Individual Selection,Technical Feature And Barriers To The Transfer Of Agricultural Labor

With the improvement of urbanization,industrialization and agricultural modernization in China,many agricultural labor forces have been liberated from the land,forming a large number of agricultural surplus labor.Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has been developing rapidly,which is inseparable from the transfer of labor from agricultural sector with lower productivity to the industrial and the service sector with higher productivity.However,from the perspective of urbanization,Chinese urbanization rate was 59.58%in 2018.Although the rate of improvement is much higher than that of other countries,the current urbanization level in China is still far from the level of 80%in developed countries.From the perspective of social problems,the surplus of agricultural labor is accompanied by the disappearance of "demographic dividend","labor shortage","shortage of migrant workers" and other problems,showing the coexistence of labor surplus and shortage.We call the phenomenon structural imbalance.which affects the improvement of agricultural people’s living quality and social stability.All kinds of problems show that Chinese agricultural labor force is not well transfer to non-agricultural.The redistribution of labor from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector can increase the total output and promote economic development,but the barriers of labor transfer limit this process.It is of great significance to learn what factors limit the non-agricultural transfer of labor and put forward countermeasures and Suggestions.In order to remove barriers to transfer of agricultural labor,it is necessary to understand what hinders the transfer of agricultural labor,what are the main factors hindering the transfer of agricultural labor,and what measures should be taken to eliminate the barriers to the transfer of agricultural labor and accelerate the transfer of agricultural labor.This paper sorted out the relevant domestic and foreign literature on the transfer of agricultural labor,and holds that:(1)Most of the domestic researches on the formation of barriers to the transfer of agricultural labor on the analysis of a certain factor;(2)Because some factors are not quantified or more difficult to quantify,it is difficult to compare with other factors;(3)The conclusion of the research on the main factors of the transfer of agricultural labor in China is inconsistent.Through the current situation of labor distribution in China,we find the asymmetry of industrial structure and labor structure.There is agriculture surplus labor,and there is a huge wage gap between the agricultural sector and the non-agricultural sector,as well as a huge gap in educational attainment and the marginal rate of return on education between the agricultural sector and the non-agricultural sector.Based on data from the China labor dynamics survey(CLDS)in 2012,2014 and 2016,a multi-sector model is used to estimate unobservable barriers to agricultural labor migration from the observable wage gap from microcosmic individual.By combining the causes of wage gap with the influencing factors of agricultural labor transfer,two viewpoints were obtained:the selection viewpoint and the technical viewpoint.From the selection viewpoint,there are two reasons for the barriers to the transfer of agricultural labor.Firstly,there is a gap between the agricultural sector and the non-agricultural sector.Secondly,the innate abilities of workers in different industries are different.It is recorded as individual selection factor.It is the subjective influencing factor;From the technical viewpoint,the barrier to the transfer of agricultural labor is caused by the large difference in the technical level of different industries,which makes the cross-sector workers unable to match well.It is recorded as technical characteristic factor.It is the objective influencing factor.Through the results of the model,the barriers to the transfer of agricultural labor formed by individual selection factor are smaller than those formed by technical characteristics factor.It can be seen that the transfer cost needed to overcome the barriers formed by technical characteristics factor is larger.By comparing the results of the model with the wage gains of the workers who transferred from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector in China,we find the barriers to the transfer of labor from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector is mainly caused by individual selection factors in China,as is the case in the United States,Brazil and Indonesia.We also analyze the situation of agricultural labor transfer barriers in different years,educational background,genders and regions.This paper puts forward six policy Suggestions,including improving agricultural production capacity,building a complete employment information exchange platform,increasing investment in rural construction,providing continuous vocational training for surplus agricultural workers,narrowing the gender gap in the labor market,and promoting the process of transferring agricultural labor according to local conditions.