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| Housing Prices and the Mobility of High-skilled Talent in Enterprises: An Empirical Study Based on Online Resume Big Data |
| ZHOU Huaikang, ZHANG Li, LIU Shanshi
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School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University;
International School of Business & Finance, Sun Yat-sen University;
School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology |
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Abstract Promoting smooth and orderly talent mobility and activating talent resources has become an important national development strategy in China. Relevant studies in the literature widely consider that talent mobility is a key means of optimizing human capital allocation, which is of practical importance for enhancing social vitality and achieving high-quality economic development.
Housing prices are an important measure of the costs and benefits of city living. Whether buying or renting, individuals will be influenced by housing prices when making mobility decisions. What impact do high housing prices have on the mobility of high-skilled talent in enterprises？ The answer to this question directly influences the optimization of national human capital allocation and the improvement of economic efficiency, and has important practical and economic value. On the one hand, based on prospect theory, high housing prices raise living costs, reduce individual benefits, and raise the prospect of a certain loss, which encourages high-skilled talents to leave their current enterprises in pursuit of higher career benefits, demonstrating the “escape effect.” On the other hand, based on the threat-rigidity hypothesis, the threat of high housing prices places strong psychological and economic pressure on high-skilled talents, such that they tend to avoid risks and remain with their current enterprises, leading to a “lock-in effect.” However, as research is limited by the difficulty of acquiring data on individual mobility between enterprises, there are currently no relevant studies on the relationship between city housing prices and the mobility of high-skilled talent in enterprises to help resolve the conflicting theories.
Using online resume big data from a large domestic professional social networking site, this paper tracks and restores the mobility information of high-skilled talent in enterprises on a large scale and explores the relationship between city housing prices and the mobility of high-skilled talent in enterprises. The results show that city housing prices have a significant inhibitory effect on the mobility of high-skilled talent in enterprises: for every 1% increase in city housing prices, the probability of high-skilled talent mobility between enterprises decreases by 4.24%, supporting the “lock-in effect” of housing prices. Heterogeneity tests show that the “lock-in effect” of housing prices is more significant in eastern coastal cities, central cities of urban agglomerations, and super-large cities than in other cities; is more obvious in state-owned enterprises, high-paying enterprises, and mature enterprises than in other enterprises; and has stronger effects on those aged 25-35 years than on other age groups, on management talents, and on technical talents. Further analysis shows that city housing prices have a significant inhibitory effect on the mobility of high-skilled talent within and across cities, mainly inhibiting the mobility of high-skilled talent to higher-priced cities in the case of inter-city mobility, whereas the effects on the mobility to lower-priced cities are not significant. Therefore, low-priced areas do not attract more high-skilled talent than higher-priced areas. Overall, we find that high housing prices hinder the optimization of human capital allocation between cities.
The contributions of this study are threefold. First, whereas research on urban housing prices and labor mobility mainly focuses on inter-city migration, this study examines the impact of housing prices on inter-firm mobility. This can avoid many confounding factors and facilitate the understanding of the micro-mechanism through which housing prices impact labor mobility, thereby deepening the understanding of the macro decision-making process on the impact of housing prices on labor mobility between cities. Second, research on urban housing prices and individual micro-behavior mainly relies on labor survey data and focuses on low-income and low-skill workers; conversely, this study focuses on high-skilled talent by mining online resume data, providing useful supplementary information to the body of research. Third, in contrast with the focus in the literature on exploring the factors influencing inter-firm mobility from a micro perspective of individuals and enterprises, this study incorporates urban housing prices into the framework of analysis for inter-individual and inter-firm mobility, providing new ideas for exploring the influencing factors of individual and inter-firm mobility from a more macro perspective than that adopted in the literature.
The study's findings demonstrate new policy directions for the government to optimize human capital allocation and talent mobility policies. Departments concerned should focus on the main force of mobility in society, the 25-35 age group, by addressing their mobility demands and challenges through policies such as easing housing price pressures and providing talent housing guarantees. In addition, departments concerned in relevant regions should be alert to the “lock-in” effect of urban housing prices in central cities and take corresponding measures to promote the reasonable and orderly mobility of talent, and thus stimulate economic vitality.
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Received: 24 August 2021
Published: 08 August 2023
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