The Research On The Impact Of Urban House Price On The Labor Supply Of Migrants

As an important product of China’s urban-rural dual division,the migration has played an important role in China’s labor market and has been one of the most important driving forces for China’s economic growth in the past 40 years.China’s migrant population has two typical characteristics: the huge overall size on the macro level and the temporary nature of migrant workers on the micro level.At the same time,the working hours of migrants are relatively long whether compared to the local population or the working time standards stipulated in the Labor Law.And the working hours of the migration vary from city to city.In addition,housing prices in China have continued to rise in recent years,and the differences in housing prices between regions have also expanded.In view of this,this article researches the impact of housing price on the supply of migrants from the perspective of theoretical models and empirical tests.Theoretically,we divide the life span of the migration into two phases: migrating and returning to the hometown,and then discuss the income budget constraints of the migration in the two phases.By constructing a maximum model of the migration’s utility under the constraints of the income budget,we can get the optimal long-term and short-term labor supply decisions for the migration,and finally the theoretical impact of housing prices on the labor supply decisions for the migration.The theoretical model shows that housing price has a negative impact on the long-term labor supply of migrants,and a positive effect on the short-term labor supply of migrants in cities.Empirically,this article is based on the 2017 CMDS data and the sales prices of commercial house in the China City Statistical Yearbook.It empirically tests the impact of housing prices on the long-term and short-term labor supply decisions of the migration.Considering that when estimating the causal relationship between the price of inflowing cities and the labor supply of migration,we may face endogenous problems,so the instrumental variables are also used to estimate the causal effect of housing prices in addition to controlling as many control variables as possible.The research conclusions include the following aspects:First,the housing price has a negative impact on the long-term labor supply of migrants,and a positive effect on the short-term labor supply of migrants in cities.At the same time,empirical tests have found that doubling the housing price in the city will significantly increase the working hours per week of the migrant by 2.621 hours,while the increase in the housing price level will significantly reduce the migrant’s willingness to settle and the expected residence time.And robustness tests can also reach consistent conclusions.Second,the housing prices have a large heterogeneity in the impact on labor supply decisions of migrant population.Specifically,the impact of housing prices on the labor supply of migrants is only existed in agricultural hukou groups;the impact of housing prices on the labor supply of self-employed migrants is stronger than that of employer migrants,but it is different in the long-term labor supply;the impact of housing prices has a stronger effect on the short-term labor supply of low-education migration than middle-and high-education-level migration,but it is opposite in long-term labor supply.Third,in addition to the direct impact of housing prices on the short-term labor supply,it has an indirect effect by influencing the migrant’s willingness to settle in the cities and the expected length of stay.The innovation of this article is mainly reflected as following: firstly,it is different from the theoretical framework of the general labor supply decision-making in the existing literature.This article considers the temporary nature of migrants going out for work and divides the labor supply decision-making of the migration into long-term and short-term;secondly,the existing literature mainly explains the reasons for the long working hours of the migration in terms of employment characteristics,etc.,and this article analyzes from the perspective of the difference in urban housing prices.Based on the above conclusions,this article first puts forward policy advices to mitigate the impact of urban housing prices on the labor supply of the migration;then based on the results of heterogeneity analysis,it deepens the reform of the household registration system,encourages the migration to start their own businesses,and improves the skills of the migration etc.;finally,put forward corresponding policy suggestions on how to enhance the willingness of migrants to stay in cities.