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Labor Shrinkage and its Driving Forces in China from 1990 to 2015: A Geographical Analysis

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Abstract

Labor change in China has reached a turning point, and labor shrinkage and its related issues have widely attracted attention in recent years. However, studies that examine labor shrinkage and its driving forces from a geographical perspective are still limited. This study analyzed the trends and spatial differences of labor shrinkage at national and various regional scales from 1990 to 2015, and then investigated the driving forces behind these processes by combining the variables of migration and demographic structural change. We found that labor shrinkage areas at the subnational level have increased significantly in the period from 2010 to 2015. We also found that they first emerged in the Central and Western regions, and then gradually expanded to the Coastal and Northeast regions. Although migration still matters, dramatic demographic structural changes have played an increasingly important role in explaining the recent trend of labor shrinkage. Moreover, the driving forces varied in different local contexts: while lagging economic and employment growth have been the main drivers of labor shrinkage in the Central and Western regions, many shrinkage areas in the Coastal region can be linked to the decline of the youth population on the one hand and an aging population on the other hand. These findings highlight the geographic heterogeneity of labor shrinkage as well as the driving forces at regional levels, and they recommend that local governments take differentiated measures to address labor shrinkage.

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Notes

  1. In this study, labor force refers to the population aged 15 to 64 which is in line with the most common definition. Thus, an aging population may cause shrinkage in both the percentage and the absolute number of labor population, especially in the long term.

  2. Some related explanations are included in Sect. 2, paragraph 3.

  3. The Coastal region contains Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Hainan. The Central region contains Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan. The Western region contains Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shannxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang. The Northeast region contains Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang.

  4. As explained in Section 3.2, the percentages of the population aged 0–14 years and the population aged 65 years and above were calculated through the “Hukou” population data.

  5. Regarding the variable of the state intervention, 1 is assigned for the provinces located in the coastal region, because the coastal region has enjoyed the top priority support since the reform in the 1970s.

  6. Regarding the variable of the state intervention, 1 is assigned for the units located in the urban agglomerations.

  7. SIP has not been included, as it is a dummy variable.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the following financial supports: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42001166; No. 41771180).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Nature Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhen Liu, Honggang Qi & Shenghe Liu

  2. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhen Liu, Honggang Qi & Shenghe Liu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shenghe Liu

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  1. Zhen Liu
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Correspondence to Honggang Qi.

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Liu, Z., Qi, H. & Liu, S. Labor Shrinkage and its Driving Forces in China from 1990 to 2015: A Geographical Analysis. Appl. Spatial Analysis 15, 339–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-021-09414-2

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