Study On The Labor Market Segmentation And Flow Of Peasant-workers

With30years’ reform and opening up, the market economic system with Chinesecharacteristics is gradually established. The market mechanism has been playing agreater role in the economic growth and wage determination in different regions, andthe labor market segmentation becomes increasingly evident. Due to institutionalreasons, the Chinese labor market has gradually formed a migrant-workers group, whichis of special status, large number and strong mobility. The presence of migrant-workersgroup makes Chinese labor market particular. Therefore, the study on development andchanges of Chinese labor market and migrant-workers group, which are still in theprocess of reforms, has important theoretical value and practical significance.The tide of migrant workers’ home-return triggered by financial crisis in2008hasaroused a widespread concern in whole society, also becomes one focus of China’seconomic studies today. The financial crisis had caused a total of about20millionunemployed migrant workers returning home, of which about16million continue to goout finding jobs after the warming of economic situation, while the other400millionstay at home getting employed or self-employed and become returned migrant workers.The financial crisis of2008, not only provides us a realistic basis and adequatemicro-data to study the specific inter-market labor flow with large-scale triggered byspecific economic events at a specific time for the first time, but also makes it possibleto study returned migrant workers and local migrant workers within the same labormarket.Based on the background of Chinese migrant workers’ home-return tide in2008financial crisis, employing the theory of labor market segmentation, and using thelarge-sample data from a survey about returned migrant workers and local migrantworkers, which was initiated and organized by me at Fengdu County, ChongqingMunicipality in July2009, this study analyzes the income gap between migrant workersand income pricing mechanism in different parts of labor market from the aspect ofmarket research, as well as explores the decision-making factors affecting the flow ofmigrant workers from the perspective of migrant workers themselves. This study couldprovide ideas to verify the regional imbalance in China’s economic development and theresulting labor market segmentation as well as the income determination mechanism.Besides, it could also provide a reference for the following study on the flow of migrant workers.The innovative work of this study includes:①Starting from the labor market segmentation theory and labor migration theory,the paper studies the flow of migrant workers from the two corresponding angles oflabor market and labor market supply side as well as their comparison. For today’stheoretical studies and empirical research of the flow of migrant workers usually takeslabor market as a starting point, and current research on the flow of migrant workers, itsdecision-making and related factors from the perspective of labor market supply side,i.e. the migrant workers themselves, this study provides new ideas and ways for thestudy of the flow of migrant workers and its decision-making as well. By dividing themigrant-workers group into returned migrant workers and local migrant workers thesetwo sub-groups, also through the comparison of income disparity and influencingfactors of returned migrant workers and local migrant workers in different labor marketor same labor market owing to the financial crisis, the studies on China’s labor marketsegmentation as well as flow of migrant workers in this paper do benefits to thefollowing research on labor market segmentation and migrant workers.②Combined the theory of labor market segmentation and neo-classical humancapital theory, the paper studies the unemployment and movement of migrant workerscaused by2008financial crisis, and the results show that the labor market segmentationtheory, detailed as barriers to the movement hinder the free movement of labor forcebetween sub-markets, as well as the core hypothesis of labor market non-clearing do notapply to China’s migrant-workers group. Migrant workers can move among the laborsub-markets in different areas, and the labor market of the economically developedareas can clear the labor market of economically less developed areas, by clearing themigrant-workers group without the accumulation of human capital. Furthermore, thestudies find that there exist different mechanisms for income determination and laborallocation in China’s labor markets of different regions. The human capital accumulation,represented by level of education, is the determining factor of the income determinationand labor allocation mechanism for the labor market in economically developed areas,while the manpower capital represented by physical differences resulted from genderdifferences determines the income decision and labor allocation mechanism in the labormarket of economically less developed areas.③Combined the theory of labor market segmentation and labor migration theory,the paper studies the decision-making of the flow of migrant workers and its influencing factors by Logit model from the perspective of the supply side of labor market, i.e.migrant workers themselves, and the results show that labor market mechanism cannotbe completely determined the decision-making of labor migration or labor mobility, andthe allocation mechanism of labor market is inconsistent with the decision-makingmechanism of labor mobility. That labor market is concerned about the education levelof labor force and manpower accumulation represented by gender, while thedecision-making of flow of migrant workers of labor market supply-side is concernedabout the life stress represented by marital status, the income level represented byindustry as well as the balance of short-term income and long-term income.