Working Paper #2020-051
Social assimilation and labour market outcomes of migrants in China
Previous research has found identity to be relevant for international
migration, but has neglected internal mobility as in the case of the
Great Chinese Migration. However, the context of the identities of
migrants and their adaption in the migration process is likely to be
quite different. The gap is closed by examining social assimilation and
the effect on the labourmarket outcomes of migrants in China, the
country with the largest record of internal mobility. Using instrumental
variable estimation, the study finds that identifying as local residents
significantly increase migrants’ hourly wages and reduce hours worked,
although their monthly earnings remained barely changed. Further
findings suggest that migrants with strong local identity are more
likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with
higher average wages and lower average hours worked per day.
- Keywords
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- Social assimilation
- identity
- labour market
- migration
- JEL codes
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- J22
- J31
- J61
- Z13
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Cai, S., & Zimmermann, K. F. (2020). Social assimilation and labour market outcomes of migrants in China (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2020-051). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=8679