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To leave or to stay: Digital economy development and migrant workers’ location

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  • Yu, Lingzheng
  • Wang, Jiannan
  • Lou, Shiyan
  • Wei, Xiahai

Abstract

The vigorous development of the digital economy will reshape labour demand, which in turn will affect the workplace choice of migrant workers and then their location. Taking the large-scale and highly-mobile immigrant workers in urban China as the research population, this paper conducted an empirical research on the impact of the digital economy on labour location using the data from the China Labour-force Dynamic Survey (2012–2016). Results show that the more developed a city’s digital economy is, the more immigrants the city can attract and absorb. Analysis of the impact channels shows that the attraction of the digital economy to immigrants stems mainly from entrepreneurial opportunity provision and skill utilization enhancement effects. There is individual heterogeneity in the impact of the digital economy, with low-skilled, rural, or high communication ability migrant workers likely to be positively impacted by the development of the urban digital economy. While local governments are committed to digital technology-driven economic transformation, they should nonetheless promote the training of workers in the new era to achieve a better match between digital development and labour market.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu, Lingzheng & Wang, Jiannan & Lou, Shiyan & Wei, Xiahai, 2024. "To leave or to stay: Digital economy development and migrant workers’ location," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:94:y:2024:i:c:s1049007824000873
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2024.101792
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Digital economy; Migrant worker; Labour location; Entrepreneurial opportunity Subject classification codes: J24; J61; O33;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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