Abstract
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of return migration on the occupational choice in Rural ChinaDesign/methodology/approach - Our research use the two-stages residuals inclusion estimation, 2SRI, to deal with the endogeneity problem, and then compare the occupational choice between returnees and stayers with multinomial logit estimation and counterfactual analysis.Findings - We mainly find that: the migration experience has a significant positive impact on wage-employment activities, but maybe has a negative effect on the entrepreneurial activities. The workers engaged in non-agricultural activities (self-employment and wage-employment) have the same characteristics in the labor market (i.e., younger, male, higher education levels, less average lands and parents with little children) compared to the agricultural activities, but these characteristics show no significant affect on the occupation choice between self-employment and wage-employment.Research limitations/implications - This paper extends the empirical analysis in internal migration, but it also has some drawbacks. Such as we cannot get enough data to distinct the occupations between different types of self-employment as own account workers and as entrepreneurs. Further research needs more comprehensive data to support.Originality/value - Our research is the first study which use self-selection model to examine the activity choice of return migrants in rural China. We also extend the exiting studies in two directions: firstly, we use nationally-representative data from the general social survey of China carried out in 2006 to examine the relationship between the return rural migrants and their occupational choices. Secondly, we propose a more exactly category for rural occupational choice including non-agricultural activities (self-employee, wage-employment) and agricultural activities (peasants).
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of return migration on the occupational choice in Rural ChinaDesign/methodology/approach - Our research use the two-stages residuals inclusion estimation, 2SRI, to deal with the endogeneity problem, and then compare the occupational choice between returnees and stayers with multinomial logit estimation and counterfactual analysis.Findings - We mainly find that: the migration experience has a significant positive impact on wage-employment activities, but maybe has a negative effect on the entrepreneurial activities. The workers engaged in non-agricultural activities (self-employment and wage-employment) have the same characteristics in the labor market (i.e., younger, male, higher education levels, less average lands and parents with little children) compared to the agricultural activities, but these characteristics show no significant affect on the occupation choice between self-employment and wage-employment.Research limitations/implications - This paper extends the empirical analysis in internal migration, but it also has some drawbacks. Such as we cannot get enough data to distinct the occupations between different types of self-employment as own account workers and as entrepreneurs. Further research needs more comprehensive data to support.Originality/value - Our research is the first study which use self-selection model to examine the activity choice of return migrants in rural China. We also extend the exiting studies in two directions: firstly, we use nationally-representative data from the general social survey of China carried out in 2006 to examine the relationship between the return rural migrants and their occupational choices. Secondly, we propose a more exactly category for rural occupational choice including non-agricultural activities (self-employee, wage-employment) and agricultural activities (peasants).