The Impact Of Rural Labor Mobility On China's Urban-rural Income Gap

Rural labor mobility between urban and rural is a general phenomenon in developing countries during the process of industrialization and urbanization. With China's large-scale movement of rural labor force, it has brought a profound impact on economic and social development. In recent years, the impact of rural labor mobility on the urban-rural income gap has become a focus of academic attention. As the special stage China's rural labor mobility occurred in and our unique system and economic and social characteristics, the impact of China's rural labor mobility on urban-rural income gap is different from other countries. At present, for the impact study of rural labor mobility, most of them only attach importance to the movement scale, neglecting other factors relating to the movement of rural labor force, such as social welfare, industrial structure and so on, in the respect of narrowing the urban-rural income gap.In view of this, the paper added various socio-economic characteristics in the analytical framework, doing a more comprehensive and systematic study of China's rural labor force impact on the urban-rural income gap. First, the paper summarizes and scholars related theoretical and empirical research, to provide the research basis; Secondly, the article describes and analyzes the status and identity of rural labor mobility and status of urban-rural income gap, and expounds the impact factors of China's rural labor mobility and income gap between urban and rural areas from China's household registration system, labor markets, rural education, social security and industrial factors, thus find entry points for the theoretical and empirical analysis; Thirdly, this article summarizes the pathways of rural labor force impact on the income gap between urban and rural, also this paper use the variable data related to do an empirical test: on the one hand, use of 1985-2007 time series data analysis the overall impact of the rural labor mobility to the urban-rural income gap, on the other hand, this essay use panel data of 1999-2006 China's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, verifying the impact of China's eastern, central and western rural labor mobility on urban and rural income gap; Finally, the paper put forward policies based on the previous recommendations and conclusions.Theoretical and empirical analysis showed that: China's rural labor mobility actually expanded the income gap between urban and rural residents, of which China's household registration system, the special barriers to labor market segmentation, low levels of human capital, delay of rural economic development and unreasonable industrial institutions are important reasons; in the process of rural labor mobility, increase of capital investment in rural areas, education and non-agricultural industries, especially the development of tertiary industry will help to improve employment status of rural mobile labor force and reduce rural-urban income gap. Therefore, the government has to eliminate the household registration system obstacles, improve the quality of the rural labor movement, build a unified labor market, develop the rural economy, adjust the industrial structure and employment structure, guide urbanization reasonably, in order to achieve the purpose of narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas.