|
|
|
| Urban Service Diversity and Labor Mobility: An Analysis Based on Big Data of Meituan and a Micro Survey of a Floating Population |
| ZHANG Wenwu, YU Yongze
|
| School of International Economics and Trade, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics |
|
|
|
Abstract China's economy is entering a new stage of high-quality development, and with the decline of the global demographic dividend and the concurrent release of the regional demographic dividend, the competition between cities for talent and labor forces has gradually become a key focus of the new era. Thus, the study of labor force allocation now focuses on what features are used by cities to attract and retain talent. In China's new urbanization process, people-oriented features are becoming an important part of urban talent attraction and management policies, and urban features that meet consumers' various preferences and personalized needs are gradually becoming an important driver of labor mobility. The production capacity, types, and supply modes of urban services are crucial supports of urban convenience and comfort and provide many ways to improve the welfare of local workers. The increasing demand of cities for labor and the fierce competition between cities to attract talent leads to the following key questions. What role does the diversification and convenience of urban service supply play in labor migration？ What kind of talents are attracted and retained by urban service diversity？ The answers to these questions will have extensive practical significance and implications.
To this end, this study analyzes the effect of urban service diversity on labor mobility from the perspective of comfort and convenience. Thus, an analysis is performed on the data of Meituan, a food-delivery company, and the data from a dynamic monitoring survey of China's floating population in 2017. To deal with the endogeneity problem, the geographical distance between a city and its provincial capital is used as the instrumental variable, and the results confirm that urban service diversity has a significant effect on labor flows. Specifically, a 1% increase in the urban service diversity of a city leads to a 3.23% reduction in the probability that floating population-associated labor will leave that city. That is, if the endogenous problems caused by individual and urban characteristics and missing variables are controlled, a higher diversity of urban services decreases the probability of labor force selection and mobility.
The results of grouping regression based on age nodes and skill levels also reveal that various labor groups have different sensitivities to urban service diversity. For example, the younger population is less likely than the elderly to leave cities with a higher diversity of urban services. In addition, initial analyses show that the mobility and migration probability of the young and middle-aged labor forces decreases by 4.62% for every 1% increase in the urban service category. Furthermore, although the comfort welfare afforded by urban services is important for highly skilled workers and low-skilled workers, highly skilled workers have a greater sensitivity to such comfort welfare.
We also analyze the effect of adjustments in urban and regional environments, and find that the construction of urban informatization technology and the level of marketization have a positive effect on the attraction and retention of talent via their effects on urban service diversity. That is, the construction of information technology (such as urban mobile Internet services) and increased market sophistication attracts labor to live in a city to take advantage of modern products and services, and it therefore reduces the probability of labor mobility or migration. In addition, the results show that labor flow in the central and western regions is less affected by the diversity of urban services than labor flow in the eastern regions. Specifically, the coefficient of the cross terms of age and skill level reveal that labor forces with strong ability or younger age currently prefer to stay in eastern cities. Furthermore, we find that labor flows in big cities are more sensitive to the diversity of urban services than labor flows in small and medium-sized cities, which shows that the comfort welfare represented by the diversity of urban services is an important channel by which large cities draw a population dividend from small and medium-sized cities.
The results of this study have novel implications for the development of policies designed to attract and retain labor force talents, which are part of the urban competition for talent in China. In particular, as the urban economy of China is entering a new stage of high-quality development, the spatial reallocation of labor involves quantitative change in terms of scales of flow and cross-regional migration, as well as qualitative change in terms of the direction of labor structure optimization and efficiency improvements. Moreover, the advantages enjoyed by cities that stem from their ability to attract and retain a high-quality labor force depend on their offering workers a “livelihood channel” of employment and a channel of improved general comfort and welfare. Urban managers and policy designers should therefore make plans based on this reality to cultivate and develop market patterns that are more in line with individual's welfare preferences and thereby to gradually improve the quality of urban labor forces by increasing the diversity of urban service supply systems.
|
|
Received: 22 December 2020
Published: 02 October 2021
|
|
|
|
|
| [1] |
韩峰和李玉双,2019,《产业集聚、公共服务供给与城市规模扩张》,《经济研究》第11期,第149～164页。
|
| [2] |
何炜,2020,《公共服务提供对劳动力流入地选择的影响——基于异质性劳动力视角》,《财政研究》第3期,第101～118页。
|
| [3] |
李兵、郭冬梅和刘思勤,2019,《城市规模、人口结构与不可贸易品多样性——基于“大众点评网”的大数据分析》,《经济研究》第1期,第150～164页。
|
| [4] |
鲁永刚和张凯,2019,《地理距离、方言文化与劳动力空间流动》,《统计研究》第3期,第88～99页。
|
| [5] |
梁文泉,2018,《不安居,则不消费:为什么排斥外来人口不利于提高本地人口的收入？》,《管理世界》第1期,第78～87+191～192页。
|
| [6] |
陆铭、高虹和佐藤宏,2012,《城市规模与包容性就业》,《中国社会科学》第10期,第47～66+206页。
|
| [7] |
马双和赵文博,2019,《方言多样性与流动人口收入——基于CHFS的实证研究》,《经济学(季刊)》第1期,第393～414页。
|
| [8] |
宋弘和吴茂华,2020,《高房价是否导致了区域高技能人力资本流出？》,《金融研究》第3期,第77～95页。
|
| [9] |
孙伟增、张晓楠和郑思齐,2019,《空气污染与劳动力的空间流动——基于流动人口就业选址行为的研究》,《经济研究》第11期,第102～117页。
|
| [10] |
夏怡然和陆铭,2015,《城市间的“孟母三迁”——公共服务影响劳动力流向的经验研究》,《管理世界》第10期,第78～90页。
|
| [11] |
张吉鹏、黄金、王军辉和黄勔,2020,《城市落户门槛与劳动力回流》,《经济研究》第7期,第175～190页。
|
| [12] |
张萃,2018,《什么使城市更有利于创业？》,《经济研究》第4期,第151～166页。
|
| [13] |
张海峰、林细细、梁若冰和蓝嘉俊,2019,《城市生态文明建设与新一代劳动力流动——劳动力资源竞争的新视角》,《中国工业经济》第4期,第81～97页。
|
| [14] |
张莉、何晶和马润泓,2017,《房价如何影响劳动力流动？》,《经济研究》第8期,第155～170页。
|
| [15] |
周颖刚、蒙莉娜和卢琪,2019,《高房价挤出了谁？——基于中国流动人口的微观视角》,《经济研究》第9期,第106～122页。
|
| [16] |
周颖刚、蒙莉娜和林雪萍,2020,《城市包容性与劳动力的创业选择——基于流动人口的微观视角》,《财贸经济》第1期,第129～144页。
|
| [17] |
Douglas,M. 1990. “Social Structure,Household Strategies,and the Cumulative Causation of Migration”,Population Index,56(1):3～26.
|
| [18] |
Dahlberg,M.,Eklof,M.,Fredriksson,P. and Monseny,J. 2012. “Estimating Preferences for Local Public Services Using Migration Data”,Urban Studies,49(2):319～336.
|
| [19] |
Diamond,R. 2016. “The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill:1980～2000”,The American Economic Review,106(3):479～524.
|
| [20] |
Donald,G. and Newey,W. 2001. “Choosing the Number of Instruments”,Econometrica,69(5):1161～1191.
|
| [21] |
Glaeser,EL.,Jed,K. and Albert,S. 2001. “Consumer City”,Journal of Economic Geography,1(1):27～50.
|
| [22] |
Lee,S. 2010. “Ability Sorting and Consumer City”,Journal of Urban Economics,68(1):20～33.
|
| [23] |
Melo,P., Graham,D. and Noland,R. 2009. “A Meta-Analysis of Estimates of Urban Agglomeration Economies”,Regional Science and Urban Economics,39(3):332～342.
|
| [24] |
Roca,J. and Puga,D. 2017. “Learning by Working in Big Cities”,The Review of Economic Studies,84(1):106～142.
|
| [25] |
Schiff,N. 2015. “Cities and Product Variety:Evidence from Restaurants”,Journal of Economic Geography,15(6):1085～1123.
|
| [26] |
Winters,J. and Li,Y. 2017. “Urbanization,Natural Amenities and Subjective Well-Being:Evidence from US Counties”,Urban Studies,54(8):1956～1973.
|
| No related articles found! |
|
|
|
|
