| 颜迪,铁瑛.社保征管体制改革、人口迁移与非正规就业[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2025,(11):134-155 | | 社保征管体制改革、人口迁移与非正规就业 | | Reform of Social Insurance Collection System, Migration, and Informal Employment | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 社保征管体制改革 人口迁移 非正规就业 | | 英文关键词: Reform of the Social Insurance Collection System Migration Informal Employment | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 本文基于全国流动人口动态监测调查数据，系统探究了社保征管体制改革对人口迁移的影响与发生机制，并基于技能差异识别了社保征管效率提升与非正规就业产生的微观机理。研究表明，社保征管体制改革改变了个体迁移决策，显著提升了个体从未改革省份迁入改革实施地的平均概率，重塑了人口迁移的空间格局，在排除了就业、城市发展水平与城市宜居度等因素后，收入水平的显著提升是具有排他性的核心发生机制。进一步研究发现，社保征管体制改革后，在“高短期收入—低远期保障”的替代均衡下，客观上形成了“流动人口的平均社保参保率下降，非正规就业的平均概率显著上升”这一未预期事实，且集中体现在社保脆弱度更高的低技能劳动者群体。本文揭示了社保征管效率提升与劳动者权益保护的深层关联，社保制度进一步完善需要跳出“增收”的单一逻辑，优化社会保障政策设计、防范弱势群体隐性福利损失的关键在于破解非正规就业扩张对劳动者长期福利的侵蚀。 | | 英文摘要: | | The reform of the social insurance collection system is a pivotal institutional innovation for enhancing state governance efficacy and optimizing the social security system. In China, this reform has undergone a paradigm shift from decentralized administration by social security agencies to centralized collection by tax authorities, significantly improving the efficiency and coverage of social insurance fund collection. However, such a major reform may also yield unintended economic impacts, necessitating further policy refinement. A primary concern is that firms may respond to the increased labor costs by shifting toward informal employment arrangements, such as labor outsourcing and flexible work, potentially trapping low-skilled workers in a “high short-term income vs. low long-term security” dilemma and thus exacerbating the fragility of the social security system in the long run. This contradiction holds particular urgency in China, given its massive mobile population. According to the Seventh National Population Census, the number of internal migrants has reached 376 million, predominantly comprising low-skilled workers. As the primary target for expanding social insurance coverage and the main cohort engaged in informal employment, the migration decisions and job choices of these migrants are crucial not only for individual welfare but also for social equity and macroeconomic stability.This study leverages data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey from 2011 to 2017 and employs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to systematically evaluate the impact of the social insurance collection reform on internal migration. Furthermore, it identifies the reform’s unintended effects on informal employment, focusing on skill-based heterogeneity. The baseline results indicate that the reform significantly increased the probability of migrants from nonreform provinces moving to reform pilot provinces—a phenomenon primarily driven by the attraction of higher income. Further analysis reveals that, on average, the reform significantly suppressed the social insurance participation rate among migrants while increasing their probability of engaging in informal employment. Disaggregated results by skill level indicate that these effects are predominantly driven by low-skilled migrants. For this group, the reform was not only associated with a significant increase in average income but also a significant rise in informal employment, effectively channeling them into a substitute equilibrium characterized by “high cash income vs. low social security”.This study contributes to the literature in three aspects: First, it extends the understanding of how social security policies influence micro-level migration decisions. To the best of our knowledge, it provides the first robust empirical evidence on the migration effects of the collection reform from the perspective of the mobile population, offering new insights into the market-based allocation of labor factors. Second, from a micro-individual perspective and considering skill heterogeneity, it explains why the reform objectively spurred the expansion of informal employment. Our findings not only reconcile existing disagreements in the literature regarding the reform’s employment effects by highlighting the role of low-skilled informal employment but also provide a new labor supply side explanation for the rise of informal work and skill polarization, complementing the previous predominant focus on firm demand-side strategies and unveiling the “black box” of implicit adjustment in the labor market. Third, it offers a novel explanation for the income effects of the reform through the lens of individual informal employment decisions. While existing studies mainly focus on firms’ hiring strategies to explain the reform’s impact on employee income, often overlooking the distinction between formal and informal employment, our study effectively advances and recalibrates these conclusions. | | 查看全文 相关附件： 下载数据代码附录 |
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