Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, volume 71 4th International Conference on Economics, Management, Law and Education (EMLE 2018) The Impact of Cross-border Migrant Employment on Workers' Income in Border Areas An Empirical Study Based on the Micro Data of Yunnan Border Areas Jie Yang Renjuan Luo School of Economics and Management School of Economics and Management Yunnan Normal University Yunnan Normal University Kunming, China Kunming, China Abstract—Based on household survey data of the national China, and "The Belt and Road" strategic planning. These social science fund research group in Yunnan border area, this regional development policies have provided new opportunities paper examines the marginal effects of cross-border mobile for the development of border areas. Population, as the main employment on the wage level of workers. We use the census body of regional economic and social development, has register's household register and whether there is someone going become an important indicator of regional development, abroad for business or working in the same region as instrument especially the trend and situation of floating employment of the variables to eliminate the endogeneity of cross-border flows working population, which is the focus of governments at all which lead to empirical bias. The study found that the cross- levels. In recent years, the employment pattern of population border flow of employment increased theirs wages significantly. flow in border areas has taken on new characteristics. In Even by controlling for factors of age, gender, education, national addition to the traditional inter-provincial flow, intra-provincial and income level before the outflow, the result is still significant and robust. The research results have some policy implications and intra-city and inter-county employment, cross-border for improving the employment level and the income level of the (national) employment has become a new trend of population workers in the border areas. flow in border areas. Based on the convenient geographical conditions of border trade areas, a large number of school-age Keywords—border area; cross-border mobile employment; labor forces began to flow out of the country and choose wage level; instrumental variable neighboring countries or regions to engage in business or other ways of working to obtain labor income. In the existing I. INTRODUCTION research literature, a large number of scholars have paid attention to the causes of rural migrant employment Migrant workers, especially a large number of migrant opportunities and wage differences in China's labor market and workers from rural areas into urban employment, are an the empirical analysis of China's urban-rural income gap during important demographic phenomenon since China's reform and the economic transition. Few literatures have paid attention to opening-up. On the one hand, the rapid development of China's the impact of cross-border migrant employment on workers' economy and the new-type urbanization has increased the wage level. Then compared with the traditional migrant demand for labor force. On the other hand, the transformation employment mode in rural areas, can cross-border employment of rural production and operation mode and the improvement increase the income level of workers more? of production efficiency enable a large number of surplus labor forces to be released, creating conditions for a large number of Using the questionnaire data of the national social fund rural labor forces to work in cities. According to the statistical research group in the Yunan border area, this paper investigates data of China's floating population development report 2016, the effect of cross-border mobile employment on the wage the annual growth rate of floating population in China was income level of the laborers. Traditional OLS regression about 8 million from 2011 to 2015, and reached 247 million by showed that cross-border migrant employment increased the the end of 2015, with an annual migration rate of 17.97 percent. wage level of workers effectively. However, this is not enough The large scale of population migration has provided sufficient to determine the causal relationship between the two, because "demographic dividend" for China's economic construction on the cross-border flow behavior itself is endogenous, and the the macro level, enabling the situation of high savings, high reasons are in the following. First, whether respondents choose investment and high growth to be maintained for a long time in cross-border flows is not completely random. Cross-border the past and greatly promoted China's urbanization flows are likely the result of respondents' individual self- construction (Wang Dewen, 2007). From a micro perspective, selection. Traditional OLS regression will cause estimation the flow of labor force to some extent improves the absolute bias due to sample self-selection. Second, that surveyed people income of rural families and reduces the relative probability of choose cross-border flows may be decided by the family falling into poverty (Fan Shide, 2016). Since the 21st century, features or policy factors, these factors will also affect income China has successively introduced policies such as western of floating population and those decision of floating, which development, revitalization of old industrial bases in northeast will lead to endogenous of tradition OLS regression. Third, Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 106 Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, volume 71 cross-border migrant employment and the wage level of the survey also obtained monthly income data of migrant workers may also have a two-way causal relationship. In workers. addition to the cross-border flow of employment in order to obtain higher wage income, some high-income workers may B. Statistical Analysis also reflect their value and employment interest through cross- According to the statistics, among the 605 valid survey data, border flow. An effective method to eliminate endogenous of 493 people had experienced migrant employment, and the OLS regression is using instrumental variable method to population mobility ratio was 81.48%.Among them, 236 of the estimate. This paper uses the two instrumental variables to 493 people going out and moving were in the domestic flow, solve the endogeneity problem of ordinary OLS regression. and 257 people were in the cross-border flow. The proportion The first instrumental variable is the household registration. of the cross-border flow people was 52.13%. "Table I" shows And the second instrumental variable is whether there are the definition of relevant variables and the characteristics of the people in the same area who do business or work in other data used in empirical study. places. The results of empirical research show that cross-border migrant employment has a significant effect on the improvement of workers’ wage level. Even though we TABLE I. DEFINITION OF VARIABLES AND STATISTICAL controlled for a variety of factors such as age, sex, education, CHARACTERISTICS ethnicity and income level before the outflow, the research Stand Sample variable Definition mean min max conclusion and the performance was relatively stable. error volume Han=1 nation 0.51 0.50 0 1 605 The research results explain that cross-border employment others=0 Male=1 helps to improve the employment rate and the income level of sex 0.59 0.49 0 1 605 workers in border areas on a certain range of micro level; it Female=0 Chengchong=1 also has some significant reference for local governments to census Malipo=2 1.66 0.82 1 3 605 register implement the central government's "adhere to the employment Maguan=3 first strategy and implement a more active employment policy". 15-20=1; 20- At the same time, China's border areas are mostly 30=2 31-40=3; 41- underdeveloped areas, but also rural poor agglomeration areas. age 3.08 1.05 1 6 605 Cross-border migrant employment is also conducive to the 50=4 export of labor services in border and poor areas and the 51- 60=5; >60=6 improvement of the overall poverty alleviation project in poor age2 Square of age 10.74 6.68 1 36 605 villages. Illiteracy=0 Primary edu=6 The following content is arranged as follows: the second edu Junior edu=9 7.23 2.94 0 15 605 part introduces the statistical description of the data sources High edu=12 and relevant indicators used in the paper; the third part College =15 empirically studies the effect of cross-border employment on Work wage income level; the fourth part gives the conclusion and social outside=1 0.91 0.29 0 1 605 policy implications. Others=0 Abroad=1 abroad 0.52 0.50 0 1 493 Non-abroad=0 II. DATA SOURCE AND STATISTICAL DESCRIPTION five categories b_ of income 6.55 0.57 6.24 7.84 493 A. Data Source income before there are no flows The empirical data in this paper are all derived from the five categories a- of income field survey data conducted in the border area of Yunnan 7.76 0.48 6.62 8.61 493 province by the national social science foundation project income before there (12CMZ042). In September 2012 to August 2014, the research are flows team selected Yunnan province border’s Tengchong county, Baoshan state, which is adjacent to Myanmar, Malipo county, III. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS Wenshan state and Marguan county, which is adjacent to Vietnam. The data of 605 families' population movement in 18 According to the labor economics, the wage level of village committees were collected successively, and each employees is mainly determined by human capital, work household was randomly selected to conduct the questionnaire experience and work characteristics.