Geographic Labor Mobility of Floating Migrant Workers in China: The Impacts of Health Status and Education on Earnings - Theoretical Economics Letters

TEL > Vol.8 No.11, August 2018

Geographic Labor Mobility of Floating Migrant Workers in China: The Impacts of Health Status and Education on Earnings ()

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DOI: 10.4236/tel.2018.811152 804 Downloads 1,545 Views Citations

Author(s)

Chien-Ping Chen^1*, Lin Guo², Lijian Qin³

Affiliation(s)

¹School of Business Administration, University of Houston-Victoria, Katy, USA.
²Department of Sociology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
³Finance and Public Administrative School, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China.

ABSTRACT

The geographic labor mobility has been ignored in the studies related to the impacts of health status or education on floating migrant workers’ earnings in China. Based on a dataset collected by the World Bank collaborated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2010, we initiate the assessment of geographic mobility and explore the indirect impacts from health, education, and other factors on earnings through it. A relatively poor, single, educated migrant in good health with parent at home working in the manufacturing sector presents the strongest geographic mobility. The comparative results indicate that the total health impacts on earnings are generally underestimated for migrant workers at poor or fair health status and the education advancement has a greater impact on earnings for the majority of migrant workers who exhibit the “healthy migrant effect”. Our findings not only justify the ground of mixed results in the previous studies but also provide policy making implications. Given the concave relationship between health status and geographic labor mobility, the ongoing health care reform in China should provide local affordable services to attract returning migrants and enhance their earnings.

KEYWORDS

Labor Mobility, Migrant Workers, Health Status, Education, Earnings, China

Share and Cite:

Chen, C. , Guo, L. and Qin, L. (2018) Geographic Labor Mobility of Floating Migrant Workers in China: The Impacts of Health Status and Education on Earnings. Theoretical Economics Letters, 8, 2345-2362. doi: 10.4236/tel.2018.811152.

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