The Effect Of Urban-rural Labor Migration To Urban-rural Income Gap

Since80’s of the twentieth Century, along with the continuous expansion of the scale of urban and rural labor flow, the urban-rural income gap is expanding constantly, up from2.57in1978to3.10in2012, the urban-rural income inequality has become an increasingly serious problem. Why the urban-rural labor mobility in China can not effectively narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas? In view of the problem, in the perspective of industrial agglomeration, the paper learns the core-periphery model of the new economic geography, to explore the impact mechanism and specific path of urban-rural labor mobility on the income gap between urban and rural areas; then according to the theoretical analysis,the paper sets the empirical model, using provincal panel data on the year of1987、1990、2000、2005and2010, has carried on the regression of hybrid OLS, the fixed effect model and random effect model, to verify the theoretical results of the paper. Based on the above work on research, this paper draws the following main conclusions:1.Urban-rural labor mobility may not be able to narrow the urban-rural income gap, this is related to the extent of industrial agglomeration. Along with the three effects change of industrial agglomeration, the impact of urban-rural labor mobility on urban-rural income gap will be an inverted U-shaped stage characteristics. This conclusion explained why the flow of urban and rural labor can not reduce the income gap between urban and rural areas in China effectively.2.The empirical results show that currently in the process of China’s industrial agglomeration, the impact of urban-rural labor mobility on urban-rural income gap is located in the first half of the inverted U-shaped curve, that urban-rural labor mobility expands urban-rural income gap by accelerating industrial agglomeration.After the theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper puts forward policy recommendations that how to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas:(1)Accelerate the expansion of non-agricultural industry cluster in urban areas,accelerate the realization of industrial agglomeration economies of scale, radiate and promote economic development of rural areas;(2)Help the upgrading of industrial, promote the development and agglomeration of non-agricultural industries;(3) Eliminate trade barriers, promote regional trade freedom, to expand industrial agglomeration and agglomeration area;(4)Strengthen policy support to rural industries, strengthening the capacity of absorption concentration’s diffusion effect and the creation of agglomeration.