Urban Migrant Workers In The Labour Market Discrimination

Employing a sample from 2005 Population Mini Census Data in Shanghai China, this paper is the first attempt to crudely decompose discrimination against non-locals from that against peasants with rural Household Registration in urban labor market. After classifying sample labors into local workers and non-local workers with urban HR, and local peasants and non-local peasants with rural HR, several conclusions can be generated from the empirical tests. First, with same productivity, migrating peasants are paid 56.5 per cent lower than local workers, which can be decomposed into 30.5 per cent of discrimination against rural HR and 26 per cent of discrimination against non-local HR; Second, using disposable wage income not concluding social insurance and individual income tax to measure labor price might substantially underestimate discrimination against migrating peasants. These conclusions shed light on a fact that, even if the HR system in China was abandoned, the 26% discrimination against non-local peasants in urban labor market might not disappear automatically, and this makes it clear that the Chinese government need different policies to cope with it.