农业劳动力转移潜力耗尽了吗?

Has China's Labor Mobility Exhausted Its Momentum?

本文通过国际比较发现,中国农业劳动力比重就其所处发展阶段而言仍然偏高,因此,在跨入高收入国家行列的进程中,农业劳动力转移任重道远。本文指出,在劳动力结构调整仍然滞后情况下所出现的劳动力转移速度放慢现象的背后,存在一个深层的悖论,即虽然农业劳动力大规模转移和农业劳动力比重下降使农业生产开启了机器替代劳动的过程,但是,农业未能像理论所预期的那样,实现与非农产业在劳动生产率上的趋同。本文尝试从户籍制度制约劳动力转移以及农业经营规模制约劳动生产率提高两个方面,阐释这个悖论产生的原因。在进行上述分析的基础上,本文借助发展经济学的3个经典模型及其所强调的劳动力转移重点任务,对进一步实现农业劳动力转移提出政策建议。

Comparing to the countries at similar level of economic development,the share of agricultural labor in China is still large,which indicates a big challenge facing China in reducing its labor share in agriculture during its transition from upper-middle income status to high income status.Recognizing the slowdown of labor transfer before the task of structural adjustment is completed,this article reveals a paradox resulting from the phenomenon.That is,even though a large amount of labor force has been massively migrated from the agricultural to non-agricultural sectors,the share of agricultural labor has substantially declined,and as a result,there has been a process of capital replacing labor,the level of labor productivity in agriculture has not been converged to that in non-agricultural sectors.The study points out two causes,namely,the existing household registration system functioning to prevent rural migrant workers from permanently settling down in urban areas,and an extremely small scale of agricultural operation that restricts the enhancement of agricultural productivity.In reference to three classic theoretical models in development economics and their implications to labor migration,the study provides policy suggestions.