Income Differential and Out-migration: the Impacts of Between-gap and Within-gap

Abstract

In this paper, we use pooled cross-sectional data on 28 provinces to study out-migration in China. In particular, we estimate inter- and intra-province rural-to-urban migration in a simultaneous-equations model. Allowing for the joint determination of inter- and intra-migration, we find the effect of the within province rural–urban income gap on intra-province migration to be almost three times as strong as that of the between province urban wage gap on inter-province migration.

Keywords:

• Out-migration
• income differential
• China
• JEL classifications: R23
• I61

Acknowledgments

Notes

1. The survey collected data from 7677 households with a total of 35,238 people, including 20,727 labourers and 2986 migrants, from 318 villages in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.