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BackgroundTransforming rural migrant workers’ consumption potential into a consumption booster requires ensuring their equal rights as urban residents. The adequate access to Basic Public Health Services (BPHS) help effectively tackle rural migrant workers’ health challenges and promote the well-being of this vulnerable population. Assessing the welfare effects of BPHS through a consumption perspective offers valuable insights and provides policy implications for enhancing the equity of BPHS and achieving common prosperity.MethodsUtilizing the household-level data from China Migrants Dynamic Survey 2017 (CMDS 2017), this study comprehensively evaluated the effects of BPHS on rural migrant workers’ household consumption by combining the methods of OLS, PSM, and IV.ResultsThe enhancement of BPHS promotes rural migrant workers’ household consumption even after considering endogeneity problems. Mechanism analysis indicates that BPHS imposes its positive effects on rural migrant workers through improving health literacy and increasing citizenization willingness. Furthermore, we identified heterogeneous effects across individual and household characteristics of rural migrant workers, and their flow patterns.ConclusionOur analysis indicates that BPHS plays a greater role in promoting household consumption of socially vulnerable groups, such as trans-provincial migration, rural migrant workers in old generations, and with lower-level income. Overall, these results suggest that the welfare effects of BPHS are inclusive in China.

Abstract Background While reducing inequity in health service utilization is an important goal of China’s health system, it has been widely acknowledged that a huge number of rural migrant workers cannot be effectually protected against risks with the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance (NCMS). Method Data of the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamic Survey and the Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbook were used. The multilevel regression approach was implemented with a nationally representative sample of rural migrant workers with NCMS. Our study adopted the concentration index and its decomposition method to quantify the inequality of their health service utilization. Result The multilevel model analysis indicated that impact variables for health service utilization were not concentrated, especially the contextual and individual characteristics. The concentration indices of the probability of two weeks outpatient and the probability of inpatient were -0.168 (95%CI:-0.236,-0.092) and -0.072 (95%CI:-1.085,-0.060), respectively. The horizontal inequality indices for the probability of two-week outpatient and the probability of inpatient were -0.012 and 0.053, respectively. Conclusion The health service utilization of rural migrant workers with NCMS is insufficient. Our study highlighted that substantial inequalities in their health service utilization did exist. In addition, their need of health service utilization increased the pro-poor inequality. Based on the findings, our study offered notable implications on compensation policies and benefit packages to improve the equality among rural migrant workers with NCMS.

IntroductionWith the rapid development of China’s “gig economy,” the on-call work model has grown increasingly prevalent in China and has attracted a large number of rural migrant workers with its low employment threshold. However, this irregular employment mode may negatively impact the mental health of workers.MethodsThis paper uses an ordinal logistic regression model to study the relationship between Chinese rural migrant workers’ on-call work and their depression.ResultsThe results showed that after controlling for relevant variables, the odds ratio of depressive mood among rural migrant workers engaged in on-call work was 1.22 (95% CI 1.04–1.43) compared with rural migrant workers who did not need to be on call. In further heterogeneity research, we found that on-call work is more likely to aggravate the depression risk of rural migrant workers who are highly dependent on the internet and have low-wage incomes.DiscussionThis research suggests that appropriate measures should be taken to mitigate the negative impact of on-call work on the mental health of rural migrant workers, and more attention needs to be paid to the mental health of lower salaried and gig workers. This paper provides a valuable sample of Chinese rural migrant workers for theoretical research on the relationship between on-call work and mental health and confirms the relationship between the two. These results contribute new ideas to the theory and practice of psychological crisis intervention aimed at Chinese rural migrant workers.

With the deepening of rural aging and the increasing role of human capital in the non-agricultural employment labor market, this paper uses the data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variable method (IV) to try to examine the impact of rural migrant workers' education on their parents' health. Since a rural family may include more than one child, a sample of migrant workers with a high education level is used in the benchmark regression, and a sample of migrant workers with a low education level is used to test the robustness of the relationship. The results showed that the education of migrant workers had a significant positive impact on parents' health. The sample with the least education was used for the robustness, and the results did not change. The IV-probit method is used to address potential endogeneity, and the results remain stable. Heterogeneity analysis shows that there are significant differences in the impact of migrant workers' education on the health of parents from different groups. This positive effect has a greater impact on the health of parents who are older, less educated, and do not live with their children. Mediation analysis shows that children's economic ability, captured by income and work type, and their parents' health behavior, captured by sleep, alcohol consumption, and physical examinations, mediate this relationship. Thus, migrant workers' education affects their parents' health mainly through relaxing budget constraints and improving their parents' health production efficiency. In addition, this paper also found that education of migrant workers may significantly increase parental depression. Based on the above analysis, this paper argues that increasing investment in rural education is conducive to improving the health of migrant farmers' parents, thereby promoting the transfer of rural labor to non-agricultural industries and cities, curbing the rapid rise in labor costs, and promoting the healthy development of the economy.

Talent revitalization is the basis of rural revitalization, and the return of migrant workers to their hometowns is a critical way to improve rural human capital. Based on the perspective of individual–family interaction and collaboration, we constructed a theoretical model for maximizing the net benefits of rural migrant workers. Then, we use it to explore the impact of family support pressure and urban housing purchase on individuals’ homecoming decisions. Firstly, we find the odds ratio of migrant workers with support pressure to return home is 14.013 times higher than those without, and the odds ratio of migrant workers with urban housing is 42.94% lower than those without. Secondly, in the process of supporting, the family, as a link between individuals and rural society, can enhance the connection for migrant workers, thus promoting their return behavior. The mediating effect of hometown connection is 1.342, accounting for 50.83% of the total effect. However, buying a house in the city reduces individuals’ homecoming behaviors by encouraging “trailing spouse”. Thirdly, individuals’ homecoming intention is not consistent with their behavior. The moderating effect of a future house purchase plan changes the influence of support pressure on individuals’ intention to return home to some extent. Finally, we should further strengthen rural infrastructure construction and elderly care service supply to reasonably guide capable and willing talents to return to the township. This study provides some implications for the revitalization of rural talent.

Using a recently constructed dataset that draws on the China Employer–Employee Survey, this paper provides new evidence on the earnings gap between rural migrant and urban manufacturing workers in the People's Republic of China. When we only control for province fixed effects, we find that rural migrant workers are paid 22.3% less per month and 32.2% less per hour than urban workers. We find that the gap in hourly earnings is larger than the gap in monthly earnings because rural migrant workers tend to work an average of 5.6% more hours per month than urban workers. Using these data, we also find that 87.4% of the monthly earnings gap and 73.9% of the hourly earnings gap can be attributed to differences in the individual characteristics and human capital levels of rural migrant and urban workers. Furthermore, we find that this unexplained earnings gap varies among different groups of workers. The earnings gap is much larger (i) for workers in state-owned enterprises than in nonstate-owned enterprises, (ii) for college-educated workers than workers with lower levels of educational attainment, and (iii) in Guangdong province than in Hubei province.

Abstract Background The rampant urbanization and medical marketization in China have resulted in increased vulnerabilities to health and socioeconomic disparities among the rural migrant workers in urban China. In the Chinese context, the socioeconomic characteristics of rural migrant workers have attracted considerable research attention in the recent past years. However, to date, no previous studies have explored the association between the socioeconomic factors and social security among the rural migrant workers in urban China. This study aims to explore the association between socioeconomic inequity and social security inequity and the subsequent associations with medical inequity and reimbursement rejection. Methods Data from a regionally representative sample of 2009 Survey of Migrant Workers in Pearl River Delta in China were used for analyses. Multiple logistic regressions were used to analyze the impacts of socioeconomic factors on the eight dimensions of social security (sick pay, paid leave, maternity pay, medical insurance, pension insurance, occupational injury insurance, unemployment insurance, and maternity insurance) and the impacts of social security on medical reimbursement rejection. The zero-inflated negative binomial regression model (ZINB regression) was adopted to explore the relationship between socioeconomic factors and hospital visits among the rural migrant workers with social security. Results The study population consisted of 848 rural migrant workers with high income who were young and middle-aged, low-educated, and covered by social security. Reimbursement rejection and abusive supervision for the rural migrant workers were observed. Logistic regression analysis showed that there were significant associations between socioeconomic factors and social security. ZINB regression showed that there were significant associations between socioeconomic factors and hospital visits among the rural migrant workers. Also, several dimensions of social security had significant associations with reimbursement rejections. Conclusions This study showed that social security inequity, medical inequity, and reimbursement inequity happened to the rural migrant workers simultaneously. Future policy should strengthen health justice and enterprises’ medical responsibilities to the employed rural migrant workers.