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Treat Floating People Fairly: How Compensation Equity and Multilevel Social Exclusion Influence Prosocial Behavior Among China’s Floating Population

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Abstract

The hundreds of millions of floating people in China who leave their hometown for a new city to improve their standard of living constitute an important phenomenon, but as yet the ethical predicaments they face, such as low compensation equity and high social exclusion, have attracted little attention. With a national sample of 125,626 floating people in China, this study investigated how and when compensation equity influences prosocial behavior through the lens of justice theory. This study found that floating people’s compensation equity positively influences prosocial behavior, and this relationship is mediated by subjective well-being (SWB). This study also supported that multilevel social exclusion, including the perception of social exclusion and provincial social exclusion strength, positively moderates the relationship between compensation equity and SWB. Moreover, the perception of social exclusion and provincial social exclusion strength moderate the mediating effect of SWB between compensation equity and prosocial behavior. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are further discussed.

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Notes

  1. For historical and institutional reasons, China established a dual (rural; urban) household registration (hukou) system in the planned economy era, under which people from rural households cannot migrate to urban areas for work. In the Reform and Opening era, however, the hukou system has been loosened considerably, and large numbers of people from rural areas have left their hometown and moved to an urban area for work and a better life; these people are referred to as the floating population or floating people.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71872139) and Humanity and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 18YJC630164).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Bayi Road, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

    Yidong Tu, Yongkang Yang & Shengfeng Lu

  2. School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing, China

    Ying Zhang

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Tu, Y., Zhang, Y., Yang, Y. et al. Treat Floating People Fairly: How Compensation Equity and Multilevel Social Exclusion Influence Prosocial Behavior Among China’s Floating Population. J Bus Ethics 175, 323–338 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04641-y

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