Sylvie Démurger, Li Shi, Migration, remittances and rural employment patterns: evidence from China,Groupe d’analyse et de théorie économique Lyon- Saint Étienne, October 2012. Full text available, HAL-SHS halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/74/44/38/PDF/1230.pdf
This paper explores the rural labor market impact of migration in China using cross- sectional data on rural households for the year 2007. A switching probit model is used to estimate the impact of belonging to a migrant-sending household on the individual occupa- tional choice categorized in four binary decisions: farm work, wage work, self-employment and housework. The paper then goes on to estimate how the impact of migration differs across different types of migrant households identified along two additional lines: remittances and migration history. Results show that individual occupational choice in rural China is responsive to migration, at both the individual and the family levels, but the impacts differ: individual migration experience favors subsequent local off-farm work, whereas at the family level, migration drives the left-behinds to farming rather than to off-farm activities. Our results also point to the interplay of various channels through which migration influences rural employment patterns.