Research On The Impact Of Relative Deprivation On China’s Rural Labor Migration

Since China’s reform and open-up policies, our country has witnessed a lot of rural-to-urban migration phenomena. In recent years, with the development of economy, the scale of rural-to-urban migration shows an increasing tendency. But at the same time, many rural labors migrating to urban have also returned to their hometowns. To explain these migration phenomena, scholars have proposed many labor migration theories, many of which are based on traditional labor migration theory and cannot explain some phenomena properly. For according to traditional migration theory, labor migration from lower income in the western region to the eastern region with higher income should be the most common, but actually, large-scale migration occurred between the central and eastern regions in China.Besides, traditional labor migration theory cannot explain migrants’ returning back.The theory of Stark provides a new thought of explaining China’s migration. Stark proposes that income relative deprivation is also an important factor in promoting migration besides absolute income gap. Compared with traditional migration theory of absolute income gap, this theory is more comprehensive. In our country, the research of applying relative deprivation to explain rural labor migration is still new at present, and only income relative deprivation is considered, which can not accurately reflect the labor’s living conditions and economic status for a long time. Therefore, the research of the impact of relative deprivation on China’s rural labor migration should be further carried on.This paper firstly provides a literature review of the researches of the relative deprivation’s impact on migration in foreign countries, and then the paper carries on theory and empirical analysis using relative deprivation explaining rural labor migration behaviors in our country. According to the analysis results, finally, policies to make rural labor migrate smoothly and steadily are given.This paper can be divided into the following five chapters.Chapter 1 is the introduction of the study. It introduces the research background and significance of this paper, defines some crucial relevant concepts, and then it gives research method, technical route, paper structure and contents. Finally the innovation points of the research are provided.Chapter 2 is the review of the research of relative deprivation’s impact on labor migration. This chapter provides literature summaries of existing research from theoretical, empirical and political recommendation aspects.Chapter 3 is the theoretical analysis of relative deprivation’s impact on China’s rural labor migration. Firstly an individual deprivation index with more properties and more consistent with our subject feeling of relative deprivation is constructed to be used in empirical analysis. Then the paper concretely analyzes some common theoretical models of using relative deprivation explaining labor migration. Finally a utility maximization theory model is constructed. The model is not only consistent with our country’s actual situation but also can both reflect rural labor’s economic and spiritual life.Chapter 4 is the empirical analysis of relative deprivation’s impact on China’s rural labor migration. According to the theoretical analysis in Chapter 3, using CGSS2010 rural data, relative deprivation curves are firstly drawn in macro level to present relative deprivation’s varying with corresponding independent variables. Then letting relative deprivation variables, individual characteristics variables, household characteristics variables and region characteristics variables be independent variables, letting whether rural labors migrate or not be dependent variables, a binary logistic model is constructed. According to logistic results, the impact of the independent variables on rural labor migration is analyzed and reasonable explanations are given.Chapter 5 is conclusions and policies. It summarizes the theoretical and empirical analysis, according to which, policies of regulating our country’s rural labor migration are offered.