Analysis On Influencing Factors Of Off-farm Occupational Choice Among Migrant Workers

With our economy entered the new normal stage, industrial structure has been upgraded continuously and the innovation has become the main driving force of economic development. The environment put forward higher requirement for laborer’s quality. Migrant workers are the backbone of economic development and reform in China, but for a long time, the group is poor in human capital endowment. As a result, they are more likely to undertake low quality occupations and are hard to get professional jobs. In the new normal stage, migrant workers are facing big challenges in the aspect of human capital accumulation, their employment situation will be more serious.Based on the survey of migrant workers in Beijing, the paper analyzes how human capital, social capital and other factors impact the occupational choices of migrant workersusing multinomial logit models Particularly, the paper also introduces the intergenerational perspective to analyze the intergenerational factors’influence on occupational choice. Finally, some corresponding suggestions are put forward according to the empirical results.Studies have shown that the human capital factors significantly affect occupational choice in education, training and skills. The educational level, training, computer operation level can help migrant workers get a relatively high level and high salary job. Social capital factors significantly affect occupational choice in the influence of family environment. If the mother has a high educational level, the children are more likely to obtain a high level and professional technical occupation. Father’s off-farm experience can increase their children’s probability to be self-employed. The working pattern of migrant workers and future plan have significant effects on occupational choice. The intergenerational factor indeed plays a significant role in occupational choice of migrant workers, the new generational migrant workers are more likely to become business and services personnel and skilled workers, while the old generational migrant workers are more likely to undertake individual business.Based on the above conclusions, the writer give the following suggestions:the government should increase investment in rural compulsory education resource, enhancing the vocational skills training in the region, and building a migrant workers employment information sharing network platform. Migrant workers, especially the old generational migrant workers should strengthen vocational skills learning and create learning atmosphere for their children.