The Correlation Analysis Of Rural Non-agricultural Employment And Education Level

Along with China's rapid economic and social development,more and more rural labors have diverted from agriculture sector and migrated to urban areas through various channels,which is the result of China's development of urbanization and agricultural modernisation.Massive migration of rural labors has helped to increase income levels of rural households,enhance rural people's standards of living,and narrow the gaps in income between urban and rural areas.The massive migration of rural labors also contributed greatly to construction and rapid development of urban cities.In the context of China's entering into " aging society " and facing reduction of younger workforce,promotion of rural labors migrating into cities orderly shall have a pivotal role for building China into a moderately prosperous country,which is China's long-term development goalBased on previous studies,this master's thesis,from both theoretical and empirical perspectives,investigates the problems of employment of rural labors,with a special focus on analyzing the impacts of educational attainments on the employment of rural labors in the urban labor market and the relevant returns to their education levels.In the context of theoretical analysis,both migration and human capital theories are utilized to analyze the migration of rural labors and the major factors affecting non-agricultural jobs.In addition to application of theories of labor economics,the thesis also emphasizes the importance of institutional factors,i.e,the negative impacts of dual labor market caused by China's 'HUKOU system'.In the context of empirical analysis,the thesis applies both aggregated and household surveys data to investigate the employment of rural labors in urban labor markets by using quanatiative methods.The aggregated data is mainly used to illustrate the structural features of employment of rural labors in the urban labor markets;while the household survey data,i.e,China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS),is mainly used to construct Heckman selection model aiming to investigate the important factors affecting employment of rural labors in the urban market and the returns to their education,and further analyzes the regional differences of education returns.The empirical results,education attainments play a positive role for the employment of rural labors:longer schooling,the better chance of finding non-agricultural jobs.The results also shows different returns to education for rural labors with different education attainments.With a view to different levels of economic development and urbanization,the extents to which education plays in finding non-agricultural jobs and their educational returns also differ across regions.Based on the empirical results,the end of this thesis makes policy recommendation.