Research On The Impact Of Rural Non-farm Income On Rural-urban Migration

This paper incorporates rural non-nonfarm income in the analysis of rural-urban migration, explore the impact of rural non-nonfarm income on labor migration. Traditionally, researchers believe if only there is a positive net benefit from migration, peasant will choose to migrate for a better life. But actually, migration is not the only option they have when they think of leaving the farmland. They could also choose to be a non-farm worker in rural area. In this thesis, when analyzing labor migration between rural area and urban, the benefit of both choice above are weighed up by potential migrant. Only if migration could bring a net benefit that surpasses the benefit of being a non-farm worker in rural area, the peasant will choose move into the city. In empirical part, the author tested the theoretical assumption mentioned above with the migrant dataset and the rural household dataset in China Household Income Project. Besides, in order to eliminate incomparable observations in migrant dataset, we matched the two datasets according to the home address. Empirical results indicate that the negative connection between rural non-farm income and migration is statistically significant. Based on both the theoretical and empirical analysis in this thesis, the author reckons the increase of rural non-farm income will attract part of the peasants who would have migrated. Meantime, with a well-connected development plan and favorable policies for rural area, rural industrialization could be boosted to offer more economic opportunities for local peasants. As a matter of fact, rural industrialization could cushion the impact of huge migration population from rural area on the modern city, and to some extent, alleviate the social problems related to rising population in urban area, such as traffic problem and shortage of other social resources.