者來得少。然而，他們也並未完全受到不利影響。較低技術人員雖亦從移民現象中得益，惟較少於同省分之其他勞動參與者。 此外，這項發現也可部分支持「移民會帶來勞動市場中相對應工作性質互補參與者其相對所得正向的影響，反之亦會減少其對應替代參與者之相對所得」之假說。就結論而言，以中國的個案來說，移民的增加並未公平地使社會全體成員受益。

Increased migration during the last decades in China is widely recognized as having played an important role in the country’s astonishing economic development. Without casting shadows over these achievements, one interesting question that arises is whether this development has been equally beneficial to all members of the society. The typical migrant job has been relatively low-skilled. Thus, migrants should compete with local low-skilled labor market participants to a higher degree than with more educated local labor market participants. This paper compares the effect of migration on wages of non-skilled and skilled individuals. It employs regression analysis using individual level data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, and provincial level data from the China statistical yearbooks and China Censuses. To deal with potential endogeneity of migration, I employ an instrumental variable method. The instrument that is used is occurrence of disasters. After dealing with the endogeneity problem of migration, I find some evidence that non-skilled individuals benefitted less than other individuals from incoming migration. They were not however, absolutely adversely affected. That is, less-skilled individuals benefitted from migration, but less than other individuals within their province. These findings give some support to the hypothesis that incoming migration to a labor market should increase the relative income of complements while decrease the relative income of substitutes. In the case of China, it suggests that increased migration in the country has not been equally beneficial to all members of the society.