摘要
Urban development as traditionally defined is generally believed to have stimulated a great increase in employment in the course of urbanization. However, it is still not clear what effect urbanization at the township level has on employment. Urbanization at the township and village levels is different from urbanization centered on larger cities. Apart from its demand-side effect on employment of the labor stock, it acts as a multi-dimensional shock to the labor supply intentions of rural labor and changes the capacity of the labor pool. Most of the newly added labor supply can only be absorbed through the development of local non-agricultural sectors. Township urbanization may worsen involuntary unemployment if it is not soundly executed and is unable to render strong support to the development of non-agricultural sectors. We used survey data from five provinces in China to verify these hypotheses, and found that in regions relying on the radiation effect of central cities to promote the coordinated growth of township development, industrialization and urbanization, there is a marked fall in involuntary unemployment. By contrast, in those regions that are cut off from the synergistic effect of nearby cities and are promoting small-scale urbanization on their own, development of non-agricultural industries lags behind and involuntary unemployment intensifies. These findings wam us that we urgently need to solve the problem of industry convergence in promoting urbanization at the township and village levels, and this in turn depends on our devising a much more systematic model for promoting urbanization.
一般认为,在中国城市化进程中传统意义上的城市发展极大地促进了就业增长,但乡镇层面的城镇化会对就业产生怎样影响,仍是一个待澄清的问题。与以城市为中心的城市化不同,乡镇城镇化并不是静态地影响就业,它除了从需求角度影响存量劳动力的就业外,还会从多个维度冲击农村劳动力的劳动供给意愿,并改变劳动力蓄水池的容量。这些新增劳动力大多只能通过本地非农部门的发展来消化,如果城镇化推进方式不当,不能有力反推非农部门的发展,就可能会加剧非自愿型失业。基于河南、湖南等五省的调查数据,我们验证了上述判断并发现,在那些依托中心城市的辐射效应来推动城镇发展的地区,工业化与城镇化协调推进,非自愿型失业明显减少;相反,在那些脱离周边城市的协同效应而孤立推动城镇化的地区,非农部门的发展比较滞后,非自愿型失业现象更为普遍。本文的结论提醒我们,在乡镇层面推动城镇化将面临更迫切的产业协同问题,这需要对城镇化的推进模式进行更系统的设计。
