Research On Agricultural Household Registration Discrimination And The Urban Settlement Choice Behavior Of Rural Migrant Populatio

Against the backdrop of declining population growth and aging population,attracting migrants,rural migrants who dominate the migrant population in particular,becomes an urgent topic facing big cities in China.But due to the longstanding double-track hukou(household registration)system and the dualistic socioeconomic structure of urban and rural areas of China,discrimination against and unfair treatment on rural migrants are prevailing at urban labor market,which becomes one of the vital factors obstructing citizenization of rural migrants.To accelerate urban hukou registration by rural migrants,China has picked up pace in reforming its hukou system in recent years.National New-type Urbanization Plan 2014-2020 released in March 2014 stresses that hukou barriers between urban and rural areas should be eliminated gradually.The Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Establishing and Improving the Systems,Mechanisms,Policies and Schemes of Urban-rural Integration issued on April 4,2019 stated clearly to ‘deepen hukou system reform in a forceful,orderly,and effective manner’.But after the implementation of the new-type urbanization strategy with a focus on citizenization of rural migrants,has rural migrant received fairer treatment at urban labor market? If so,what is the impact of such improvement on rural migrants’ settlement decision? These are pressing issues requiring further research.Based on the above considerations,this study starts from the long-standing double-track hukou system of China and the long-term dualistic structure between rural and urban area of China and explores the discrimination against rural hukou holders in urban migrant labor market based on job search theory.Then,this study employs Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to calculate the hukou-based labor market discrimination degree at national,regional,and prefecture-city level,evolution trends,and its impacting factors based on China Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS).Last,further discussions are conducted on the impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ settlement decision at cities under population migration framework.Conclusions are drawn as follows:(1)According to job search theory,some urban employers are reluctant to hire rural migrants due to prejudices caused by negative stereotypes.As a result,rural migrants suffer higher costs than urban migrants in job searching.Hukou-based labor market discrimination is therefore entailed due to stronger bargaining power of employers in relative to rural migrants.First,this study explains from a theoretical perspective,based on job search model,why rural migrants who suffer widespread negative stereotypes and prejudices are subject to prevailing economic discrimination.Second,this study reveals through propensity score matching that,after controlling a series of variables at individual,family,city and regional level,there is still a salary gap between rural migrants and urban migrants.This serves as data support for the existence of hukou-based labor market discrimination.This theoretical model provides convincing evidence for hukou-based labor market discrimination from an econometric perspective.(2)As hukou system reform continues to progress in China,nationwide hukou-based labor market discrimination is decreasing with the regions with high level of marketization experiencing the most evident drop.Meanwhile,hukou-based labor market discrimination declines obviously when rural hukou as a label is removed,proving that rural hukou is a label for discrimination.To elaborate on this,first,the long-standing dual-track hukou system and the dualistic structure between rural and urban areas of China give rise to the negative stereotypes on rural migrants at urban migrant labor market,based on which prejudices are born.Further,prejudices become the fountainhead of the widespread hukou-based labor market discrimination.Therefore,this study corroborates the widespread hukou-based labor market discrimination,as showcased by salary difference,at urban migrant labor market from 2011 to 2017.In general,hukou-based labor market discrimination in China has been declining,which is closely linked to the hukou system reform by the Chinese government.Second,this study examines the social quasi-experiment of unified urban-rural hukou registration in China and finds when the visible label of“rural hukou(agricultural household)” is removed the salary difference caused by hukou-based labor market discrimination decreases sharply.This demonstrates rural hukou as a label results in salary discrimination.Third,social relations lowers the degree of discrimination facing rural migrants by conveying information.Fourth,the longer rural migrants work in urban areas,the more capable they are in exhibiting their real ability at urban migrant labor market.The salary they receive at the labor market becomes increasingly aligned with their actual performance or contribution,alleviating gradually the discrimination they receive because of their rural hukou.Fifth,calculation on hukou-based labor market discrimination indicates differences among cities.There is a U-shaped relation between hukou-based labor market discrimination and population of the city.Last,there are various heterogeneity inhukou-based labor market discrimination at both national and city level,which can be explained by the social background of China and inter-group characteristics.(3)Hukou-based labor market discrimination negatively affects rural migrants’ selection of working cities significantly.First,this study uses conditional logit model to investigate the impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ selection of working cities,which verifies hukou-based labor market discrimination negatively affects rural migrants’ selection of working cities significantly.It is worth noting that urban hukou registration threshold index is one of the control variables.When the limitations on obtaining urban hukou for migrants are controlled,the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination still exists.In previous research,hukou-based labor market discrimination and migrants discrimination are seldom examined under the same framework,which makes it hard to discern the impact of these two types of discrimination.Second,the number of courier stations in Ming Dynasty,an instrumental variable of this study,is negatively correlated to hukou-based labor market discrimination at cities.When the instrumental variable is introduced to resolve endogeneity,the negative effect of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ selection of working cities is larger than the benchmark results,demonstrating the robustness of the benchmark results.Third,in heterogeneity discussion,the increase in individual human capital and migration experience reduce the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ selection of working cities.The regulating effect of age is non-linear.For migrants below 36 years old,the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ selection of working cities decreases.But for migrants above 36 years old,such impacts grow.The heterogeneous research on inflow cities reveal that the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ selection of working cities is weaker if the inflow cities are from the five major city clusters of China.(4)Hukou-based labor market discrimination imposes negative impacts on rural migrants’ settlement intention in the cities significantly.First,this study harnesses Todaro migration model,Mincer earnings function,and migration settlement selection model and incorporates hukou discrimination to construct a theoretical model.This study demonstrates,from the angle of utility maximization,hukou-based labor market discrimination negatively affects rural migrants’ settlement intention in the cities,which is corroborated by empirical results.Second,hukou-based labor market discrimination at urban labor market significantly affects the settlement intention of employees but its impact on the self-employed is not significant.Third,hukou-based labor market discrimination at urban labor marketsignificantly affects the settlement intention of rural migrants engaging in non-managerial or non-technical work while its impact on those in management and technical jobs is not significant.Last,there is a heterogeneity in the impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on the settlement intention of rural migrants with different educational attainment.Its impact on the settlement intention of rural migrants with high or low educational attainment is not significant but it significantly affects those with medium educational attainment.On the whole,this study demonstrates that rural-to-urban migrants care about not only economic incentives but the sense of fairness and benefits when considering settlements.Furthermore,hukou system reform since the new-type of urbanization has already,to some extent,alleviated the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination.(5)Hukou-based labor market discrimination significantly affect housing purchase intention of rural migrants in the cities.First,hukou-based labor market discrimination negatively affects rural migrants’ housing purchase intention at the inflow city significantly and positively affects their housing purchase intention at the place where their hukou is registered.Moreover,the impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on the housing purchase intention of urban migrants,who are well-positioned at the urban migrant labor market,is not significant.This demonstrates hukou-based labor market discrimination obstructs citizenization of rural migrants.Second,public resources at cities help alleviate the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on rural migrants’ housing purchase intention.Third,improvement of educational attainment by individuals effectively weakens the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination on housing purchase intention of rural migrants.Last,self-employed rural migrants suffer stronger negative impact from hukou-based labor market discrimination.In conclusion,at the city level,the negative impact of hukou-based labor market discrimination can be alleviated through improvement of public services.As such,rural migrants can be transformed into citizens.Rural migrants are able to improve their own human capital,which help them enter the main labor market at cities and get emerged into the city.(6)the discrimination of registered residence has a significant negative impact on the rented rural households’ consumption in the city.First,registered residence registered discrimination has a significant negative impact on rents of rural migrants in city,and has a significant negative impact on rent expenditure and rental income.This is based on the fact that rural migrants’ income and consumption are significantly lower than city floating population,and highlights the existence of registered residence discrimination in rural areas.Secondly,the more serious the discrimination of registered residence in rural areas will lead to the aggregation of rural floating population in urban villages,thus aggravating the segregation of residence.Thirdly,the negative influence of registered residence discrimination on rural housing consumption is only evident in the middle and low education groups,but not in the high income group.Finally,the regulatory effect of age presents an inverted U-shape,and the age inflection point is about 36-37 years old.Generally speaking,the discrimination of registered residence has negative effects on the renting consumption of rural migrants,which may lead to the degradation of housing quality and isolation of the housing population,which is not conducive to the city integration of rural migrants.