Effects Of Labor Contracts On Rural-to-urban Workers' Income

With the transfer of rural surplus labor force and the development of urbanization,the number of rural-to-urban workers in China continues to expand.In 2016,the total number of migrant workers reached 281.71 million.However,migrant workers' labor rights protection and income levels are not satisfying.The "2016 Migrant Workers' Monitoring and Investigation Report" shows that the proportion of migrant workers who have not signed labor contracts with enterprises or employers is as high as 64.9%,and the average monthly income of migrant workers is only 3,275?,which is far below the average income 5,631 ?of urban workers.Therefore,how to protect the labor rights of migrant workers and increase their income are thought-provoking.To solve this problem,China has carried out "Spring Warming Action" for migrant workers to sign labor contract and special law enforcement activities about the payment of their wages.The promotion and implement of labor contracts plays an important role in regulating the labor market,especially in protecting the labor rights of employees.This also makes the impact of labor contracts on employees' income becomes one of the issues that deserve attention.Most of studies on the impact of labor contracts on the migrant workers' income use cross-sectional data for a certain year or data for a certain region,which lack representativeness and cannot reflect changes in the income effects of labor contracts and the impact of labor contracts on income at national level.Second,most studies only estimate the income difference between migrant workers who signed labor contracts and migrant workers who did not sign labor contracts,without considering the impact of different types of labor contracts on income,the effects of labor contract on income at different wage income levels and under different ownership.Third,there are few studies on the mechanism of how labor contract affects the income of migrant workers.Therefore,this paper will use four-year cross-sectional data at the national level to examine the effect of labor contracts on the income of migrant workers,and discuss in detail the heterogeneity of the income effects of labor contracts,and further analyze the ways and mechanism of how the labor contract affects migrant workers'income.Based on the background above,this study uses the survey data of rural-to-urban workers in CHIPs(2002,2007,2008,2013),adopting OLS,2SLS and Quantile regression,to examine the impact of labor contracts on migrant workers' income and the mechanism.The paper shows that in 2002,labor contracts did not play a substantial role in protecting the rights of migrant workers.After the issuance of the Labor Contract Law,signing labor contracts has a significant positive impact on the income of migrant workers.Second,the effect of fixed employees or long-term contracts on income is greater than the effect of short-term or temporary contracts on income.Signing labor contracts has a stronger protective effect on the income of low-income groups.Compared with public institutions,state-owned enterprises and collective enterprises,labor contracts have a greater impact on the income of migrant workers in foreign,individuals,and private enterprises.Third,signing labor contracts has a significant impact on increasing wage income,improving welfare income,and reducing working hours.With the improvement of the labor market,signing labor contracts in recent years has mainly improved the income level of migrant workers by increasing welfare income,and the effect of contracts on working hours decrease.Fourth,to increase job stability,reduce unemployment risks,and promote investment in specialized human capital are important mechanisms through which labor contracts affect migrant workers' income.