Hukou/Migration Status across Cities: A Multilevel Analysis of Determinants of Worker's Earnings in China

• In Event: 115 - Section on Asia and Asian America Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Social Stratification in China

Abstract

The income gap between the rich and poor, and between different regions and cities in China has been widening significantly. Given the great variations across regions and areas in terms of levels of economic development in China, the multilevel models are useful to capture the socio-economic context in which the workers’ earnings are affected. Previous research that focused purely on individual-level overlooked the environment influences. In this paper, taking advantage of the hierarchical data structure of the 2008 China General Social Survey (CGSS, 2008) and the availability of city-level variables from 2008 Chinese City Statistics, I use hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to estimate patterns of variation within and between cities simultaneously, by allowing intercepts and slopes to vary. Results indicate that there is a statistically significant variation in logged personal annual wage across the cities. In other words, worker’s earnings are not only affected by individual characteristics, such as education, hukou status, and class, but also by the characteristics of the cities where people reside. The imbalanced foreign direct investment and population distributions in cities lead to a wider wage gap among workers.

Author

• Qiong (Miranda) Wu