earticle

영어

The study analyzes the wage gap between urban workers and rural migrant workers by region (eastern, central and western) from the perspective of China's balanced regional development policy. If the balanced regional development policy had improved its economic conditions in the Midwest, the wage gap between regions would have decreased. However, the wage gap between the two groups in the region may expand or decrease depending on the degree of changes in the group's labor demand and labor supply. In addition, the wage gap can be divided into categories described by group characteristics and those that cannot be interpreted due to discrimination. Based on this, the study analyzes the impact of balanced regional development policies on the wage gap between urban and rural migrant workers by region by using China Household Income Project (CHIP) data in 2002 and 2013 and applying the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method. According to the analysis, the wage gap between urban workers and rural migrant workers fell from 0.499 in 2002 to 0.17 in 2013. Wage gaps have significantly decreased in the western, central and eastern sectors in order, meaning China's balanced regional development policy has contributed to narrowing the wage gap between regions. The wage gap between urban workers and rural migrant workers in the region also decreased the most in the West. With the push for large-scale construction projects, labor demand for rural migrant workers' work increased relatively significantly, and consequently the wage increase rate for rural migrant workers was greater than that of urban workers. In addition, when comparing the portion of the wage gap in 2002, the results of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition showed that the western region was the highest with 86.3 percent, followed by the central part with 59.2 percent and the eastern part with 54.3 percent. It suggests that the more underdeveloped regions had a greater proportion of discriminatory factors in the wage gap before China's balanced regional development policy was implemented.